Dialogues of the Dead

We talk and drink. He is enjoying himself. He pours more coffee, more Scotch. We drink and talk …and talk …though soon the words that he imagines pearls come rolling misshaped to his lips and stick there, hard to dislodge, yet because all is still so clear in his mind, he thinks this mere inadvertence, too dry a mouth perhaps, easily cured by yet more drink.

He yawns, tries to apologize, looks slightly surprised to find he can’t, clutches his chest, begins to gasp. In time, I would have been surprised. I had looked to see him fall asleep, then I would have taken the cushion his head rests on and used it to send him to a still softer rest. But now I see that I am not called on to do any more, and I am not surprised. He stops gasping, closes his eyes and slumps back in his chair. Soon his breath is so light that it would hardly shake a rose-leaf down. Soon I cannot detect it at all. I place a hair over his lips then pass a few minutes washing my coffee mug and making sure no traces of my presence remain. Finished, I check that the hair has not moved. He has gone. Would that all our goings were so easy. Now I arrange him to be found as he would have wished, at his ease, with his book and his bottle, and steal away softly as if fearful of awaking him. Softly and sadly too.

Yes, this time I am surprised to detect so much of sadness in my joy, a sense of melancholy which remains with me even as I step out into the empty street and feel the tremor of time beneath the pavement once more.

Why so?

Perhaps because he smiled so welcomingly and made me real coffee instead of instant.

Perhaps because here was a man who should have been happy but for whom, as he might have said himself, life became too great a bore. …

No, not doubts, not second thoughts.

Just a sense that, no matter how desirable my ultimate destination, this journey might yet take me to places I would rather not visit.

Yes, to be sure, no one said it would be roses all the way. Yes, to be sure, death’s fine, just another turn on the path. But maybe not being born is the very best option, eh?

Talk soon.

25

The dialogue had been found in its usual buff envelope, once more addressed Reference Library, tucked away behind a pile of books reserved for collection on the reception counter close by where the morning mail basket was placed.