Harold avoided mirrors. He’d learned to do so over the years, because something disturbing was reflected within them.

Where other people looked into a mirror and saw a reversed image of themselves, Harold saw something else.

The first time he’d seen himself in a mirror, he was so freaked out that he cried for a week. He couldn’t understand why other people didn’t look at themselves in a mirror and scream out in terror.

The reverse image that Harold saw was hard to explain to anyone, and so it was easier to just ignore mirrors entirely. He’d learned to shave with his eyes closed. He never cared how his clothes looked, or how his body looked. Anything to avoid seeing what was staring back at him.

Harold only saw himself in a mirror.

But reversed.

Not in space.

But in time.

At the age of three, he saw himself reflected back as an eighty seven year old man.

When he was ten, he saw an eighty year old man.

At fifteen, it was a seventy five year old.

After that, he managed not to look in a mirror again for years.

Things changed when he was forty.

The ironic birthday badge on his chest, announcing his age in numbers was a silly gift from work colleagues. The constant marking of time was the bane of Harold’s life, but he grinned, and bore the badge being pinned to his shirt.

And like he always did when it all became a bit too much to handle, he retreated to the toilet. He didn’t have a weak bladder. He had a weak capacity for socialising. He’d learned at a young age the best way to cope was to retreat for a moment. And the best excuse for a retreat was a piss.

Bathrooms have mirrors. And he had become adept at avoiding those. Except that day. That day he walked in, his eyes up, and caught a glimpse of himself reflected on the wall.

What stared back at him wasn’t so terrifying. A little more wizened maybe, a few more grey hairs, and a badge on his chest that said he was 50 today. It wasn’t too horrifying at all.

And so, once a year, on his birthday, he examined himself in the mirror. On his 45th anniversary, he saw himself in the reflection for the first time ever.

And hated what he saw.

From then on, as he aged, his mirror image got younger.

We watched his youthfulness grow, watched the energy, the spark, the drive, and resented all of it.

It became overwhelming.

He’d stare at that runt in the mirror all day long, smiling back at him with a vim and vigour that made him sick to the stomach. But in those sparkling eyes he saw something dark. Something sinister. He saw the look of betrayal at a wasted life.

And so, from both ends of his time, before he passed into dust, Harold’s life was nothing but resentment.

There’s a drawer in her house that she never opens anymore.

It was a good idea at the time.

In her youth Ruth had a lot of energy. Too much really. She got a lot done, and at the end of the day, she’d still have the vigour to want to do more. So she put that verve to good use.

When everything else was done, she sat down and designed a machine. Then she built the machine.

And when it was done, she put the machine to use.

As the day came to an end, every day, she plugged herself into the machine and extracted all the excess energy she still had, decanting it into little vials that sparkled and fizzed. Each one she carefully placed in the drawer, smiling to herself that when the day came that lethargy took over, all she had to do was swig back a vial, and she would be reinvigorated.

Except, it never quite panned out that way.

It was such a lovely feeling, putting away those vials each night, that she couldn’t stop doing it. Even when the day was long and her reserves were spent, she plugged herself in, and made the effervescent vial.

And so each night, she was even more tired, and in spite of everything, she sucked out what little energy she had left and put it away for a rainy day. Soon she was passing out from exhaustion as the machine did its work.

Now, when she needed it the most, she didn’t have the energy to get to the drawer.

It used to be a percentage of your earnings. Plus a percentage of what you spent on non-critical stuff. Plus a percentage of any capital you gained.

Then one day, I woke up, and my finger was missing.

The tax man had come in the night, and like a psychotic anti tooth fairy, he lopped off a digit, and left me a receipt.

I don’t mind paying my fair share.

My finger went to a good cause. It’s now being used to type information slowly into a computer so that hospital appointments can be made.

I have a feeling that the toe he took the next year is now plugging a hole in an aircraft carrier.

And the ear the next year is now listening on a helpline for traffic cones.

I can’t help noticing that the rich people on my telly still have their fingers, toes, and ears though.