Provincial Russian village. A district hospital (it would be more accurate to define it as a polyclinic, since there is no inpatient clinic).
A new person comes in to see the psychiatrist (a woman, pre-retirement age). A middle-aged man, with an unremarkable appearance. He complains about anxiety and depression. Upon leading questions, he answers somehow vaguely and evasively, but then confesses that the cause of his anxiety lies in the mirrors at home. More precisely, in the reflection of a man. As if his reflection were not his own. Some alien, angry look. His movements are reflected with a delay, as if the reflection lives by itself and simply repeats the man's movements, in order not to give himself away. The man also notes that this only happens at home. On the street or outdoors - everything with the reflection is normal.
The psychiatrist concludes that this is a banal depression, a midlife crisis. He writes a prescription for antidepressants and orders the man to come in periodically, just in case.
The man comes in a couple of times, takes the pills, says they help. Then he disappears and never shows up for his appointment again. This is the norm for a district psychiatrist. Only "heavy" people come regularly, and that's because they are accompanied or forced by their relatives. The doctor successfully forgets about the man with the mirrors. For a month and a half.
And then a policeman pays a visit to the psychiatrist and reminds him about the man. He is meticulously interested in whether such a citizen came here, in what dates, what he told.
The doctor, as the saying goes, "sits down to cheat". If the man arranged some terrorist attack and the police already know that he went here for an appointment, and the psychiatrist overlooked him and did not send him to the PND - they can even ask him to quit his job.
The policeman reassured her that there was no crime. A man was found dead in his apartment. Death wasn't violent. An ordinary heart attack.
Then adds that there is something strange (to paraphrase in a more censorious way) about the case.
And whether the policeman had never heard of the secrecy of the investigation, or whether "something strange" so impressed him and untied his tongue, in short, he whispered in confidence some details of the case that were not familiar to the psychiatrist. A complete picture emerges.
The deceased man had lived with his parents all his life. More recently, he finally saved up some money and purchased a separate home. At first he was very happy to live independently, albeit late, but then he slowly began to change. He became anxious, twitchy. He told his mother and other close relatives about his strange reflections in the mirror. It was his mother who advised him to go to the hospital. A visit to a psychiatrist seemed to help, the man calmed down, but then his character drastically changed. He withdrew into himself, became coarse, quarreled with everyone and stopped visiting even his parents.
The man's mother had the key to her son's new apartment, and she decided to check on him. In fact, that's how she found her son's body and called the police.
The policeman himself was also on the spot and immediately paid attention to one detail. There were no mirrors in the apartment of the deceased. Even the closet door with a built-in mirror had been taken off its hinges.
The second unusual detail was pointed out by the mother of the deceased. The deceased man had changed externally. Not much, not even noticeable at first glance. But if you compare the body to photographs of a still alive man - facial features and the shape of his eyes had changed slightly (but this can be written off to the developing cadaveric changes), but what was really surprising was the shape of the ears. They were very different from the ears in the picture. It was as if the man had had new ears transplanted before he died.
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