The First Missing Thing
The day Clara realized her favorite coffee mug had vanished, she didn’t panic. Things got lost. But when she opened the cupboard, there was no gap—just a seamless row of cups, as if the mug had never existed.
That’s impossible. I used it yesterday.
She reached for its usual spot, fingers brushing smooth ceramic. No memory of tossing it out. No cracks, no farewell. Just… absence.
“We don’t miss what we never had,” her mother used to say.
But what if we did have it—and then we didn’t?
The Second Missing Thing
By Thursday, Clara noticed the photo on her desk was wrong. Her graduation picture, the one with her and Professor Hale, now showed her alone. No extra arm over her shoulder. No grinning mentor. Just empty space where he should’ve been.
She called the university.
“Professor Hale?” The receptionist paused. “Never heard of him.”
Her chest tightened. I studied under him for three years.
The Unraveling
Clara’s apartment felt lighter, emptier. Not just missing things—missing presences. The dent in the couch from a roommate who never existed. The faint smell of a perfume no one wore.
Then, the final horror:
She found a note in her own handwriting.
“Clara, you’re not forgetting. They’re being undone.”
The Weight of What Never Was
Clara wasn’t losing memories.
She was remembering things that never happened.
Every “missing” item, every “forgotten” person—they were fragments of a life that hadn’t been lived. A timeline that collapsed before it fully formed.
And the more she remembered them, the heavier their absence became.
“Some realities are so fragile, they vanish when you look away.”
A Choice Without an Answer
Clara stood before her bathroom mirror, gripping the sink. A face stared back—but not quite hers. A version of her that had lived those moments.
Do I let go? Or do I hold on and make the absence real?
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the mirror was blank.
