The Mirror of Personality By: Everly
Ayanna stared around her school classroom, looking for her friends, but she didn’t recognize anyone. Though she could easily just guess who her friends were, based on the seating arrangements. Joe was sitting ahead of her, and Rebecca sat behind Ayanna to the left.
They didn’t look like they had the day before. Yesterday, Joe was medium height, blonde, and had blue eyes. But today Joe was short, red-headed with brown eyes and a lot of freckles. And Rebeca had been tall with brown hair and bangs, but today she had fluffy pink hair (which surprised Ayanna, because Rebeca hated the color pink) and no bangs. Ayanna sighed and shook her head. Her friends did not appreciate their original looks, AT ALL. Well, they hadn’t thought much about their looks until the mirror arrived.
Before the mirror they had been happy and content, but now, they changed their looks every day. The mirror had arrived a month ago. Nobody knew where it came from, it had just appeared. The person who had found it was a boy named Lucas. He had been exploring his attic one day, and he had seen a big object covered with a dusty cobweb-covered sheet. Lucas removed the sheet and saw the mirror, it was a normal mirror, nothing special about it. But when Lucas looked inside the mirror at himself, he didn’t like what he saw; himself. And that was when things got weird (or, in Lucas’ opinion, amazing).
He was looking in the mirror wishing he didn’t have short blond hair and brown eyes, he wished he had a brown flat hairstyle and eyes that would make the girls go crazy.
He blinked.
And, through the split second of his blink, the mirror had changed him. He was now the boy he had wanted to be, tall, brown hair, and deep eyes. All his friends at school wondered how he had done it, and he told them about the mirror. Everyone wanted a look inside the mirror, no longer content with their looks. Everyone except Ayanna.
Ayanna was fine with her long black hair and green eyes; she didn’t need to change herself to know she was just fine the way she was. Ayanna just wanted things to go back the way they were, she didn’t want her friends changing their looks everyday. She had to quiz them every time they came to her house to see if they were her friends or strangers. They never looked the same.
Class ended and Ayanna walked out into the school hallway. Joe appeared behind her, her now red hair sitting on her shoulders, “How do you like my new look?” This was the question Joe asked every day. And, same as every day that this question was asked, Ayanna said, “It’s ok…. I guess.”
“Just ok?! Do you know how long it took me to come up with this look??” Joe exclaimed
“I just wish you would go back to how you actually look.” Replied Ayanna
“This IS how I actually look. Or are you talking about my ‘original’ look? Said Joe with an eye roll
“Yes. That look, the one that I actually liked. I mean come on, I didn’t pick you guys as my friends because I liked how you looked. So just stick with one look.” Said Ayanna
“Well, if you didn’t pick us for our looks, why should you care if we change our looks? I don’t know why you don’t change yours, I mean, you might as well.” Said Joe
“I like my looks just fine, and you should too.” And with that Ayanna stormed off
This was how their conversations always went, they would argue about the fact that changing looks was useless, and how it wasn’t, and then one of them would storm off in the direction off their next class. The changing looks thing was really putting a strain on their relationship.
The next day, Ayanna was walking to school, and she heard some girls giggling behind her, “Look at her. She’s such an outcast. Sticking to her ‘original’ looks. How lame.”
“Yeah. She looks hideous.”
They laughed again staring in Ayanna’s direction. The next few days continued like this, and Ayanna began to like herself less and less. Old Ayanna wouldn’t have cared what others thought, but new Ayanna did. She would hide her face in hoodies, and didn’t talk to her friends.
“Hey, Ayanna!” Called one of her friends while Ayanna was walking to her locker one morning.
It was Rebecca, “Hey, how come you’re hiding from me?”
“Because. I don’t want ANYONE seeing me.” Ayanna answered pulling her hoodie strings so that they completely hid her face.
“I know! If you’re tired of your looks, change them. Use the mirror.” Rebecca suggested with a grin, her best friend who always argued that the mirror was useless was finally gonna use it.
This idea appealed to Ayanna, and after school she headed over to where it was kept; Lucas’s house. Lucas didn’t make anyone pay to use the mirror, he just wanted to be popular so he made it free so more people would come around.
Ayanna stared at the mirror, and wished to be tall, with brown hair and red highlights, and bangs. She blinked, and the mirror changed her. She was just as she had wished for. She went home and slept peacefully, knowing that she looked good. But her thoughts were not the same the next morning.
She did not remember what she had done, and so, when she looked in a mirror, she cried. Old Ayanna was back, the one who didn’t care what she looked like. Ayanna wanted to change herself back to the way she was, she wanted to be the girl she had taken for granted and called ugly. Ayanna now knew that looks aren’t important, it’s the inside that counts. Ayanna knew that she was unique, and her own kind of pretty. Later that day, she used the mirror, and became who she had once been. Kind and loving Ayanna was back, vain and ungrateful Ayanna was gone.
Her friends saw what Ayanna had done, and they themselves tried going back to their old selves, and when they did, they knew that being yourself is the best kind of style.
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