Vanity’s Courtroom

Written by Shubhangi

Illustrated by Vaishnavi Bale

They say death is silence. For her, it began with applause.

She opened her eyes to a courtroom so decadent it defied gravity, time, and reason. A palace carved from mirror and velvet, suspended in a void. Gilded frames floated midair, each projecting scenes from her most-liked posts: filtered breakfasts, staged tears, and candid moments rehearsed to perfection.

Standing on gold flagstones, she faced rows of faceless mannequins dressed in couture. The judge: A blank mirror, towering and framed in thorns of glass.

This was no heaven or hell, but a purgatory stitched from theatre, museum, and mausoleum. She wasn’t on trial for fraud or theft. She was Clara Dawn, canonized by likes and lit by ring lights.

 And she faced charges for the oldest vice: vanity.

ACT I: THE SUMMONS

A blinding light fell on Clara, just as a booming sound filled the courtroom. She raised her hand to shelter her eyes from the glare while a voice echoed, vast and timeless, its presence filling the void. The mirror spoke, but with a resonance that rose from within her skull.

THE VOICE:  

The Court of Eternal Reflection convenes. Judgment is not granted. It is exacted. The accused is @clara.dawn. The cause of death was ruled to be a fall from her apartment rooftop during an attempt to re-enact a scene from a TV series. Her last caption said, “Testing Gravity. Sherlock Style.” 

Charges: Distortion of reality, Cultivation of false beauty, Influence without substance, Neglect of the soul. CLARA (half-laughing, half-shaken): Oh. Very immersive. A dream? A brand campaign? Did my PR team die too? 

THE VOICE: You mistake spectacle for simulation. This is no campaign. This is your reckoning.

ACT II: THE TRIAL 

The lights dim. Spotlights blaze. Holograms shimmer into form, and witnesses appear under glowing labels: Myth, Art, Decay, Truth.

NARCISSUS (draped in liquid silver, gaze fixed, mesmerized by an unseen reflection): Is it vanity to admire beauty, or wisdom to know you have it? Clara, you made the world your pool. But the ripples—they were people.

CLARA (smirking):  I didn’t make them follow me. They curated their own feeds. Are you truly judging me for fulfilling a consumer’s need?  It was simply supply meeting demand. I just gave them what they wanted.

NARCISSUS: Wanted? Or was it worship you craved, like I once did? When you looked at them, did you see humans or just numbers?

CLARA (growing defensive): That’s rich coming from you. Everyone’s crafting narratives. At least I owned it. 

A soft, knowing laugh weaves through the air as Sibyl Vane steps forward, wrapped in velvet and carved in ice.

SIBYL VANE (stepping forward, voice low and glinting, honed with stagecraft): Oh, darling. You sound just like him, the man I once adored. I used to think applause meant love. That a spotlight warmed, not burned. You call it your truth. But they were monologues, Clara. Soliloquies for strangers.

CLARA (with edge): I spoke to millions. Maybe it wasn’t honesty, but it was presence. Doesn’t that count?

SIBYL (coldly): And yet… not a single real confession. What about her?

One of the floating mirrors glitches and then stabilizes. A comment thread appears.

You said this would help. I did everything you said. But now I’m tired. I’m so tired.

SIBYL: You bared your soul to strangers but ignored the only one who asked for help.

CLARA (freezing): No. That’s not—that wasn’t my fault. 

DORIAN GRAY (stepping forward, lazy and precise): But you saw it. Didn’t you? A message. A tag. A cry for help that you deleted like spam.

Another mirror: Clara’s “wellness post.” A reply underneath, buried, “It’s making me sick. Please help.”

DORIAN GRAY (quiet, sharp): She followed your guides. Drank what you sold. Starved where you smiled.

CLARA (quietly): I didn’t see it. Not clearly. And yes, maybe I trained myself not to see. But I didn’t set out trying to hurt anyone. I wanted to be seen. To feel heard. 

DORIAN (gently mocking): No. You saw the aesthetic. You saw the lighting. The reach. And later, when she was gone, what did you post?

CLARA (voice small, then louder): A sunset.

OSCAR WILDE (tapping his cane once, sharply): Aesthetic, indeed. You called it empowerment. But it was abandonment. We adored beauty while you commodified it. And worse still, you erased anyone who failed to fit your meticulously crafted frame.

CLARA (eyes narrowing, a cold pride): I built an empire on aspiration. You call it commodification; it's relevance. “Abandonment”? I gave them a blueprint for perfection! Your “erasure” is simply my refinement. And in my world, that's how you win.

WILDE (softer): You outlived the game, Clara. But tell me, did you survive yourself? You endured their judgement, but what of your own?

Another mirror descends behind her. It doesn’t show filtered selfies. It shows a younger Clara, awkward, eager, and earnest. Putting untrimmed clips together on her laptop, lit only by the soft glow of the screen and the faint hope that someone might watch.

CLARA(seeing the mirror, flinching): Not her. Not now.

The mirror flickers. Clara’s hands twitch at her sides.

CLARA (broken whisper): They didn’t want her. She was too plain. Too awkward. Too much of a question mark. They wanted answers—perfect lighting, perfect skin, certainty. So I gave them that. And I told myself that was enough.

WILDE:  So you buried her. And called it growth.

The courtroom descends into silence. Clara turns slowly towards the mirror. Her defiance flickers, replaced by something older than shame, grief.

THE VOICE: The Jury will now deliberate. 

The mannequins twitch. Some nod faintly, others shake. One lifts a hand, then lowers it. Another bows its head. They shiver in glitchy loops, caught in indecision, not for lack of evidence, but for how familiar she looks. Because Clara was not an outlier, she was a mirror of the culture that made her.

ACT III: THE VERDICT

THE VOICE (final, like the toll of a great cathedral bell): The jury is deadlocked. This court holds no mercy and offers no absolution. You are bound to your sentence: Eternal Reflection.

The courtroom fractures. Mirrors twist inward, rising like tides. The mannequins collapse into digital static. 

Clara runs.

But every path leads back to her: posts, reels, filters, likes. She slows. Then stops.

One last mirror flickers beside her, the girl again. No filters, just questions. A flicker of a smile. A flicker of regret.

She turns.

And for the first time, she looks, not at a photo, not at a filtered feed, but at her reflection in the mirror. And she sees herself: raw, unlit, unfiltered, tired, terrified, and frighteningly real. 

She stands before the mirror. There is no applause. No audience. Just her.

She does not flinch. 

CLARA (softly): So this is me.

The mirror does not answer. It does not need to. 

And so in the endless hall of mirrors, she remains. Pixelated, pristine, and perfect. Not because she is trapped, but because she finally sees the truth she had spent a lifetime avoiding.

The theatre dims with the verdict delivered. The narrator closes the file, sighing with quiet recognition, a case unresolved yet complete in its reflection.

A voice echoes: 

"Tell me... Aren't we all scrolling through reflections? And in the end, is that our tragedy? Or our truth?"