Fate

The withered poinsettia mocked Xavier Aragon. Its wilting green leaves spoke of age and decay. Red petals littered the little window shelf where it sat as a vengeful friend. Xavier had given up tending for it. Every attempt at maintaining life failed.
On the table three fortune cards lay undisturbed where they had lain for thirty years. Wealth, loneliness and death. Death by old age the crazed woman had said. Now at seventy he felt her mocking laughter reach for him. He walked to the mirror of his bathroom, ignoring the fragrant smell of herbal medicine, designed bring youthful vigour and instead focussed on the empty bottle of auburn hair dye he used to fight away the greys.
He managed it well. His hair, was long, brown, full of vibrant youth. He could not however hide the bags under his eyes or the approaching wrinkles on his forehead.
With a grunt of fearful disgust, he walked over to his desk and found, in price of place, the business card for his plastic surgeon. Age would not take him. His eyes unconsciously turned towards a silver locket inscribed with passages of love. She had died young. Exactly one year after the reading of his loneliness had been given.
A wind rustled the poinsettia and one red petal fell like a tear to the hard wood floor. Xavier heard again the cackled of laughter as he withered within his cold, empty and dilapidated mansion.