Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?
The sun has e up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life... gone by. Im a sight this m: two shirts, heavy pants, a scarf ed twice around my ned tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirty birthdays ago. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go, and a smaller space heater sits directly behi clicks and groans and spews hot air like a fairy-tale dragon, and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a cold that has beey years in the making.
Eighty years, I think sometimes, ae my otany age, it still amazes me that I havent been warm since Gee Bush resident.
I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age.
My life? It isnt easy to explain. It has not been the rip-r spectacular I fa would be, but her have I burrowed around with the gophers (small burrowing rodent (native to the North Ameri prairies). I suppose it has most resembled a blue-chip stock: fairly stable, more ups than downs, and gradually trending upward over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and Ive learhat not everyone say this about his life. But do not be misled. I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a an with on thoughts, and Ive led a on life. There are no mos dedicated to me and my name will soon be fotten, but Ive loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
The romantics would call this a love story, the ics would call it a tragedy. In my mind its a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not ge the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the path Ive chosen to follow. I have no plaints about my path and the places it has taken me; enough plaints to fill a circus tent about other things, maybe, but the path Ive chosen has always been the right one, and I wouldnt have had it any other way.
Time, unfortunately, doesnt make it easy to stay on course. The path is straight as ever, but now it is strewn with the rocks and gravel that accumulate over a lifetime. Until three years ago it would have been easy to ignore, but its impossible now. There is a siess rolling through my body; Im her strong nor healthy, and my days are spent like an old party balloon: listless, spongy, and growing softer over time.
I cough, and through squinted eyes I check my watch. I realize it is time to go.
I stand from my seat by the window and shuffle across the room, stopping at the desk to pick up the notebook I have read a huimes. I do not glahrough it.
Instead I slip it beh my arm and tinue on my way to the place I must go.
I walk on tiled floors, white in color and speckled with gray. Like my hair and the hair of most people here, though Im the only one in the hallway this m. They are in their rooms, alone except for television, but they, like me, are used to it.
A person get used to anything, if given enough time.
I hear the muffled sounds in the distand kly who is making those sounds. Then the nurses see me and we smile at each other and exge greetings.
They are my friends aalk often, but I am sure they wonder about me and the things that I gh every day. I listen as they begin to whisper among themselves as I pass.
"There he goes again," I hear, "I hope it turns out well." But they say nothing directly to me about it. Im sure they think it would hurt me to talk about it so early in the m, and