Best reality check? The mirror.
It happened a week ago when my teacher walked up to me. "You're
sellable," she said, as if I were an object, or gizmo, or whatever, which made me
wonder why she said it.
"Sellable?" I echoed, clueless.
She frowned and wiggled a finger. "You
should know what being sellable is, young man." I gave her a nice shrug
for an answer. "You want to be a manager--climb up the corporate ladder,
right?" She locked her gaze onto mine, but I froze and couldn't reply.
"Right?" she emphasized that word, as if saying,
'You should know, ignorant.'
Time to lie, I guess. "Yes. I know."
"Good," she said, relaxing. "Because you're
good looking, tall, and your accent is cute. That makes you sellable."
"Really?" I asked, still thinking she was lying.
She gave me a vigorous nod, accompanied by a grin, confirming I was indeed good looking, tall, and with a cute accent.
When I got home that night, I rushed to the bathroom and
took a long stare at myself in the mirror, trying to find my new-found ‘good
lookingness’ and ‘tallness.’ "Hello mirror," I said in a low tone, emphasizing my cute
accent.
To my surprise, the mirror made a noise. "You're
ugly," the shiny glass said. "Yes, you're tall but have this
pronounced belly." If mirrors could frown, this one did. "And your
accent?" The mirror scoffed, tarnishing a bit. "Nobody understands
what you're saying."
I reached the wall, turned off the lights, and went back to
the crystal slab. "You were saying?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows.
"I can see you," the mirror sang.
