I don’t believe in ghosts. Not the supernatural kind, anyway. The ones of regret and memory? Those I’ve wrestled with all my life.

So, when the receptionist at the hotel warned me that the previous guest in Room 407 had a “supernatural encounter,” I smiled politely. Corporate travel fatigue is worse than any ghost, I assured her. She looked unconvinced. In hindsight, I envy her ignorance.

The room was ordinary. Too ordinary, like a stage set waiting for an actor. Tired with the day’s adventures, I fell asleep the moment my head met the pillow.

Sometime after dawn, I walked to the mirror – and froze.

It wasn’t me in the mirror! A younger face stared back.

It took me a few moments to realize that it was indeed me, after all. Yes, me. But from twenty-five years ago. Same cheekbones, same audacity in the eyes, same carelessness in posture. A face untouched by cholesterol tests, EMIs, or the quiet ache that comes from the knowledge that mornings grow fewer.

He grinned first.
“So… this is fifty.”

I did not panic. Oddly enough, recognition often defeats fear faster than logic.
“A little softer than I expected,” he continued, tilting his head. “I imagined we’d age like a razor, not like… bread.”

I laughed despite myself.
“And I imagined you would be less sarcastic. But then, you are me.” I paused for a moment, and responded to his disappointment, “Some dreams remain unfulfilled.”

“Ah, dreams.” He almost spat the word playfully. “Tell me – did we achieve them all? The empire? The acclaim? The perfect life plan?”

“Some.” I shrugged. “Others changed shape. Some I traded. Some I outgrew.”

He frowned. “That feels like a polite way of saying life won and you surrendered.”

“You think compromise is defeat because you haven’t yet learned the difference between a goal and an illusion.”

He tapped the mirror from his side, though it made no sound.
“Did we become extraordinary?”

“Extraordinary?” I smiled. “No. But better. We became content.”

He blinked, as though startled by the unfamiliar currency.
“And what did we lose?”

“Hair,” I said. “And the ability to eat spicy street food after 9 PM without regret.”

He snorted. “I meant… in the soul.”

I paused. The mirror felt suddenly deeper, as though behind him stretched not a room but a corridor of every choice I had ever made.

“We lost urgency,” I said. “And desperation. Both were misinterpreted as ambition once. They are not.”

“And gained?”

“Gentleness. Toward others. Ability to look at the situation from other person’s perspective. And toward this face,” I replied, tapping my jowl with some fondness.

He studied me with a seriousness I had forgotten he possessed.
“So life didn’t go as planned.”

“From experience, I say that life ever does. But plans are scaffolding. Not architecture.”

Silence stretched. Not awkward, but sacred.

“And regrets?” he asked quietly.

“I have them. A few. But they no longer have me.”

He smiled. A new softness touched his younger features. Respect, perhaps. And probably acknowledgement too.

He began to fade like fog in sunlight.
“I will return,” he murmured. “Twenty-five years from today. And you will stand here again. Between who you were and who you are becoming.”

I felt a sudden fear. Not of age, but of failing the man in the mirror. The one I once was, and the one I will someday be.

“Wait,” I said. “Tell me something. Why appear now?”

His voice was the faintness of memory and prophecy combined.
“Because youth forgets it will age. And age forgets it was youth once. I am here so neither of us forget.”

The glass cleared. My present face returned – lined, tired, mortal… but wise and mature. Human.

I touched my reflection gently, as if consoling a friend across time.

In the solitude of the morning light, I whispered,
“When you return, I hope I can still recognize myself.”