[ WP ] You have developed and ability to see how people will die when you look at them . Your entire life you avoided pictures of yourself , but today you forgot , and , brushing your teeth in the morning , looked in the mirror ...

The taxi driver is lying in a hospital bed, eyes closed as the monitor to his right switches from the steady beep, beep, beep to a solid tone. A few seconds later alarms blare and the room becomes a bustle of activity. 
 
 
 “ Buddy, hey buddy, we ’ re here, eighteen fifty ” I glance up at the old indian man, he was wearing the same shirt he had in my vision. I hand him a twenty and tell him to keep the change as a step out in front of my hotel. I get short flashes from each person I see, each is their last moments. The bellboy is going to overdose, the check-in clerk: a car accident, his head horribly mangled. The maid in the hallway will be shot somewhere in Mexico, the doorman: old and surrounded by his kids, the guy at the bar of a heart attack at a casino. 
 
 
 My head is swimming by the time I get to my room, this is why I avoid cities, or people, because their deaths overwhelm me. I flop down on the bed and stare at the ceiling, closing my eyes and enjoying the silence for just a second. I had taken the train here and it sucked, but once I closed my eyes the visions stopped, so the hardest part was pushing through the crowd getting to my seat. 
 
 
 I rose from the bed and padded over to the window, glancing out at the people scurrying below, I knew that if I focused on any of the small ants scurrying along the sidewalk below, I would be bombarded by images of their demise, so instead I let my gaze slip quickly from one to another. I found myself caught on a woman in a red jacket just a little too long and saw her writhing in pain after giving birth. I shut my eyes and wished the tears would squeeze out, but they remained dry, emotionless. Too much tragedy left me immune to sadness. 
 
 
 
 The bathroom was a typical hotel affair, shower, toilet, sink, and a half used toilet paper roll, folded to a neat point as if to convince me that no one else ’ s shitty fingers had pawed at it before. I stripped down and hopped in the shower, careful to avert my eyes from the mirror, terrified of what I may see. The hot shower felt good and as I stepped out into the foggy bathroom, I noticed, satisfyingly, that the mirror had fogged up and I could brush my teeth like a normal person, with my eyes open, standing in front of the sink. I finished brushing and bent over to spit out my toothpaste and as I rose, I realized with a start that the mirror had unfogged and I was staring at myself in the mirror. It took a second before the vision crystallized, so I steeled myself for the oncoming nightmare. Instead I saw an old man, his face tanned and wrinkled by years in the sun. His hair had long since fallen out and he was smiling as he held the hand of an equally shriveled old woman. It was sunset and he was sitting beside her on a porch, staring out through a pair of sunglasses as the sun painted the desert. The bench rocked as the woman swung her feet and he saw a tear on her face as the old man pulled in his last labored breath. The old woman smiled, and got up from the bench, removed his sunglasses, kissed him on his forehead, and whispered “ good bye ” before she walked into the house. The sunglasses removed, I could see my eyes, creased hollows of skin still baring the decades old scars of eyeballs clawed out in a moment of desperation. 

