The old – the very old – man nodded. It wouldn’t be long, now.

He slowly fumbled with the battered blanket he had thrown across his lap. It seemed he was nearly always cold these days. He grunted humorlessly. He supposed that he was allowed that much, if nothing else. Having finished his eighth decade on this earth, he had made significant inroads into his ninth. While he was always hard on himself, holding himself to higher standards than he would ever expect from others, it seemed as though these last few decades had cemented the bitterness and self-loathing into his very psyche.

Meticulous, even in his old age, all was arranged. He had now but to wait.

And while he was waiting, his ghosts would keep him company.

*** *** *** *** ***

“J’accuse,” said the young man, his eyes dead. The old man heard him clearly, although the younger man’s lips never moved. The old man winced, but nodded. “J’suis coupable,” he muttered, “mon frere.” Spittle collected at the corner of his mouth.

*** *** *** *** ***

The boy’s eyes bored into the old man. “I want my life back. Give it back to me, Sydney.” The old man spread his empty hands. “Give it back!” the boy insisted.

*** *** *** *** ***

The woman’s icy glare immobilized him. The cold seared through his chest. His breath came painfully, ragged and shallow, each a greater effort than the previous. He dreaded the words he knew were coming. “You should have saved her,” they chorused, his lips moving with her words. “You knew, and you should have saved her. You should have died for her, if that’s what it took. You had no right to let her die, to leave me alone.”

*** *** *** *** ***

His head leaden, he nodded again, agreeing with his ghosts. Even now, his analytical mind tried to be detached in its observations. Hallucinations. An expected phenomenon, considering the sizeable guilt with which he lived, and with which he was now dying. He had precisely calculated the amount of narcotic needed, and added just a bit more. Not too much – there would be no chance of betrayal by a rebellious stomach, expelling a massive overdose.

He had arranged to be found later in the morning. This evening, he wanted only to see the sun set and the darkness rise around him like a tide. He left no flowery goodbyes, but simply instructions for the disposition of his body and his possessions.

All was arranged. It was time for life to end. Too tired now even to fear the unknown aspects of death, he waited and watched.

He watched as his breathing slowed and stopped. No panic, no sense of suffocation. A slight thrumming of the blood through his temples as his heart made a thin, erratic attempt to compensate for the lack of oxygen, but that, too, passed after a very short time.

So this was how it ended, he thought dully, with no great revelation, or comfort, or agony. Had he been clearer of thought, he might well have cried for the lack of definition, be it sharp judgment or sweet forgiveness. As it was, he simply stopped.

He watched as the tide of blackness swelled and swallowed him, and then watched no more.

And after a while, his cold and unfeeling hands fell beside the chair, empty.

fin.

*** *** *** *** ***