"Reflections at Dusk" by Pakiso Mthembu

Eli had lived in his grandmother’s old farmhouse for three months when he first noticed the mirror. It wasn’t there when he moved in—of that, he was sure. But now, an ancient, dust-fogged thing leaned against the far wall of the upstairs hallway.
 
He hadn’t hung it there. No one had. And yet, there it was.
 
The first time he looked into it, he barely recognized himself. His reflection was… off. The smile that curled at the edge of its lips wasn’t his. Its head tilted a fraction too far to the side. Its eyes seemed darker. Hungrier.
 
He didn’t look in the mirror again. But it didn’t matter.
 
Each dusk, as the house sighed into night and the orange sky bled into bruised purple, he would hear it; a faint, rhythmic tapping. Like fingers drumming against glass.
 
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.
 
One evening, just as the last light drained from the sky, Eli walked past the mirror on his way downstairs.
 
His reflection didn’t move.
 
It stayed behind, grinning. Watching.
 
That night, he dragged an old sheet from the closet and threw it over the glass. He didn’t sleep, but at least he didn’t have to see it. At least, not until the sheet slid off the mirror on its own.
 
He found it crumpled in the middle of the hallway floor the next morning. The mirror was bare.
 
Eli stopped passing by after that. He stayed downstairs. He blocked the door leading upstairs with an old dresser. He didn’t go up—not anymore.
 
But the tapping didn’t stop.
 
Days passed. Weeks. He avoided mirrors entirely. Windows, too. Anything reflective.
 
But they found him anyway.
 
One evening, as dusk bled into night, the tapping started again—this time from the living room window. But when Eli approached, there was nothing outside. Only his own reflection in the glass.
 
Then it smiled.
 
And it knocked. 

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Pakiso Mthembu is a South African writer whose work drifts between memory and imagination, often lingering on the small details that shape ordinary lives. A psychology student at UNISA, he is fascinated by how people carry hope, loss, and resilience in everyday moments. When not writing, he can be found observing the rhythms of community life, always listening for the next story.