Once a week – no, sometimes twice – the old-man gets to hear the gentle thump on his door.
Even Winny, a black-coated blue-eyed cat, finds a pep in her step and perks up at the sound of it. For a while, it would arrive as soon as the little ding for his coffee went off to let him know it was done brewing. It no longer arrives at the same time every week, though this doesn’t bother him. He enjoys the lack of consistency. In his old age, he believes consistency will lead to his inevitable death. That was something his wife Charlotte believed and then instilled in him. Charlotte was rather superstitious. Her family was involved in the occult while she was growing up. She told him early in their relationship that she didn’t like to speak about her childhood, so he never asked. He knew her as the woman she was, and that was good enough for him.
The paper hasn’t arrived yet this morning, a stroke of luck. It gives him time to brew coffee and head to the store. He grabs two mugs from the cabinet—a dark translucent mug with some engravings on it and a simplistic white mug with a small drawing of a man fishing into a bucket. He fills them to the brim with hot water to keep warm while he’s away.
The old-man’s hobbled home is in an old fisherman’s supply shop on the water. The front end remains that of the fisherman’s shop, the back end is what he and Charlotte made into a home. A small kitchen, and a bedroom that matches its size. The kitchen is old but held together well and surrounded by windows, along with a backdoor view of the misty endless sea.
There was once a rocky wooden bridge that connected it to town, but that has long since crumbled into the sea. The old-man takes a small raft into town now. He doesn’t recall when it crumbled. He believes it was sometime after Charlotte passed, it could have been slightly before, but he didn’t notice.
Winny lets out a yawn and a stretch as she lifts herself from the counter. She rubs her face on the register before hopping off and making her way to the door. Winny paws at it three times before she stops and stares at the old-man, waiting for him to open it.
As soon as the old-man and Charlotte moved in, Winny appointed herself the shopkeeper, making a home for herself on the counter near the register. She must do a great job because the register is always full of new bills and change. The old-man doesn’t question it. He only ever takes out just enough cash for the groceries and tip. Before leaving, he puts on his newsie cap, a brown and very well-worn jacket, and then he makes his way out.
Sitting in the raft with Winny on his lap, the coolnesswith the coolness of the ocean breeze hitting his pale and wrinkled face, gives him a feeling of rejuvenation. The salt of the ocean water curls the fine hairs of his beard. The salt from the ocean water sits in his beard, giving the hairs a curl. Along the way, he sees giant wooden stakes piercing out of the sea; Charlotte would say they were the fangs of a monster that dwelled beneath them.
When Charlotte’s condition worsened, she liked to go deep out to sea, so far out that they could no longer view their home or the town. When they got that far out, she would ask the old-man the same question
“Can you hold me?”
He’d look into her emerald eyes, still full of life even when nearing the end.
“I only ever stop because you ask,”
He wrapped her in his arms and blanket, each time holding her like it would be the last. When holding her, he wondered if she saw his age with each wrinkle, or if she saw him as the young man from the pictures with his hand held high in triumph. As they lay together, staring off into the nothingness that is the ocean and their home, she would sing a song. Hours would pass before they’d decide to head back. Even though they were directionless, they somehow always made it back safely.
The old-man docks at the edge of the broken bridge. Thankfully for him, the ladder is still intact. As the years pass and the strength he once took so much pride in fades, he wonders if there will be a day sometime soon when he can no longer pull himself up the ladder. He grits his teeth as he pulls himself up, Winny on his shoulder. Today is not that day. That day is not today, so he pulls himself up with Winny on his shoulder. Winny hops off onto her own adventure while he embarks on his way into town, lost in his thoughts.
They made plans to leave the big city as soon as she got her diagnosis. The timing was oddly perfect because the that same big city was about to implode on itself. Not exactly the greatest place to spend your final moments. While they were scouring for an escape, the matured man remembered a fishing town his father would take him to when he was but a spry boy and hair wouldn’t be on his face for years.
They packed up the most important parts of their lives and left the rest as they drove to the small fishing town. They didn’t know what would await them, but they were okay as long as they were doing it together.
The town was far off into the coast and had a constant mist settled. Nothing about it had changed since he was a boy. Every building still had a sandy-wooden exterior. None of the buildings had become dilapidated from the years and storms that made their way. When she saw the town, Charlotte made a comment that didn’t quite register with the matured man. “It reminds me of my childhood,” she said.
The pair made their way through the coastal town, coming to the dock where a “For Sale” sign sat beside the wooden bridge., far off in the distance, on the water at the end of the bridge, on the water sat a fisherman's supply shop. What would quickly become their home.
The owner, a younger woman who wanted nothing more than to be as far from water as possible, was burdened with her father’s store. She couldn’t manage the upkeep or the payments.
When Charlotte and the old man arrived with our offer, all she countered with was, “Cash. It has to be in cash,”
They obliged. The moment they handed her the money, she smiled, said “Thank you,” and walked out the door, taking. Taking nothing with her aside from the cash. She left everything behind, all the fishing poles, bait, netting, family memorabilia, pictures, and a cat that they would come to name Winny.
Throughout his stay, the mist has grown. With each passing month, the mist becomes thicker and heavier, so much so that even those with perfect vision cannot see further than twenty feet ahead of them. Which wouldn’t be much of a problem for the old-man, as he’s lived here for years and should know where everything is, but the buildings in the town seem to shift each time he comes in for a visit. Older buildings are replaced with ones that have a fresh coat of paint, new ones are replaced with the old ones again. No longer are they over here, they’re over there. A labyrinth of a town that has a foothold in the past, present, and future. Remaining a forever constant.
Unlike any other building in the town, the grocery store has a foothold as far as location is concerned. The aesthetics and products sold, on the other hand, are a revolving door. At times, neon lights shine like a beacon to the old-man, and other times it just has a wooden sign with an arrow directed to the store. Sometimes they have cool ranch Doritos and sometimes they only have nacho. That’s always a disappointment for the old-man, he quite enjoys cool ranch.
He enters and is blinded by a luminescent light that coats everything. Meanwhile, a soft jazz tune plays over the radio. This process is always quick and efficient. He grabs some cans of soup, a jug of water, three apples, four oranges, and luckily for him, a bag of cool ranch Doritos. He leaves exact change on the counter and a couple of extra dollars for a tip.
With each step leaving the store and making his way through town, he can hear the shifting of it all. Each new piece and building block is being replaced and reimagined and just waiting for his return. He carefully levers down each one of his groceries and climbs down the ladder. Once he steps onto the small boat, he hears a gentle “meow” and Winny hops down into his arms.
As he makes his way back home, off in the distance beyond the mist and below the water, he can hear the calling siren song. He closes his eyes and just listens. It reminds him of Charlotte and puts him at ease on his journey back.
Once again, he makes his way up the ladder, holding onto the bags in his hands and biting onto them with his teeth. His left-hand slips a bit, but his right holds on strong. He murmurs to himself, “Maybe next time,” as a vision of falling into the cold blue water, where only silence and peace may envelop him in the arms of Charlotte, runs through his mind. This thought puts him at ease.
Upon entering, Winny immediately returns to the counter and nuzzles up to the register. The old-man gives her a few pats and listens to her purr. “Good girl, good girl.” Then he returns to his home just in time to hear the ding of the coffee and the gentle thump. The old-man opens the door and finds no one waiting for him, just the morning paper at his feet, but off in the distance he can hear a jaunty whistle slowly disappear into the endless mist that surrounds him.
A wrinkled smile forms on his face and he grabs the paper and closes the door behind him. Before he can read it, he dumps the hot water from the mugs and fills each one with the freshly brewed pot. His, as always, is black, and Charlotte’s has an inch of cream and sugar. Finally he sits, taking small sips, savoring each moment. He opens the paper and reads the events of the past, present, and future of a world that no longer matters to him.
