Fragile Dreams Read online

  Besides, Bernie died in a wreck. Where I come from that’s pretty much natural causes. The roads are shite.

  * * *

  Death and I decided to attend university together, neither of us much liking the idea of having to go it alone, at least that first year. We were both outcasts, see. Me because I was skinny and tall and had a dead tooth I refused to have pulled. He because, well, the obvious I suppose. Although it never really bothered me (outside of his killing my ma), so our not being all that liked, or popular, certainly aided the strength of our friendship.

  At university things went along as they did for anyone. We each made new friends, but stayed tight nonetheless. When one of the guys in Death’s new circle hung himself over a girl, some of the others held him accountable, or at least culpable, and he fell out a bit with that group. So it was important to him that he and I stayed tight, as sort of a fall back I imagine, but I had no problem with it. He was my fall back, as well. That’s what best friends are for, init?

  It was near the end of our second year that he came to me one morning, head bowed, and asked to speak with me in private. It gave me a bad feeling, and my guts were found to be right a few minutes later when he told me.

  Turned out my dad was to be taken later that day.

  “He’s gonna choke on a lambchop bit,” Death said. “At dinner, alone. I’m sorry. But,” he continued, almost excitedly, “I wanted to give you a heads up, you know? So that you wouldn’t be sore, like last time.”

  I nodded and took it all in. I loved my dad, and would miss him horribly. I wasn’t sure what the world was going to look like without my parents, both dying so young, so tragically. Still, it was aces of him to tell me ahead of time.

  “Can I call him? Just… say hello one last time?”

  Death looked at me, met my eyes kinda funny, very serious like. “You can’t warn him,” he said. “It won’t matter, anyway.”

  “I know,” I said. “I won’t.”

  He kept looking at me a minute, and just as I was getting a creepy-crawly sensation up my spine, he smiled and nodded, put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Sure, mate. I’ll step out, give you some privacy. I got a thing to do, anyway.”

  So I called Da, and just asked him how he was doing. If he was holding up all right. It was a nice talk, one of the nicer we’d ever had. We both told the other that we loved them, and part of me wondered if maybe he knew, if maybe… well, he knew who my friends were, didn’t he?

  I did inquire, albeit seamlessly into the rest of the conversation, if his insurance was paid up (it was).

  I hung up and started packing. A few days later, I was at his funeral, Death at my side.

  * * *

  After a few awkward encounters with the opposite sex, and after much comparing of notes, Death and I both found girls to mess with at school. He more than I, however.

  Death just didn’t have as much trouble with the ladies as I did (dead tooth, etc.). He had the goth girls pretty much wrapped around his finger, and no one ever dared mess with him at parties, and he often had his drinks bought for him at the pub by some bloke attempting to bribe his good graces. But the girls he attracted were thrill-seekers for the most part, and never stuck. He was just another cock, after all, and whenever he’d be dumped we’d get a pint and laugh about it. Still, I knew it made him sad, and that he’d genuinely liked one or two of the girls, so I did my best to cheer him up if I could.

  “Don’t matter,” he’d say, after three or four drinks, “like I always tell you, we all die alone in the end, I can fucking guarantee you that, my friend.”

  It made me sad when he talked about death, which I know is stupid, or ironic, but he had a way of speaking on the subject with such authority that it never came off as small talk as it might with other folks. When he spoke on it, he knew of what he was talking about, that’s for damn sure. So it gave some weight to it, you know? Like a weatherman talking about global warming. Just rings more true, yeah? Authorities and such.

  As for my love life, it’s pretty simple.

  Mary.

  Just Mary, my one and only. I fell for her like a ton of bricks in our third year. We were both studying astronomy, both fascinated with the stars, and we became study partners after being forced into it our first week of class when random lots were drawn. Teacher’s way of getting folks to know one another, I guess. Still, we did, and we are, if you know my meaning.

  Mary and I married at the clerk’s office, with only her sister and mother present on her side (her dad being estranged), and just Death next to me, handing me the ring, being my best man. After, we all went for drinks, and had a time of it. Death danced with Mary, her sister and her mum, which was sweet, and the small band played a waltz for our wedding dance.

  * * *

  Time marches on, though, and as the years passed Death and I grew apart.

  Mary and I took a place in the city, and Death travelled quite a bit on business, so it was a matter of stationary versus motion. Still, we saw each other on holidays, and he always had some pale-faced, black-haired lass on his arm, so I suppose he was happy in a way. I certainly was.

  Mary and I got on even better in marriage than we had as lovers. We were soul-mates, Mary and I. It’s true. I took a job at an insurance firm (selling life insurance, primarily), and Mary wanted to teach, being a lover of children. We couldn’t have any of our own, but that’s a story for another day.

  But life goes on, grows complex, grows… well, just grows, doesn’t it?

  Didn’t see Death much, often a year would go by and we wouldn’t even speak. When I did see him, he always seemed a bit down, a bit peevish. Complained about the job and all that. It was hard, I guess. Lots of travel. Tough work, I’d think. Certainly not the most uplifting of professions. I worried about him quite a bit, being lonely, a cast-off. It’s a hard life, being Death.

  “And how’s Mary?” he asked one evening over pints, having met me during a layover on his way to the States.

  “Oh, fine, fine,” I answered. “Still teaching. Loves it, though, just loves it.”

  “And how’s her darling sister? Fanny.”

  And so it went on. Small talk and catching up. He still single, me still married and living the nine-to-five. Layovers and holidays. Occasional dinners and phone calls. E-mails. He’d tell me of exotic places, of strange adventures.

  Years went by, and they were happy years. All of them. I loved her so.

  * * *

  He took Mary in her 63rd year.

  He sat with me afterward, as she lay in the other room, skin cooling. We’d moved to a house by then. Garden out back, long drive through trees in front. She was setting to retire. I had already done so a few years back. We had planned to travel, to see more of the world. There was just so much we hadn’t seen, so much we hadn’t done. I missed her in the past, and the future, if that makes sense. Sad both ways.

  We sat on my sofa, his hand on mine. He looked younger than me, by decades truth be told. He said he aged slower than most. Not me. I’d aged right on schedule. Grown a nice belly, lost most of the hair, wore spectacles to see the labels on my and Mary’s medicine.

  Mary, despite being technically a month my elder, had always looked younger than me, I can tell you. Almost as young as Death himself. She’d been so beautiful, so energetic. And now she was gone, and I was truly, desperately, alone.

  “You made it quick, yeah?” was all I could say, and he nodded.

  “Of course, mate. I do what I can,” he said, and I nodded, and cried. He put his arm over my shoulder as I slobbered and despaired, hating life, hating him.

  As he was leaving, I stopped him, and you could say it was pity, but it wasn’t that, it was anger, and selfishness. That’s the truth of it.

  “Don’t come,” I said. “To the funeral. Don’t come.”

  He didn’t turn, didn’t look at me. Just stood by the open door, head bowed. A dark figure against the pale morning light, an empty man, a lonely man. He nodd
ed, but then said, “I’d like to. I loved her.”

  “No, thanks,” I answered. “Don’t think I want to see you again, actually.” And, without another word between us, I went to say goodbye to my wife, to wet her dress with my tears.

  Nearly twenty years went by after that day, and I regretted my words every one of them. I missed Mary, and I missed my friend.

  Because I never did see him again.

  Until the end, that is.

  * * *

  “Come for me, then?” I said.

  I was in my early eighties, not sure which exact one because I’d stopped counting; and besides, they’d been eventless years.

  I was in the garden, watching bees steal pollen from Mary’s flowers. The place was more overgrown now than when she’d tended it, but I was old, and tired, and could only do what I could to keep it going.

  I sensed him before I saw him, standing by the back door, watching me watch the bees.

  He walked toward me without a word, sat down lightly in the garden chair neighboring my own, a small table between us with a glass of iced tea perspiring on its top. We sat in silence, watched the sun lower in the sky, watched the birds flitter about, watched the long grass lean in the breeze.

  “Drink?” I said, still not looking at his face, not wanting to see what expression he’d be wearing. “Iced tea is the strongest I have these days, I’m afraid.”

  He said nothing a moment, and I waited, listening to the wind rustle the tall flowers. “I’m sorry, John,” he said finally, and I heard the despair in his voice. It sent a chill through me.

  “Nah,” I said lightly, holding back my fear. “I’m ready. Have been since Mary passed. No point, really.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m sorry about everything. If I could… I had no choice, mate…”

  I bowed my head and started to weep. Just an old man crying in his garden. Pathetic, really.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, and wiped my face with my poorly laundered shirtsleeve. “You’re still my best friend, and I understand. I’m sorry I told you not to come to Mary’s funeral. That was wrong of me.”

  I could see him nodding in my peripheral vision and, finally, I turned to face my oldest friend.

  He’d aged. Not as much as I, but certainly more than I’d expected. It was a hard life, I suppose. Must take its toll like anything.

  “So what’s it to be then?” I asked, smiling at him, feeling warmth when he smiled back. “The old heart failure? Like our piano tutor? Not very original, that.”

  He laughed, and the sky lightened. “No, John, I’m not here to take you.”

  I must admit, for all my talk, I really wasn’t ready. I was actually quite scared being honest, and so was thankful to hear him say it. “No?” I said, not sounding too relieved, lest he give me shit about it.

  “No,” he said, then nodded toward the edge of the garden. “Have a look, mate.”

  Mary stood there, young and beautiful and vibrant as the day I’d first met her. I was astounded, and leapt to my feet in happy surprise, a surprise quickly doubled by the spryness of my upward spring, at how the knee joints hadn’t creaked when I bounced up, how my back hadn’t murmured a complaint, at how very detailed the flowers were.

  I turned to him and almost laughed at his smile of victory, of pleasure. He held out his hand and I took it, helped him up to stand beside me.

  “You said we all died alone,” I said, warmth and strength filling me.

  “Not my friends, they bloody don’t,” he said, and put a firm hand on my shoulder. “Mind if I stay a while?”

  “Not at all, mate,” I replied, growing brighter by the second.

  I felt Mary’s hand slip into mine, felt the soft warmth of her, and together we three looked on, in wonder, at the beautiful…