Zed flicked his tail as he relished the leaves in his Savannah oasis. The black and white stood out; he swung the striped appendage with flourish.
His herd was —
Competitive.
Obsessed with being striped.
Its members participated in every known zebra competition to see who was —
The straightest.
The brightest.
The boldest.
And poor Zed detested all of it. His ambition?
To be gloriously plain.
As the situation would have it, Zed came across a few tins of white paint near the park ranger’s shed.
So he lifted a brush with sturdy teeth…
And went over every black stripe on his body.
He looked over himself from every angle.
The face.
The body.
The tail.
No black. No pattern.
No PERSONALITY.
PERFECT.
He merged with the herd, expecting to blend in.
It stopped chewing grass —
Then went stripe-crazy.
“Why…..you’re…unicorn-worthy!”
“Solid decision. Stripes were hopelessly old-fashioned.”
“Minimalist. I love it.”
My lunchtime, the white paint in the ranger’s shed had depleted.
Poor Zed. He’d never wanted attention.
But his humility got him just that.
He was now the herd’s unwilling fashion icon.
The entire herd turned from zebras —
To white horses.
And a rather pale Zed. He had another problem to solve.
He looked like everyone else…
Except for the constant congratulations for being…
The most handsome zebra.
The Savannah’s Fashion Statement.
The Stripeless Pioneer.
Then he noticed, in a neglected corner…
Black paint.
He dipped a paintbrush in it.
Stripes back on.
He walked confidently among his herd.
“Stripes!”
“Trendy!”
Zed sighed.
Behind him, a zebra clutched a paintbrush with his teeth…
And dipped it in black paint.
Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt
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