His life wasn’t flashing past him by any means.
No. He’d been walking for more than three hours now, looking back at people and events, times he had enjoyed and times he had not. He was walking further and further away from home, further from any hospital, further from his medication on the shelf in the bathroom, further from the aid and help he could expect from friends and neighbours and the like. Is this what he was doing? Yes probably… most probably.
He had now made his way from the inland where he lived, to the sea. He found himself walking along a deserted beach where he could hear the waves rolling. He could smell the brine of the sea and feel the wind coming off the water; hitting him softly in the face. He had enjoyed this so much when he was a boy.
As a boy he had never been much of a swimmer, but just to go down to the sea, look for shells maybe, just to amble along without any care… Where did all the care come from? This care; the care he was feeling now. Why couldn’t he go back to the mindset he had? What was there to stop him?
What he was feeling was beyond any kind of insouciance, this was apathy.
Would he just keep walking and eventually tire to the point where he would have to lay down; lay down and die? How dramatic! Did this sort of thing happen? Bodies being found and people saying “Oh! Yes, poor soul, he or she had a terminal illness you know.” No; he had never heard of it; or maybe such cases were always hushed up. Not suitable for public consumption.
He stopped and looked up, the sky was darkening fast. He began to think about it all. He thought about how there will always be seas with crashing waves, fields with swaying flowers, forests with canopied trees, and people with life-threatening diseases. People will go on loving, dreaming, fighting, and dying. What had the priest said? It was just another test. He had told him it would all become clear on Judgement Day. For several months now, he had no longer felt part of the real world. Could he still appreciate the sheer wonder and perfection of nature and did he continue to comprehend the awesome power that created it all?
Nothing was the same after she went. Her passing had left him empty. Only the onset of this illness gave him something to think about; something to burst in and swamp his life. What he cherished was gone and what he loathed was upon him.
He was thinking of her now. Going back to happy times. He missed her smile and the joy she would exude when she brewed a coffee with her new machine. Lord! How she loved that machine. It wasn’t cheap. They had always loved coffee. He shuddered, and for the briefest of moments he heard the sound of it percolating. Yes, he actually heard it!
Perhaps that was it! All he had to do was listen again to the sound of her machine. He had never used it, she would never let him touch it!
He hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee since she passed away. There must be a book somewhere on how to use it, and there’s bound to be a bag of coffee beans in the cupboard. He could get it going. Make a cup; drink it in her honour. Surely, this was all much too simple. He felt himself smile at the very idea. He hadn’t smiled for months!
He turned for home.