He first noticed something was wrong on a Wednesday, just after dawnâs pale light had seeped through his curtains. He was shaving in the bathroom, the razor scraping unevenly against his chin when a sharp ping on his phone made him flinch. He frowned at the lock screen: âYouâd be happier if you were older.â The message blinked at him like an invitationâor a taunt. He stared, chest tightening, ran a finger over his stubble. His hair had always been dark brown, but now there was an odd glint of silver at his temples. He set the razor down, hand trembling, and tapped âBlockâ without thinking. But the line of text stayed vivid in his mind: older. The thought echoed in his skull as he finished shaving, as he dressed for work, as he spooned Cheerios into his mouth with a hand that shook just slightly. No one remarked on the new gray. His coworkers greeted him as usual, coffee in hand, before they dove into spreadsheets and budgets. He forced himself to laugh at jokes he no longer found funny, pretending the world hadnât shifted under his skin.
That afternoon, he was in a client meeting when the phone chimed again. He felt the buzz in his breast pocket and excused himself, muttering about a call. In the hallway, he glanced down at the screen: âYouâd be happier if you grew out all your body hair.â His breath caught; he looked down at his forearms peeking from the sleeves of his crisp shirt. The hairs stood on end, thicker, curly, almost bristly against his skin. Panic ripped through him. He pinched himselfâhard. Nothing. He pinched again. His skin felt real and taut, but the hair, the excessive dark hair, felt alien. He tapped âBlock,â locked the screen, but his pulse pounded in his ears. In the meeting room, he stumbled over a statistic mid-presentation, cheeks hot. No one blinked. They asked him to continue. He straightened, clearing his throat, feeling as though he were underwater, every movement muffled.
By Friday, the beard had grown so full it brushed his Adamâs apple, its color mottled black and silver. Heâd begun trimming it every morning, but the clippings piled up so fast he couldnât keep pace. One evening, while standing under the shower, hot water cascading down his back, his phone buzzed against the tile floor. He stepped out, water dripping, and read: âYouâd be happier retired.â He stared past the unnerving calm of the bathroom tiles at his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. His normally lean frame had softened around the midsection, a slight paunch now evident beneath the trimmed hair. His posture, his gait, even the way his shoulders slumpedâthe world was nudging him toward retirement, toward stillness. He pressed his palm to the mirror, as though to hold on to who heâd been, but the reflection flickered with something age-worn, something grave. He blocked the number again, louder this time. The echo of the phone striking the tile floor seemed to fill the room. He showered again, harder, trying to wash away the dread, but the messages were inside him, fermenting.
That night, he checked his bank account out of habit, an impulse he barely understood. The numbers stunned him. His savings had tripledâno, quadrupledâin the span of days. He traced the cursor over the balance, breath shallow. Whose money was this? Heâd never been able to scrape together so much in all his thirty-seven years. A new message arrived as he stared at the glowing digits: âYouâd be happier with a lot of money in your savings account.â He dropped the phone. It clattered against the table. He fled to the bedroom, hidden behind the closet door, clutching his knees. Under the harsh glow of the closet bulb, he trembled until exhaustion overtook him.
In the mornings now, the harsh light revealed new lines around his eyes, creases at the corners of his mouth where worry and laughter and sorrow had etched their signatures. No one commented on the change, though. One evening, as he poured himself a nightcap, his phone lit up with a call identifier he barely recognizedââAunt Millieââthe name of the older woman who had once fussed over him as a child, making him ginger tea when he caught a cold. He hadnât spoken to her in years. He answered, voice rough. âHello?â She spoke with warm concern, asking how William was settling into retirement, how Robert was doing, and whether heâd visit Dad next Saturday. He stammered at firstâlast heâd known, his father was decades older, and his aunt had long since passed. But the voice on the line talked of plans that made sense in a wholly different lifetime. She spoke of memories he no longer recognized as his own but which felt oddly familiar. He swallowed hard, nodded, and agreed to come by, even though heâd never visited his fatherâs house for family Sunday dinners. He hung up, shaking, futilely searching for the old continuity that had been wiped away: his sister, his youth, his former selfâgone.
Late on a Sunday, as he lay in bed, head throbbing from a tension headache, his phone vibrated, illuminating the dark room. He snatched it up with one hand, blinking at the single line of text: âYou'd be happier if your name was William Rutherford.â He stared at it as though the letters themselves were coiling vipers. He rose and padded to the bathroom. The mirror reflected a stranger: a broad-shouldered, thick-waisted man with steel-gray hair slicked back and a beard trimmed into a neat braid. He blinked at the strangerâs eyesâearthy brown flecked with goldâthen at the hand touching the mirror pane. He spoke, voice rough and unfamiliar: âWhoâŚwho am I?â There was no answer but his own rasp. He ran water until it roared, trying to cleanse the reflection of its foreignness. When he emerged, he ceased looking in any reflective surface.
On Monday morning, he woke to a new message blinking on the nightstand beside him: âItâs time.â His chest lurched. He lay frozen, tangled in drenched sheets, listening to the distant hum of the city. Three minutes later, another: âYouâd be happier if you accept the man who is about to enter your house as your loving wedded husband, and then promptly forget you were ever anyone else.â He sat up, sweat slick on his skin. The air in the room felt thick, as if the walls themselves were closing in. He read the message over and over, each word a nail driven into his skull. He felt the weight of years he had never lived pressing down on him. He clutched the phone as though it were the last tether to reality. His phone fell to the floor when he heard the unmistakable click of the front doorâs lock turning.
His legs wobbled as he crept from the bedroom into the hallway, heart hammering. He passed his own reflection in the long mirror by the stairsâsomething heâd installed weeks ago, he realized with a flicker of pure terror. He recoiled from the face: lined, gray, broad-jawed, wide-nosed. It was him and not him. He reached the living room and froze. There, leaning casually against the doorframe, stood a man who seemed to fill the entire threshold. Over six feet tall, with shoulders like a linebackerâs, chest broad beneath a denim shirt unbuttoned to reveal a tuft of white-black hair. His arms were thick as tree trunks, and veins traced rugged patterns through skin weathered to the color of old parchment. His beard was full and neatly trimmed, the gray hairs interlaced with black, curving around a strong chin. His eyes were the color of storm cloudsâpale, gleaming, bearing an ineffable warmth. He looked calm, relaxed, as though he had been standing there waiting for hours.
The stranger smiled, stepping inside, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath his weight. âBill,â he said, voice low and rich, âIâm home.â The word landed like a hammer blow. Billâor whoever he wasâfelt a strange clarity, as if a missing page in his memory had been slipped into place. His throat tightened. He took a trembling step forward. âRob,â he whispered, the name tumbling out before he could stop it. Terror and longing warred in his chest. He wanted to scream, to bolt, to demand who this man really was, how heâd broken into his life. But the moment Rob crossed the room, reaching out to tug Bill into an embrace, the last of the resistance snapped.
Their bodies pressed together; Robâs arms wound around him, strong and reassuring. Bill inhaled the scent of cedarwood and tobacco, felt the steady rise and fall of Robâs chest. It was as though every nerve ending in Billâs body ignited with recognition. He kissed Robâs stubbled cheek and murmured, âI missed you.â Rob smiled wider, brushing a hand through Billâs thickening hairâhair already graying at the roots. âI missed you too,â he said, and for a heartbeat, the horror dissolved into warmth.
In the days that followed, nothing felt strange. Their routine fell into place with uncanny speed: coffee on the back porch, Rob teaching Bill how to prune the rose bushes, Bill cooking chili on Thursdays, laughter over shared memories they had somehow always had. The messages ceased. Bill no longer thought about blocking unknown numbers. He tried once to recall what his former lifeâhis old lifeâhad been like, but the thoughts were slippery, dissolving into mist. When he glimpsed his reflection, he saw only the silver-haired, bearded man he was supposed to be. He never remembered Michael Jacobs. He never remembered the meetings, the deadlines, the stubble that never grew thick enough, the constant self-scrutiny for signs of age or hair or desire. He never remembered the horror. He only remembered the comfort of being William Rutherford, husband to Robertâthe man with storm-gray eyes and a laugh like a gust of wind through pines. And so he leaned into Robâs embrace each evening as they watched the sun dip low, brushed his fingers across the back of Robâs hand, and whispered, âI love you,â certain that it had always been so.
