The Monster
By Allen Horowitz
This story was written with the prompt: Write a flash fiction story starting with the sentence "She stopped to look in the mirror realizing that things will never be the same."
By Allen Horowitz
This story was written with the prompt: Write a flash fiction story starting with the sentence "She stopped to look in the mirror realizing that things will never be the same."
She stopped to look in the mirror, realizing that things would never be the same. There before her very own eyes was a monster so malicious she could barely breathe. This atrocity had been following her for her entire life. It caused so much pain and trauma in her life. The monster was feared by many other people. She tried making friends, but the monster kept them at a distance. She tried distracting herself from the monster. She tried explaining the monster to others as, “nothing to worry about,” and told them to, “just ignore it.” The monster couldn’t let that happen. She tried running from it, but no matter how far she ran, no matter how hard she tried to hide away, the monster would always be nearby. She tried to reach out for help, but no one could understand. Why would they? It wasn’t their cross to bear. The monster injured her many times. She almost died at its hands. As she stared into the monster’s dead eyes, she finally realized the truth.
The monster couldn’t be avoided. It couldn’t be changed. It couldn’t be escaped or injured. No matter what. So she began to accept the monster. Instead of trying to run and hide, she faced the monster head-on. She reached out to people who could help her accept the monster. She made friends with other people who had monsters of their own. As she did this, the monster shrunk. It happened slowly at first, but the monster began to change.
It started getting slower. It lost its sense of foreboding. Its influence began to dwindle. The more she asked for help, the smaller the monster became. She took steps to be able to ignore the monster. The smaller the monster got, the easier it was to overcome. It went from a colossal threat to a minuscule speck. Something easily brushed off and forgotten. Yes, the monster was still there, but now a much lesser threat. If the monster was to get out of hand again, she would know what to do. She would know that the monster could be diminished with friends who could empathize and people who cared for her. However, no matter how hard she tried, the monster was still there. She accepted the fact that it would always be there and made peace with it. This monster, however terrifying or horrifying it may be, no longer put up a fight. But this monster could never touch her. Even when it was at its strongest, the monster was confined within her own mind. Others may have their own monsters, but hers was her own. This monster was no monster after all, but her own mind.