The Man Who Sold His Reflection

The Man Who Sold His Reflection

It began, as many strange tales do, with a whisper in the wind. A rumor, a story told in hushed tones about a man who had done the impossible: he had sold his own reflection.

No one knew his name, only that he had once been an ordinary man—a merchant of modest means, one who spent his days trading fine silks and peculiar trinkets. Yet something in him ached for more, an unquenchable thirst for greatness. And so, one evening, as he gazed into the mirror in his dimly lit chamber, the idea crept upon him like a shadow cast long before the sunset.

“Why must I be bound to this reflection?” he murmured. It was an absurd thought, but it gripped him. His reflection was a faithful servant, mirroring every gesture, every twitch of emotion, and yet… it was valueless. What if he could rid himself of it? What if, in doing so, he could step beyond the self he had always known?

The next day, he sought out the oldest merchant in the market, a man rumored to have dealings beyond the realm of ordinary commerce. He found him hunched over a stall of antique mirrors, his gnarled fingers tracing invisible lines upon their glassy surfaces.

“I wish to sell my reflection,” the merchant declared, his voice steady, but his heart pounding.

The old man’s lips curled into something between a smirk and a knowing smile. “A rare offering,” he said. “And what do you seek in return?”

The merchant had not thought that far ahead. “Success,” he said finally. “Freedom from myself.”

The old man nodded, as if this was the most natural of requests, and without another word, he pressed a small, black vial into the merchant’s palm. “Drink this at the stroke of midnight, before your mirror. And do not look back.”

The merchant followed the instructions with a feverish excitement. As the liquid touched his tongue, he felt the world shift. A deep silence settled over the room. Then, he looked at the mirror—and gasped.

His reflection was gone.

At first, nothing seemed different. He felt the same, looked the same (at least, to others). But something had indeed changed. When he spoke in the marketplace, people listened with newfound reverence. When he made deals, he always seemed to come out ahead. It was as though without his reflection, the world saw him as something greater than himself.

In the weeks that followed, his wealth multiplied. He bought a grand house, dressed in the finest fabrics, and walked through the streets with a confidence that turned heads. There was nothing he could not achieve. The absence of his reflection had somehow unshackled him from self-doubt, from the weight of past failures, from the constant scrutiny of his own gaze.

But with every gain, there was a loss he did not fully understand. He began to notice it in quiet moments—when he reached for a glass of water and found himself hesitating, uncertain if his fingers would close around it. When he spoke to old friends and realized he no longer recognized the expressions in their eyes. When he caught glimpses of himself in polished surfaces, only to see an emptiness where his face should be.

And then, the nightmares began.

He would wake in the dead of night, drenched in sweat, feeling as though something had slipped away from him, something essential. A lingering fear gnawed at him: Had he traded more than just his reflection? Had he, in some way, lost himself?

One evening, unable to bear it any longer, he returned to the old man’s stall. But the merchant was gone. In his place stood only an empty mirror, its surface dull and clouded, as if it, too, had lost its purpose.

The merchant stared into the glass, hoping, begging, to see himself again. But there was nothing. And for the first time since his fateful bargain, he realized the truth: He had become a man untethered, a being without an anchor. In seeking to free himself, he had severed the very thing that made him whole.

What is a man, if not the sum of his reflections? If not the quiet moments of self-recognition, the acknowledgment of flaws, the acceptance of a past that shapes him?

He turned away from the empty mirror and stepped into the street, but he no longer cast a shadow in the lamplight. And as he walked, a chilling thought took root in his mind—perhaps he had not sold his reflection at all. Perhaps, it had simply walked away, carrying with it everything he had once been.