Always penultimate

Xeno Fish            Draft one

Always Penultimate

“If you could see anyone in the world Mr. Abernathy, who would you see?” This was Jason’s way of talking to me. He would ask questions to get me to talk about my life. He thought it made me feel better. He would come to the home every Thursday without fail. He would take us for walks in our wheelchairs. He would ask us questions to get us to talk. Maybe it made him feel better. It made me a little angry.

“I’d see the salmon, Jason. Don’t matter where. I’d see the salmon.”

“were you a fisherman?”

“Nope. Never fished in my life. Didn’t like water much. Didn’t like fish.”

“Then why do you want to see the salmon?”

“Because they’re beautiful Jason. Jeez.”

Of course I have gained a new appreciation for the salmon at the end of my life. That’s what this is, the end of my life, has been for years now. The salmon is a simple creature. It hatches. It swims downstream. It grows. It swims back up. It has kids. It dies. The cycle starts again. I find that beautiful. It lives for a bit, has children, and dies content that it has done everything it needed to do. The Salmon has no midlife crisis. Of course I had a conversation with Vern once about animals and humans. He said that humans were so great because they didn’t die. He said that we don’t live just to have kids, we live to live; and in our lifetime we accomplish, we build great society. Vern loves life.

We are both old now, at a nursing home, and we live in rooms across from each other. Vern and I have both done many things in our life. We had kids. We had wives. We had jobs. We did things. We got old. Now here we were at the end of our lives.

“I mean if you could see any human being at all, anyone, there is no one you’d see over salmon?”

“Never seen the salmon before. I don’t have any long lost mistresses, never betrayed Iris. My heroes are all long gone. And I spent most of my life raising my children. But I’ve never seen the salmon before. Talked about them. Never seen them. There isn’t anybody that I could meet that would change anything for me now. I already had my time. I’m dead.”  I was not dead, of course, when you got down to it. I’ve woken up every morning the last ten years, having thought that each night I’m on my death bed. It’s an annoying miracle. It gets old. I worked the hell out of my will. Crafted that piece of paper into the finest little masterpiece I could. I’ve had time. When you come to a nursing home you think “that’s it”, some place to just fade. I’ve ridden the train of life to the final destination and they won’t let me get off the train. Of course when I say ‘them’ I don’t mean the nurses or anything. Heck, eight pills sure as hell don’t keep the reaper away. I mean the conductor.

“Don’t talk like that, Mr. Abernathy. You used to speak so fondly of things. You had a certain prose.” Yeah, Jason’s been coming here a long time. And what I used to do before I got tired of the whole idea, thank you Vern, was tell him my last words. I would create long speeches about my life. About my love, my family, my ideas. I believed so devoutly that this man would be my record. At my funeral he would give that speech, whatever it was the day that I died, to the fullest of his capabilities, and people would know my final words were beautiful, that I had known I was going, and had made something beautiful. But, always penultimate last words seem to lose their meaning. And Vern ruined it.

 There are those that are senile at the home, and before I talked to him, I thought Vern was one of them. He would come into my room, the same time every night, using the last strength of the day to wheel himself in there, and say:

“I will always love you, Linda.”

Staring off out my window, not looking at me. The audacity of this man, using me as a record. He didn’t think he would die and still doesn’t, sitting out in the sun uncovered for however long he can, he is happy to be alive. I was just his failsafe. If somehow, that unfaded life force just dissipated into the night, I would tell everyone that he always did, and always would love Linda. Far as I can tell, he’ll out live his children and his children’s children. He has the will to live that long.

                And I am stuck in limbo. The wheels of my chair just keep turning, guided by whoever. Right now it was Jason. “Do you ever think those thoughts anymore, the prosy ones?”

                “Not much anymore. I found that with less energy it’s easier to be taciturn.”

“You talk to Vern though. That’s what the desk tells me.”

“I guess that’s because we have something to talk about.”

“Even though it’s just talk? I thought you were dead.” I am surprised, he doesn’t talk like this. He, apparently, has had enough of a dying man’s moaning. After all, he has a point. It doesn’t matter. It won’t matter. I talk to Vern. Why?

                From my chair I look back at him. He looks away, marching me onward. He finally did it. He stumped me. I talk to Vern. I argue with Vern over things as trivial as salmon. That’s my life. As far as I can tell, I’m consumed by it. I’m angry that Vern will live forever, and that I want to go so badly. Our conversations are meaningless. 

But I guess they’re good enough for final words.