Passing a shop window, my attention was captured by an old man looking back at me from the inside out.

He looked vaguely familiar; but, my, how he’d aged.

Much like me!

Hunched over a beaten cane clenched hand over hand, his shoulders sagged and his back slouched, the weight on his weary feet barely holding him erect. Wispy white hair fell to his forehead like bangs shading his eyebrows which, curiously, had remained dark and fulsome.

Though clouded by age, his hazel eyes appeared to clearly see the series of snapshots shattering the glass separating us, moments which had shaped our years and brought us to this place:

Take-shelter drills during the Cuban missile crisis, civil rights marches, violent Vietnam war protests, Stonewall, the plagues of AIDS and COVID … each marched by, stopping to rest at a farm in Woodstock, New York. The Berlin Wall coming down, and men stepping onto the moon flickered as if hallucinations. Court cases like Reynolds v. Sims, Loving v. Virginia, Roe v. Wade, Obergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas, Reynolds v. Sims, appeared in his vision and then slipped away quickly.

Still holding my gaze, the mirage in the mirror recounted a history of presidents and precedents:

• A president assassinated, the murder of his assassin, and the death of his assassin’s assassin … all reported “live” on our black and white TVs;

• That same president’s brother assassinated as he, too, campaigned to become the country’s number one man;

• A Democrat – from Texas yet! – inherit the presidency, but decide not to seek another term of his own;

• A president and his vice-president, both disgraced by scandals, resign from the two highest offices in the land;

• Our first “unelected” president, when the Speaker of the House succeeded his shunned predecessors;

• A Christian peanut farmer from Georgia elected president, but relegated to the back burners because of high interest rates and hostages in Iran;

• A beloved, second-rate actor become president and be shot;

• A father and son each elected president—the father for one term, his son for two;

• A president selected by a partisan Supreme Court when the votes were so close and election errors so many;

• A likable Boomer impeached while in office because of alleged real estate improprieties and his penchant for women;

• The first black man elected president of the United States;

• The first woman nominated to be our country’s commander-in-chief, only to be trumped by a lying, cheating, hateful, tax-evading, con man;

• A convicted felon and sex offender elected president twice after being indicted for instigating an insurrection and stealing classified documents.

No longer robust or capable of reacting physically, the observer wondered what this man in the window could do to offset the increasing travesties of justice.

Then he remembered the books he had written. The newspaper by-liners, magazine features, journal articles, and social media posts he had published.

Closing his bloodshot eyes, he bit his cracked lips, ground his implanted teeth, and wavered before moving towards an end within sight.

Across the Atlantic, in Portugal and Spain, his mind was still nimble.