From Time To Eternity

Chapter 1 – More Than A Feeling

It’s November First – the start of the last November of my life. I am not sure why I know that. The doctor hasn’t told me to worry about anything. The old woman at the back of the bookstore, who looks freakishly like a grizzled voodoo witch, complete with a wild left eye, hasn’t told me this. If she did, I would certainly believe her prognostication; no one with even half a brain would argue with a grizzled voodoo witch – although one might certainly speculate at the circumstances which would bring such a creature to the tundraic climes of northern North America.

It’s a niggling I have... a little voice that says ‘Enjoy it. It will be the last.’ It could, I suppose, be the voice of some ancient Mayan ancestor who realizes and accepts that this will be the last November for us all. It could be simply my raging neurotic paranoia; those who know me would most likely lean in that direction, and do so with not even so much as a shrug of concern. Maybe it was a loved one who had already passed, whispering in my ear last night while I dreamed of a large black rat, suspiciously similar to a Tasmanian devil, invading my house and eating my sandwich wrap. It lived in a hole in the wall near the kitchen... arguably another harbinger of the end of the world to come, as there is no doubt it would if I had to share my space with a vermin.

That this is my last November does not concern me. Rather to my astonishment, I find that I am pragmatic about the issue, considering what my last days will entail as opposed to when or why that last day will come. This could be a gift from some deity, offered in recognition to the life I have lived... or, more correctly, not lived. Conversely, this could well be the penalty for time spent unproductively, moments withering away, one after the other in rapid sequence, with mouse-like subservience, willingly accepting nothing as a standard for accomplishment other than the previously mentioned holding-off of vermin from my personal space.

Do I spend my remaining days waxing poetic on what could have been, lamenting the missed opportunities that dot my page of info dumps, or do I toss caution to the wind, extracting from each twenty-four hour period left to me a full one-thousand, four-hundred and forty minutes? Such is my conundrum today.

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I looked at the calendar. The Greek Theater in Taormina, Sicily mocked me, Mount Etna’s majestic peak in the background. Why the hell would Romans build a Greek theater anyway? It was better than the previous thirty-one days of La Scala opera house in Milan screaming at me, ‘I’ve been here for two-hundred and thirty-four years, waiting for you.’ I remembered the first time I saw a picture of that statuesque beauty, its six levels of box seats, magnificent relief-carved domed ceiling, Scarpia on stage, smaller than your thumb from those top seats, but with a voice that elevated the rafters, shaming the honeyed meagre tones of the heavenly choirs in comparison. The picture was on a magnet given to my parents, stuck to the face of the avocado green fridge. Above it was another, this one of a fat woman shoving cake in her mouth, with the caption ‘Your body is a temple’. I knew temples. I devoured pictures of them in travel books – no, I didn’t attend them for their intended purpose; I was not really that into being struck down by a lightning bolt tossed by the aforementioned gift-giving deity. My body was patently not a temple; it was ancient ruins, a monument to gravity, abuse, harsh weather and admittedly neglect.

My mother’s voice came back to me, pushing out the regrets of Italian tours missed, to remind me that it was All Saints Day. The notion deserved nothing but a grunt of derision. I pulled open my fridge door, thankful that magnets would not adhere to its stainless steel front, and grabbed a beer. All Saints Day? Obviously not my holiday. That said, tomorrow must then be All Souls Day. My mind flipped back a few pages more, to Alberto who owned the shoe shop beside the bakery in town. He always had an All Soles Day sale. Mother would drag me in there, along with all my shoes, making me sit and wait until they had all been repaired. She would grumble repeatedly about how hard I was on shoes, asking what the hell I did with them that they wore out so fast. For god’s sake, I was an eight-year-old kid of the pre-computer age. What did she think I did in them? Everything. She also grumbled about the blasphemy of the sales pitch, offended by the flippant reference to such a reverent day, but not so much as to pass up the bargain offered. Religious indignation apparently had its limits.

Alberto’s shop always had the smell of fresh leather and garlic. It reminded me of the escargot my sister tried to cook one day. I think we probably used those babies as projectiles when we were pretending to be in the trenches of Ypres the next day. I almost took out Robbie’s eye with one. I shook the thought of Robbie from my head; not going there today. Alberto’s was a much nicer memory. He would sing while he sewed, his voice rumbling from deep in his diaphragm. I think he, and that damned magnet, were what made me realize my love for the classics – Italy, music, art, literature. I could not begin to imagine why he was here instead of in his magnificent homeland, on a stage, singing to show the Seraphim just how it was done. Perhaps that’s where my problems started; such lofty expectations made everything seem banal.

I turned on the radio, not prepared to listen to the never-ending mudslinging served up on the television these days. There was more than enough shit piled on those platters to fertilize fields to the end of time. The radio was, in reality, no better, and it always seemed to give me a headache, but it was better than the sound of my own thoughts. Michael Bublé was lamenting about going home, about being alone in a crowd, about the fact that his dreams were to blame for his situation. Dreams – a necessity, I suppose, until they became an obsession. Once they had reached that point, a man could try to reach them any way possible, other than the logical, direct way.

I finished my beer, sat at my desk then allowed my eyes to once again stray to the calendar. November First. What was it about the date? I could sit here, mull it over, lament like Bublé did, eternally stuck in a quagmire past of my own creation or I could consider making a change. Most would find it a pretty simple choice. Not me. I needed to consult an expert.

Chapter 2 – You’re My Best Friend

Dylan’s eyebrows shot up when I walked in. He stopped, mid-polish, glanced at the clock at the end of the bar then looked back to me, setting the glass and towel down on the gleaming teak. Did I miss the Apocalypse?

Always the smartass. I climbed onto the stool furthest away from those most likely to be taken by someone else, had there been anyone else in the place; it was a proactive measure on my part to keep distance between myself and them, or the potential ‘them’. Then I rapped my finger on the bar. Pretzels and whiskey.

He said nothing, poured a drink he knew I had no taste for, then pulled a basket of pretzels from under the counter. I squinted, inspecting them for cigarette butts or whatever else might be among them. Someone should invent an antibacterial food wash a person can spray on this shit. God only knows whose snot-encrusted fingertips had already rooted around in there, looking for a booger chaser and a beer. I pushed them away with a shudder, wiping my hands on my pants leg before letting them clutch the glass of amber escape.

You never leave your place. What the hell are you doing here?

I glared at him, hoping it was the same look my mother gave me when I broke wind at the dinner table. I doubted mine would have the same effect on Dylan that Mother’s had on me. I needed to talk to you – mountain/Mohammed sort of thing.

You’re Mohammed?

I’m sure as hell not the mountain.

The analogy only works if the mountain knows Mohammed is waiting.

Shut up.

Dylan picked up his glass and towel again, began polishing then holding it up to the light for inspection. He remained steadfastly silent while I sipped the whiskey, twisting my mouth at each swallow. It was a man-thing to drink whiskey, especially in times of consternation. I had no idea why, but who was I to spit in the face of such a long-standing convention.

I tried to avoid looking at him, but eventually my eyes slid back in his direction. Fine, don’t shut up quite so much.

He had finished the glasses and now was applying an elbow-grease shine to the already lustrous teak. So what has you in a dander?

I should point out at this juncture that Dylan and I had a rather unorthodox friendship. It started with him sticking my head in a toilet on the first day of eighth grade. He was an athletic sort, the strong, not-so-silent type that eighth grade girls drool over. No one drools over someone who is rather less structurally-gifted, especially when his hair is dripping toilet water. Our relationship continued with the same flavor for two years, until his rather cosmetically-challenged younger sister arrived in our school. Like me, she was on the receiving end. It was when she ran to her brother, crying for help, her eyes burning because a couple of the more gifted girls had surprised her with dog shit eye shadow, that he had his epiphany. If I remember correctly, he had just finished another session of our tidy-bowl beauty shampoo, his hand still on my collar, me still coughing up what tasted suspiciously like recycled corn niblets. He looked at Heather’s face, disgusting and distraught, but seeing her equally shocked face at his grasp of me, he realized perhaps for the first time, that there were consequences to actions. He let go of me, straightened my collar, apologized, then walked his sister home, his hand wrapped around her shoulder protectively. It was a day that was a game-changer for all of us. It was the last time my head was stuck inside a toilet bowl.

Even in the dim light of the bar, I could see what he was thinking. He thought someone had tried to rough me up. Already, reflected off his retinas, were images of what he was planning to do to the person who had harmed me. He was my pit bull.

I’m going to die.

Most people would get a reaction from this statement. Not me. Dylan sipped his water, leaned his ass against the back bar and crossed his arms in front of him. Your immortality charm is losing its magic?

I frowned. No, asshole. I mean, in the next year, I’m going to die.

Only his eyes moved. They slid to the left then looked down his nose before making a half-roll and landing back on me. This is based on what?

I shrugged. I dunno. I realized it this morning. Maybe it was a spirit or something talking to me, or it might have been a Mayan god telling me to prepare.

He nodded. It wasn’t your doctor who told you this.

I shook my head.

His eyes narrowed. Have you been talking to that bat-shit crazy Veronica with her voodoo cards and chicken entrails?

They’re tarot cards. She doesn’t have any chicken entrails, but even if she did, I can’t imagine anything that would result in her reading through them. I sighed. Look, I can’t explain it. Maybe that’s not the point. The point is... what if I did die? Who the hell would care? I sit at home, hump my keyboard on a daily basis, send off erudite insight... but who would give a flying fuck if I died? I’ve done nothing significant with my life. I have things I wanted to do... so I wrote about them. I had people who pissed me off, so I cut them out – just a little flick of the wrist with the x-acto knife of life.

Photoshop is less messy now.

Again I called on my mother’s look of disdain. He still seemed unaffected. I silently cursed Mom and her stink-eye.

I’m just saying... for months there were little photo shards of Danielle scattered all over the place... ex-wife confetti.

Ex-life confetti, I corrected.

He smiled at me, pointing his finger in my face. And that, my friend, is the root of the problem.

Chapter 3 – Too Low For Zero

It was inventory time. Dylan was serving drinks, the music was pounding – if you could call that metallic, senseless thump thump thump they listened to these days music – and I nudged myself tighter into the little corner. I really didn’t need to. There was no one close to where I was, but I wanted to make sure they knew that the chair beside me was the chair of last resort before anyone decided to park an ass on it.

I was fifty. What a stupid damned age that is – the adult tweens. You were too old to cut loose and have fun but you were too young to be considered ‘old’ or reap any of the benefits. Hell, by the time I reached old, there would be no benefits left – damned government corruption. I tipped my head at the thought. That’s right – I’m never going to be that old, am I? I get to die before then. The realization, in a macabre way, lightened my mood.

I had been married for twenty years, as Dylan took perverse delight in reminding me, to what he liked to call the ‘selfish spitfire’. Danielle really wasn’t that bad, although for the life of me I could not think of what the hell I saw in her to make me want to commit to a life together. She was as pretty as they came, which begged the question ‘what the hell was she doing with me?’ – a question I asked myself pretty much daily for seven-thousand, five-hundred and two days of marriage. The colossally amazing fact is that I would have stayed with her forever, although I have no idea why. It wasn’t that she was nurturing. It sure as hell wasn’t the sex. I honestly believe that love was never an aspect of our relationship. It went from lust to desperation, followed a twisty road to feigned respect then acceptance, stopped for gas at resignation then totally went off the road just past acrimonious toleration. I could sell the fucking tour guide for that trip.

Billy Bigsby, an asshole from school days, started to walk towards the bar seat beside me. I wished that I hadn’t showered this morning... anything to keep that dickhead away from me. Dylan ran interference. It meant that he was worried about me. He didn’t need to – I was just emptying out the trash that had festered in my brain for too damned long.

Thankfully or not, Danielle and I had no kids. Okay... she was the thankful one. Shortly before our marriage, she found out she was pregnant. It would interfere with her career goals to have to deal with a child. Her hopes were, rightfully, high. Telling the boss that you needed some time off in a couple months because you were knocked up was usually not an endearing announcement to make. She, instead, made the choice to terminate the pregnancy. Her body, her choice... but not really; I had a stake in that too, but there was a lot to consider – my feelings didn’t make that list. Logically, I knew she was probably right, and I knew she would be the one to have it inside her, growing, making demands that would grow even more once the baby was born. Still, it was a baby... our baby.

Every time the issue came up on the political stump, it made me wonder. I understood her position, her fears... to have a baby when we weren’t yet married would have been a hard pill for both our families to swallow, but I argued they would find a way. I sort of liked the idea that a product of our love was growing inside her, but tried to be supportive. I knew nothing I said would change her mind, but I always wondered...

I had an aunt who had a child ‘out of wedlock’ decades earlier. It was the family secret. Her other children never knew that somewhere in the world they had a sister. The aunt drank herself into oblivion wondering, with the birth of each legitimate son, what she had done and where her daughter was. I didn’t want that for Danielle... or for me. I guess I was selfish. I wanted the baby for us. If the baby had been born, and put up for adoption, not knowing how she was, if she was loved or cared for, would have made me insane much earlier. Danielle had an aunt who had a child out of wedlock as well, but that one they pretended belonged to the aunt’s sister. That sort of arrangement never works out. I didn’t know that I was qualified or had the right to make those decisions; I just knew I never wanted to be in that position again, and I envied no one who did happen to be there. At one time, I wondered what would happen if there was a law to prevent Danielle at the time, but I know what the results would have been – she either would have found a way to do it that killed her, or she would have had the baby then spent the rest of her life resenting it. I didn’t want our baby to spend her life being resented by her mother. In my mind, our baby was a girl.

In retrospect, a child in our relationship would have been sentenced to a life in hell. The bottom line was that there were no easy answers, and we had no children.

My father had died over a dozen years ago, the result of a string of incidences of medical mistakes. Welcome to Canada, where the ground is always frozen and the doctors are not accountable. I hoped that whatever was going to take me this year would not require a lot of medical intervention. If that was the case, I would just speed the process along. I had the benefit of the knowledge of other people’s botched attempts to off themselves. Rule number one was if you are going to stick the barrel of a gun in your mouth, don’t miss, and probably don’t use a rifle with a barrel longer than your arms.

Mother passed away a few years ago, and from the time of her death, I had lost contact with all my siblings and their families, to what I was sure was our mutual acceptance. No one really wants to claim ownership to the crazy hermit uncle who thinks he can write stories.

Dylan wandered over, set a fresh beer in front of me and handed me a sandwich. I frowned at it. Oh, for god’s sake, I made it myself. No one spit in it or planted a bug in the middle of it.

I arched my eyebrow as I looked up at him. You do realize that shit really happens, right?

He shrugged. We just like to make you think it does. The head-game is reward enough.

The door opened. Corporal Flagstaff, the Dudley Dooright for this god-forsaken burg, stuck his face in, eyeballed the place then stepped inside. Just got a call. Fred and Beulah Archer’s barn has collapsed.

It was all that needed to be said. The men stood, some downing the last of their drinks, others slapping their caps back on their heads, leaving unfinished drinks on the tables as they headed for the door. Billy Bigsby went with them. From the look on Dylan’s face, I knew he, too, wanted to be there, but his place was behind the bar. He would have food ready for whatever the men might need, and would already be working on a way to get refreshments out to the men helping to clean up and dig out whatever was trapped in the rubble. His plan would not involve me. I was the one in town who was counted on to contribute nothing, save a few words for the local rag, penning poignant, erudite clichés about the deceased.

As the quiet fell on the bar, I felt an emptiness growing inside me. Had Flagstaff said ‘Wyatt Cresswell’s place just collapsed around him’ would anyone have bothered to come to dig me out? Probably not.

I finished my sandwich, got up from the stool and made for the door.

You okay?

I shrugged. Yeah. I’m heading home.

I was down to three hundred and sixty-four days at the most to live. I wondered if I could manage without having to leave my apartment or my keyboard ever again.

Chapter 4 – Cold Hearted Man

Jesus Christ! Dylan kicked his way over to my desk. You need a fucking front end loader in here to clean up this mess.

It’s not mess. They’re books and articles. I know where everything is. I took the beer he held out to me.

He pushed a stack off the chair then dropped into it. So, when exactly are you gonna die?

I shrugged.

What are you gonna do about it? His eyes were looking deep into mine.