Here's how you play it. Suppose your present age is p years. Go look up
your life expectancy in an actuarial table. This will be p+x years where
x - lucky old you - will be a number much greater than zero. Now subtract x from p to
get m. Your memory age is m years. Go back and imagine yourself m years
old. What do you see? Who is this strange figure? What is s/he
dreaming? What does it think it's doing down there in those wide open
spaces of the not yet? What does it feel about the future? Does it know
someone x years older than itself? Ask yourself: Does it know about me?
Okay, now pull right out of this and think of the ratio:
it to me = me to it. You have as
many years left as s/he had to get right where you are now
playing the memory game. Now react. Weep if you must. Shrug. Laugh
out loud if possible. Or mix all three, if that's how it's going to
work out for you. Of course, arithmetic being what it is, the game
changes with your age. Now, if (youthful you) those mortality tables
show x greater than p, then you are going to be staring in the mirror
and seeing an egg inside your mother's or maybe even your grandmother's
belly full of wild hope, bad luck and history; in which case quit the
game and check out the family photo album. But if (not so youthful you)
x is less than p, then you're in business: playing the game, checking
out - with feeling and not a little self-pity - the moves of your
wilful, energetic, ardent mirror friend, who, head lifted up, eyes
glinting behind the gauze of the unknown, nose full of a thousand scents, pushes
off her/his absurdly fragile boat from the shore towards you.