The Skeleton Remains

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The mirror sits as it always does, cold, flat, indifferent, impossibly shiny. He looks intently at the reflection there, absent-mindedly drawn to the dark round hole of his left nostril. It looks blacker than the right one, a portal of some sort, a cave, a tunnel, whatever, and the longer he stares, the bigger it grows.

Once its dark diameter has reached the size of his face, he grabs the skin folds on either side and in one quick motion pulls it back over his head, like the hood of a sweatshirt, revealing his skull underneath. Its toothy grin confronts him as he rotates his head slowly, taking it in from different angles.

“This is what I’ll leave behind one day, a cicada shell on a tree,” or so his thoughts go. The image seems natural to him, removing some of the horror.  A blink of his eyes and things return as they were: a slow march to the grave with decisions to be made about how that time should best be spent.

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