'This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his ideas a fair trial.' Fitzgerald's thought-provoking tale, 'THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON' is a fantastical satire about aging. It is the strange and haunting story of Benjamin Button who is born as an old man and ages backwards so that at the beginning of his life he is an old man and at the end of his life he is a baby.