I would find that person myself. Whoever helped a useless old man in a torn coat would inherit everything I had built.
The man in the glass still wore a custom shirt and combed silver hair. Still looked like money.
I picked up the scissors.
“The billionaire has to disappear,” I whispered, “before the truth can appear.”
The scissors hacked at my silver hair until it stood up in wild tufts. I glued on a ragged beard, pulled on torn clothes that smelled of basement, and rubbed dirt into the creases around my eyes.
Then I poured spoiled milk down the front of my coat.
Underneath it all, I still wore my usual luxury cologne. A small private joke. A reminder to myself of who I really was.
When I looked in the mirror again, the billionaire was gone.
Staring back at me was someone people never stopped to save.
I leaned hard on the old cane and walked out the door.
The automatic doors slid open. The lights hit me. Forty years of my own life, lined up on shelves.
The first woman I approached was holding a basket of oranges. I cleared my throat and asked if she might spare a dollar for something to eat.
She pinched her nose so hard her knuckles went white.
“God, you smell like rotten meat.”
She walked away without looking back.
I tried a man near the bakery. He didn’t even let me speak.
“People like that shouldn’t be allowed in here,” he muttered to the woman beside him. “What’s security doing?”
I kept walking. A clean-cut teenage boy in a varsity jacket stood near the soup aisle, scrolling on his phone. I asked him, very softly, if he could buy me one can of beef stew.
His face lit up like I’d handed him a gift.
He raised the phone and pointed the camera at me.
“I’m putting you on TikTok,” he said, grinning. “People will pay me just to see how awful you look. Say something. Say anything.”
I lowered my head and shuffled past him.
He laughed and followed me for a few steps before losing interest.
