What We Are Made Of.

This man is made of letters. A lot of letters, that goes without saying, an astronomic number of letters - but letters only.
Here is his girlfriend. She is, as you can see, made of flesh and bones. And what flesh, what bones! It's a delight to see it - and to touch it!
Now they are going to the fair together. On the swingboat and on the Ferris wheel, everything is still alright. But then they get to a shooting stand; a somewhat strange shooting stand, admittedly.
Test yourself! is written in large letters on it. And below, the rules:

1. Every shot scores.
2. You get a free shot for each score.
3. The first shot is free.

The man, his arm around his girlfriends hips, attentively studies the inscription. He wants to go on quickly, but she urges him to make use of this profitable offer. She wants to see what he's able to do.
But the man doesn't want to.
"Why not, darling? There's nothing to it, is there?"
The thing is, that you have to shoot at a quite particular aim, namely on yourself, that is to say, at your own reflection in a metal mirror. And the Man of Letters does not feel real enough to differ between himself and his reflection in such a bold manner.
"Either you shoot", the girlfriend says angrily, "or I'll leave you!"
He shakes his head. And there she goes with another man, a butcher, who knows all about flesh and bones.
The man is left behind and gazes after her. As she disappears from his vision, he falls apart into a little heap of tiny minuscules and majuscules that gets stamped into the ground by the crowd.
In fact, he might as well have shot, might he not.

-Michael Ende, The mirror in the Mirror. A labyrinth