Reflection

Rustum Patel was a rational man beset by an irrational malady. He was a perfectly healthy centenarian by all means, except that he was born no more than fifty years in the past. Every doctor in the country and abroad was consulted, but the symptoms themselves were an impossibility for even the most seasoned and discerning doctors. Lying on the bed he stared pensively at himself one last time through the mirror, as he had stared for days before, witnessing himself slowly lose hair and then teeth and finally the life in his skin, feeling horrified and bewildered and yet helpless all the same. In his last moment on earth, he felt his bones creak and skin crack and the air around him pull the last breath from his cold weary lungs, but not before he saw a younger image of himself smile demonically and wink at him from inside the mirror he had robbed from a crone.