NOTE: You can listen to these stories at my podcast page, via Patreon (paid subscribers get bonus content and early access), and on YouTube. 

A professor
Oxford. Twenty twenty-five. October nineteenth.

I lecture on philosophy. Descartes, Lacan, the mirror stage—it’s supposed to be theory. Lately it’s autobiography.

I stood before a lecture hall, chalk in hand. Behind me, a mirror on the far wall. I gestured. My reflection hesitated. Then wrote on the board before I did.

The students gasped. I turned, chalk raised, board clean.

When I faced them again, the mirror was smeared with words. My handwriting. My lecture notes. But I hadn’t moved.

I erased it with my sleeve. But I can’t erase what I saw in their faces: they believed him more than me.

NOTE: You can listen to these stories at my podcast page, via Patreon (paid subscribers get bonus content and early access), and on YouTube. 

A nurse.
Houston. Twenty twenty-five. October eighteenth.

Hospitals are full of glass. Every cabinet, every monitor, every polished tile. I’ve started avoiding my own reflection.

Last night in the ICU, I checked vitals on a patient. Pale, asleep, machines doing the work. I glanced up at the cabinet door. My reflection was standing behind me.

Not beside. Not angle. Behind.

I spun. Nothing. Just quiet.

I leaned in closer. The reflection smiled. I didn’t. Then it bent over the patient, stroked their hair. Gentle. Loving. My own hand hung at my side, still.

When I looked back, the patient’s heart rate had jumped. Like they’d felt something touch them.

I shut the cabinet and told myself never again. But glass is everywhere here. I can’t do my job without seeing myself. Or whatever else I’ve become.