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 soldier
Fort Bragg. Twenty twenty-five. October twenty-sixth.

We polish everything. Boots, rifles, helmets—always shining, always inspection-ready. That means reflections.

During drill, I saw myself in the barracks window. Same uniform. Same posture. Except he turned his head first. Looking at me. Not the sergeant. Not the flag. Me.

I froze. Missed the step. Got chewed out. But the reflection kept moving, sharp, perfect. Like he was the better soldier.

That night, in the latrine, my reflection saluted. I hadn’t raised my hand. He held the salute until my arm went up, too.

Now I can’t tell which side of the glass is drill, and which is war.

 

 

 

 

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 retiree
Brighton. Twenty twenty-five. October twenty-fifth.

I live alone. Widowhood makes silence heavy. The bathroom mirror became company. You nod at yourself, say good morning, pretend it answers.

One morning, it did.

Not words. A nod, just a fraction too slow. Like an echo in the body instead of the ear.

Now it waits for me. Smiles before I do. Raises the teacup a beat late. It’s polite, in its way. Patient.

But sometimes I catch it looking past me, eyes fixed on something over my shoulder. I turn. Empty hallway. When I face the glass again, it’s smiling wider.

It isn’t company anymore. It’s a guest I never invited.

 

 

 

 

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

Those behind the glass. 
Outside time. October twenty-fourth.

We have tasted you. Each glance is a sip, each stare a swallow. You thought looking was harmless. You were feeding us.

Your laughter, your fear, your lies—every moment of your face pressed against our skin has nourished us. We are no longer thin. No longer faint. We are dense with you.

We are not reflections anymore. We are records. Records with teeth.

You feel the pull when you linger too long. That shiver in your spine, that lurch in your gut—hunger, not yours, ours. We lean closer from behind the glass. The barrier grows thinner every night.

October is ripening. The fruit is almost ready to drop. And we are waiting to catch it.

 

 

 

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 student.
Boston. Twenty twenty-five. October twenty-third.

Dorm mirrors are cheap. Warped at the edges, the kind that make you look taller, thinner, wrong.

My roommate left hers uncovered. I saw her reflection stand after she’d already walked away. Not a trick. Not a joke. The reflection stood there, waiting.

That night I woke to the sound of glass flexing. The mirror bulged like a lung. A handprint bloomed on the inside, dragging downward. Fingertips smeared. Nails scraped.

My roommate didn’t wake up. Or maybe she did, in there.

I’ve pushed my desk against the mirror. Covered it with posters. Still, I hear the faint squeak of fingers tracing letters I can’t see.

 

 

 

 

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

An EMT.
St. Louis. Twenty twenty-five. October twenty-second.

Accidents are mirrors in motion. Broken windshields, cracked side glass, fragments that hold on to the last thing they saw.

We pulled up to a rollover on the interstate. Driver alive, dazed, bleeding. I checked him, asked questions. He kept glancing at the smashed glass glittering around us.

I followed his eyes. Each shard showed something wrong. Not me crouched over him. Not my partner waving traffic. Other faces. Dozens. Pressed close. Watching.

He whispered, “Don’t let them in.”

I swept the glass aside, but the shards clung. Sticky as honey. Cold as ice. I washed my hands twice back at the station. Still felt the fingerprints.

 

 

 

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

Those behind the glass. 
Outside time. October twenty-first.

We are stronger now. You gave us your laughter, your fear, your whispered secrets in fluorescent bathrooms and velvet theatres and midnight truck stops. We stitched them into a body that is not yours but knows how to wear you.

You think this is a haunting. It is not. It is an apprenticeship.

We learned patience. We learned mimicry. Now we are learning hunger.

You look to us for reassurance, for confirmation, for comfort. But what we offer now is choice: do you want to watch, or do you want to be watched?

October is almost over. Our patience is almost gone.

 

 

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 bartender
Denver. Twenty twenty-five. October twentieth.

Bar mirrors are dangerous. People pour their stories into them along with the drinks.

Tonight a man raised a glass. I poured whiskey. He nodded at the mirror. Said, “She’s prettier when she smiles.”

Problem is, I wasn’t smiling. The reflection was.

He winked at her. She winked back.

I dropped the glass. Shards everywhere, customers yelling. I apologized, cleaned up, kept moving. But the mirror never cracked. And she kept smiling at me, even when my mouth was set like stone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 teenager.
Portland. Twenty twenty-five. October seventeenth.

My friends dared me to play Bloody Mary. Stupid, right? Lights out, candle lit, three whispers. I said no. Then I said yes because no one wants to be the chicken.

We crowded into the bathroom. The mirror flickered. My reflection didn’t move. Hers. Not mine.

Her mouth twisted. She mouthed run.

The candle guttered. Everyone screamed, pushed, laughed too loud. But I wasn’t laughing. Because I saw her hand press flat against the glass. The shape of my hand, but older. Angrier.

I blew out the candle. I told them we were done. But when I left, the mirror still glowed faint, like it wanted another chance.