Lady Antimony is hosting a Seven Deadly Sins flash fiction challenge starting today and lasting for a week.
The premise of the challenge is as follows:
Seven Days
Seven Deadly Sins
Seven Flash Fictions up to 100 words
Starting 7/7
Today is Vanity. An excessive love of self.
This is based on an old story I once read, but I cannot remember where I read it. I do not claim responsibility for the basis of this idea, although I did make it my own.
Seven Deadly Sins: Vanity
Once upon a time, the vainest woman in the village was given a magical mirror by an enchantress that enhanced her beauty so much, she became enraged and jealous at her own reflection.
Day after day, she would gaze at herself, and when her husband begged her to come away, she would shout at him, accusing him of wanting the beautiful reflection for himself.
She wished so hard that she could be just like her reflection.
One day she got her wish.
She was incredibly beautiful, but she was as cold and unfeeling as the glass of the mirror itself.
Lissa Bilyk 
The moral of the tale: Be careful what you wish for
For sure! As I was writing this it did occur to me that it could be a tale of envy, but you can’t really be envious of yourself.
This captures vanity as succinctly as anything I’ve ever read. AWESOME job! Looking forward to reading your other six. A pleasure to meet you.
Wow, thank you very much. I had a lot of fun writing the flash fictions.
Perfectly captured the sin! It’s like a fairytale, only Grimm! So glad you’re taking part, look forward to reading the other 6!
A x
Thanks Antimony, and thanks for coming up with such a fantabulous idea!
I will be curious to see if the other six are done in the same fashion of fairytale moral. I enjoyed this, It’s fun to see which sin people picked first to do.
It sure is fun to see who picked what first! I chose my order from the list in Charmed’s season 3 episode Sin Fransisco. I was a huge Charmed fan when I was a teenager.
That’s cool. I was very interested to see what order people did the sins in and getting a why behind it is an awesome extra bonus.
I do love the fairy-tale quality to the piece, though interpreting it as a ‘be careful what you wish for’ tale is interesting to me because I’m more likely to think the ending sucks for her husband but may in fact be exactly what she was going for herself. Some people are happy with their sin.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
I loved your first challenge post. It is definitely like a Grimm fairy tail. Wonderful!!
It struck me because I have a weekly feature called Dissecting Disney, where I look at Disney heroines and how they’ve been represented in the films. I’ve been watching the old ones, which are based on Grimm’s. That’s where the inspiration came from.
Great job on the first sin! I can’t wait to see what you have up next!
HMG
i love the fairytale theme of this, and the image of her as glass. Good one.
Very nicely done, love the fairy tale element (also love blackeri’s artwork!)
Can’t wait to see the rest!
Rebecca
Loved it.
I also feel very sorry for the husband, she doesn’t sound like she’d be much fun to share a bed with, even if she is a hottie! haha
I like the dainty fairy tale with the sting in the tail (I wrote tale first, which would have been equally apt!). It’s an interesting take on what it might have been. So fascinating to read everyone’s different versions!