"Another day, another lunch I could've gotten elsewhere," Burt said, dragging his fork through his bowl of stew as he sat across from Carol in the cafeteria. Carol shrugged and continued eating her own.
"Nobody is forcing you to stay in and eat this," she replied, "you're free to leave and obtain your own lunch anywhere outside this domicile. You're not chained in here." "Not yet I'm not, but once you hire someone to install chains," Burt muttered as Larry sat down beside him. Larry groaned as he scooted his chair in and started digging his fork into his stew, chewing while Burt and Carol went back and forth. He wasn't really listening, he wasn't really interested in whatever it was they had to say to be honest. He was primarily focused on his lunch. After he had eaten a little, he stopped and looked at Burt, then at Carol, before glancing around the room at everyone else. He looked down at his hand resting on the table, which was shaking now, tapping his fork on the bowl. "...fuck," Larry whispered, before grasping at his chest and falling face first into his bowl. *** "We're going to be late!" Whittle shouted as she slipped on her heels, turning to find Jenn coming out of the bathroom putting in her pearl earrings. Jenn approached and kissed Whittle on the cheek before opening the door. Whittle stopped and turned, glancing at Boris, who was sitting on the couch, writing something on a piece of paper. "You sure you don't wanna come with us?" Jenn asked. "No, that's fine," Boris replied, waving his hand at them, "thanks for the offer, but I'm not feeling up to it tonight. You two go ahead and have fun, let me know what the place is like so maybe I can have my last meal there." Whittle chuckled, then shut the door as she and Jenn exited. Now standing in the hall, Whittle sighed and shook her head, as Jenn picked up one of her hands and, lifting it to her lips, kissed it gently a few times, making her blush. "I hate it when he says things like that," Whittle said. "I know," Jenn replied, "I know, it's...not comforting in the slightest. But people who are faced with their own mortality should embrace it instead of denying it. You of all people, given your profession, should know that." Whittle exhaled and nodded. As Jenn took her hand in hers and started to tug her along down the hall, Whittle couldn't help but glance back at the apartment door over her shoulder. She had a bad feeling about tonight, and she just didn't know why. Boris, on the other hand, couldn't feel any more the opposite if he tried. He had a great feeling about tonight. Because tonight was the night he would finally kill himself. Boris had always said he didn't want to die slow and painfully, and that's basically what his diagnosis ensured. At least this way, he figured, he could go out on his own terms, with his dignity in tact. Seated on the couch drinking a cherry soda, he continued to scribble onto the pad of paper. Why could he write published poetry but never write a good suicide note? Boris tapped his pen against his legal pad and chewed on his lower lip. The phone rang, and he reached over, answering it. "Hello?" he asked, before smiling at Carol's voice, "hey, how are-" He didn't even get to finish the question. *** Boris was sitting in Larry's room, still absolutely coated in bouquets. He was staring at a photo on the bedside table of Larry and his wife gardening together when Burt entered the room. Carol hadn't come in yet, she was still dealing with the people in the home who'd been in the cafeteria when it happened. Burt stopped and pulled one of his hands from his pockets, running it through his good head of hair. "...he just dropped, man," Burt said softly, "he just dropped. He said 'fuck' and then he just dropped. Face first into his stew. Would've been funny if it hadn't been so sad." "That's how I feel about most of my life," Boris remarked, making Burt smirk. "...I can't...it's so weird. He was just here. Two minutes ago he was just here, and now he's not," Burt said, walking in more and sitting on the bed beside Boris, adding, "But that has to be the ideal way to go, right? To just drop, and not wait around? Suddenly it's just over. That has to be the ideal way to end things. I couldn't imagine knowing I was going to die and then just having to wait out the clock." "You're preachin' to the choir," Boris said. The door opened and they saw Carol standing there. She looked at both of them, before entering further and shutting the door behind her. She picked up one of the white roses from a nearby vase and smiled as she turned it over between her fingers by the stem. "I hope my last word is something as perfect as 'fuck'," she said, "that seemed right on the money." "Feels rather appropriate, all things considered in the moment," Burt said. "What's gonna happen to his stuff?" Boris asked, and Carol shrugged. "No idea. He had no children. We could divvy it up, or donate it. Depends. I think we each personally should take a memento," Carol said, "He's got lots of little trinkets." Carol walked to the desk and started looking around, sliding drawers open while Burt and Boris started rooting through the nearby closet. As she looked, she pulled out a very old tattered journal, and opened it. Inside was Larry's handwriting, page after page, and she started to skim it. Some of it was mundane. Just general vague day to day things. Some of it was even just grocery lists from 25 years ago. And then, smack dab in the middle, she stopped and found something. She started reading aloud. "Petunia took me to see a sunset today. I must've seen a million sunsets, but this sunset was different. She told me she knew just the right spot, and that I'd never see a better sunset. But I'm sure that will turn out not to be true. Any sunset with her would be amazing, because she is as blazing as the sun itself. Fiery and full of life. She is the light that gives my planet life, and she'll never know how much that means to me, because words alone could never explain it. Petunia took me to see a sunset today, but the whole time...I just looked at her," Carol read. "...fuck," Boris mumbled, as Burt put his hand over his mouth and started crying, Boris rubbing his back. "I think we should memorialize him. Put a sign up where that garden is, the one we made for his wife, and that way they can be together forever. We'll even transplant all these flowers he got accidentally into it," Carol said, "I can call in some contractors tomorrow or-" "No, we'll do it," Burt said through his weak crying, "we...we do it. Nobody else." Carol smiled as Boris shrugged, still rubbing Burt's back. "What the man says goes," Boris remarked, making Carol chuckle. After a bit of discussion in regards to how to arrange things, Boris exited the room only to find Father Krickett in his vestments leaning against the wall across from Larry's room. Boris stopped and shoved his hands in his pockets, the two men staring at one another momentarily, until Krickett smiled. "Walk with me," he said, and Boris nodded following; John continued as they headed down the hall, "you know...you and I have seen a lot of death together." "That sounds worse than you mean it to, but sure," Boris said, making John chuckle. "In fact, we met because I was here to give someone else their last rites," John said, "but there was Polly, and now Larry, and soon..." John stopped and looked at Boris, Boris doing the same. The two men stared at one another, and Boris noticed the tears welling up in John's eyes. John finally started to cry and leaned into Boris, who patted his back, holding him for a bit. "...please don't go," John said. "...I won't," Boris said. But he was lying. He was going tonight. He just didn't see any reason to make his best friends day any harder than it already was. *** Whittle couldn't concentrate on dinner. Try as she might, she just couldn't bring herself to focus on anything other than Boris. She'd known this man for literally years now, and had lived with him for a while, and to think that one day, likely very soon, she might come home and he would no longer be there...it terrified her. She recalled her grandfather dying, and how hard that was on her. How much she missed him, even now. She looked up finally and noticed Jenn was sitting across from her, just playing with the bracelet on her right wrist. "...do you know where I got this?" Jenn asked, smiling and holding up her wrist once she realized Whittle was watching her; Jenn licked her lips and continued, "I actually got it from an old woman who was on her deathbed. Well, not really, she wasn't lying in bed. But she was preparing to die, and she gave me this for talking her through her fears about it." "What were her fears?" Whittle asked. "Turns out she didn't really have any," Jenn replied, "she told me 'you know, it's funny, you spend your whole life being terrified of the nothing, only to welcome it once it's here'. I never really understood what she meant, but I think I kind of do now. I think she means that once you've lived long enough, done what you want to do, then the idea of non existence isn't as frightening, because you've lived a full life." Whittle nodded, admiring the bracelet from afar, chin resting on her fist, elbow posted on the table. "What about the people who don't get to finish what it is they want to do?" Whittle asked softly, and Jenn shrugged. "I'm not a mind reader, Reggie, I don't know," she said, chuckling, which calmed Whittle's nerves a bit; she continued, "but I can only think that, when facing down the reality of the inevitable whatever, they try to find whatever closure they can. After all, it's really all we can do." Whittle smirked and cocked her head. "The inevitable whatever?" she asked, chuckling. "That's what I always called it because who am I to say what comes next?" Jenn said, shrugging as she sipped her drink, "I mean, some people believe in nothing, some people believe in Heaven, and all ideas are valid so long as they bring you some kind of comfort. So I've always called it the inevitable whatever, cause you just never know what it's going to be, but whatever it's going to be, you know two things for sure: the first is that it is inevitable, and the second is that it can be whatever you want it to be." Whittle laughed and nodded. Jenn had such a way of calming her nerves, and she loved her for it. Her thoughts turned back to Boris, and of his poetry book. He had accomplished his life goal, really, so maybe he was okay with this being the end. Perhaps he was genuinely okay with it. She hadn't seen him worry or cry, except when telling Whittle, and even then it only seemed as though he cried because he didn't like seeing her upset. She sighed and picked up her menu, beginning to look through it. Whatever came next, she thought, they would each face it down in their own way. Boris would face down the inevitable whatever and as for Whittle, well...at least she had Jenn by her side. Who knew that the person she'd find peace in was a nun, and not for the typical reasons one generally finds solace in nuns. *** John Krickett took a long bath, dressed in his robe and then cooked himself some dinner. Some Salmon and fried rice and then sat down at the coffee table in his living room. Stabbing at his food absentmindedly with his fork, he couldn't help but think of his rosary, and began to get annoyed once more. Where the fuck could they be? He felt like he'd searched everywhere. He sighed and put his fork down, then got up, got dressed and got in his car. When he arrived at the apartment, he went up the stairs to the right floor, and knocked on the door. Boris opened it after a moment, and smiled upon seeing the priest. "It's late," Boris said, "what are you doing out?" "Just needed to talk," John said, shrugging, making his way past Boris and into the apartment, "considering we didn't really get much of a chance at discussion earlier, you know? What with...well...Larry and everything. Kinda hectic. I want to apologize for crying on you, that was extremely-" "Unlike you?" "Unprofessional," John said, chuckling, "not that we've had anything closely resembling a professional relationship, but that's beside the point. I just wanted to come by and see how you were holding up. Losing a friend, especially at your age, can be particularly hard. Considering the fact you're already facing mortality on your own, I was just curious if this had shaken anything loose." Boris sighed and started walking back to the couch, scratching the back of his head and shrugging. "Not really?" he said, "look, John, I appreciate the concern, I do, but...this is what happens, right? People age, they get old, they die. Sometimes its sudden and random, like Larry, and sometimes its drawn out and painful, like what I'm looking at for myself. In either way it doesn't make things any easier, does it? It's still the same thing, just a different means to an end. Yeah, Larry dying sucks. It sucks losing friends. But it's also just...life. To claim it's unfair would be ludicrous, because it's been happening for millennia. All of a sudden cause it happens to you it's unfair? No. It's just what happens. We learn to deal with it, or we don't." John nodded, crossing his arms and sighing. He looked at his shoes and thought. How could he tell the old man all the things he thought? All the small realizations that ran through his head. How much he'd miss him. How much he'd be there for him until that moment came. How much he'd meant to him. How much he'd changed his life for the better. Words couldn't do his feelings justice. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked back up to see Boris standing beside him, smiling warmly, patting his arm. "...we each do to the best of our abilities what we can with what we have wherever we are in the moment," Boris said, "whether you're going to college or you're terminally ill. All I've ever done my whole life is run. But I can't run from this. I ran from my romantic feelings for men, I ran from being a published poet, I ran from my family after the accident. All these things I saw as faults in myself, and I didn't want to face them. But death? That's something that everyone is hit by. Something nobody can run from. So I'm taking solace in the fact that it's something one cannot avoid. It's time t stop running, and instead, face something." John nodded, then put his arms around the old man and hugged him tightly, making him laugh. Boris patted his back and held John back, the two of them - each from an entirely different generation - just grateful to have existed even just momentarily at the same time as eachother. "I should go," John whispered, "it's getting late. I'll come get you in the morning, we'll have breakfast, my treat." Boris sighed. John didn't know he was making plans for a man not about to be here, but he didn't have the heart to tell him. John turned and opened the front door, stepping back out into the hall. As he walked away, disappearing down the stairs, Boris wanted to catch up to him, yell out and tell him he loved him, but he didn't have the heart. He figured this was the best exit he could get. Boris shut the apartment door, locked it, then went to his bedroom. He gathered the rope he'd bought earlier and strung it to the ceiling, then got a stool. He pinned his note to his shirt, then sighed. Funny, he thought. He'd stopped trying to kill himself when he met Chrissy. And now that she was no longer here, here he was again, back at it. Life sure was disgustingly circular, wasn't it? Boris sighed and stepped on the stool, pulling the noose around his neck. He shut his eyes, trying not to cry. Images of Larry and Carol and Burt, of Whittle and Jenn, of Chrissy, of Ellen and Lorraine...they all shot through his mind at rapid fire. He put one foot off the stool and exhaled, finally ready to take that final plunge. And then he heard the screech of tires. Boris stopped, his eyes snapping open, and he pulled the noose off him and stepped down from the stool. He pulled back the curtains on his window and saw a car had smashed directly into the wall near his apartment building, and the lights inside were flickering. Boris thought for a moment, then looked down at the note pinned to his chest. "Goddammit," he mumbled, before heading out of the apartment and down the stairs. As Boris reached the outside, he headed across the street and he grabbed the door handle, tugging at it furiously until the door lunged open outwards, and a young woman slid out from the car, groaning. A note was also pinned to her shirt. Boris hesitated, then grabbed the note and stuffed it into his own pocket, before kneeling beside her and looking at her. This was her. This was the girl from the doctors office. The one who'd left her little book of daily affirmations. He was shocked. Then he felt blinded by the lights approaching, and saw Whittle and Jenn pulling up and climbing out of the car, stumbling. "Call an ambulance," Boris said sternly, and Jenn nodded, heading inside to the phone as Whittle leaned down beside Boris as he cradled Melody's head in his hands and felt tears well up in his eyes, whispering, "you're gonna be okay. You're gonna...I'm not gonna walk away." A girl in a car accident had ruined his life. And now a girl in a car accident had saved it. Yes, he thought...life sure was disgustingly cyclical.
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Golden Years follows the exploits of a bunch of old people in a retirement home as they try to have fun, relax or come to terms with the soon to be end of their lives. Archives
April 2024
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