FORTY YEARS ABOVE THE TITLE

He sat in front of the mirror. He scrunched up his face, then flattened it out. He moved his head from side to side, then chewed the inside of his cheek in thoughtful nothingness. He opened his mouth to say something, but then quickly clamped his lips shut. No, he would leave that for another time, a moment chosen...a better moment. He stared at his reflection. No, he stared at the eyes of his reflection. They were grey blue in this light. Sometimes they were a deep ocean blue, impenetrable, bottomless, moody; sometimes they seemed to match a summer sky, powder blue, expansive, ethereal, but today they were steel grey blue, like a dull overcast sky, brooding and distant. He smiled briefly...it was known to happen. Yes, he thought to himself, you have brooding overcast eyes. He widened them artificially a la Bette Davis...perhaps it will rain later, it often does. He sighed from the pit of his stomach upwards. He grabbed the glass that was nearly always by his side, and drank deeply. The days of sipping alcohol gingerly, preciously like a bashful virgin, had long gone. No need for social delicacies, they were distant memories now. No, now he was definitely into glugging, the more he could get down, the quicker it all went away. If he could do alcohol intravenously, he would. It would certainly cut down on glass washing he thought. But then he sneered at himself, who am I kidding, who cleans glasses? He scrunched his face up again and then let it slide back into place.

"Do you think I'm getting old?"

"What?"

He rolled his eyes and murmured softly to his reflection..."doesn't matter."