With the towel draped loosely around his waist, Stan walked toward the bathroom mirror. He came to a stop before it. Then he looked at himself.
The man staring back at him was, quite simply, not the same man who had walked into the bathroom.
The change wasn't dramatic. It wasn't the sort of transformation that would make strangers stop in the street.
But to Stan, it was unmistakable.
He had lived with this face his entire life. He knew every small imperfection by memory.
They were gone.
The faint mark along his jaw had disappeared.
The slight redness across the bridge of his nose, left over from years of wearing reading glasses, had vanished.
The uneven tone on his forehead was gone.
Every minor blemish, every tiny flaw that had quietly accumulated over the years had simply ceased to exist.
His complexion possessed an almost unreal clarity. Smooth. Even. Luminous without appearing glossy.
