Another Life

Walt waits at his desk for the moment to end, then puts his fountain pen to the yellowed page and writes in exquisite cursive. When he reaches the last page, he pauses to let the ink dry, then shuts the leather-bound journal and places it in the brown trunk by his feet with the others.

"Six hundred pages. That should do it."

The kettle whistles to him from the kitchen, the same kettle he had burnt his arm on when he was five. The white scar had since weathered, lost under folds of wrinkles and a thin layer of hair, but always he remembered and then remembers he must pack it as well.

The empty cupboard above him homes a lonely earthenware mug with his mother's initials on it. It was the only mug he wanted to keep using. In the drawer below him containing just one knife, one fork and one spoon, an oddly ornate silver teaspoon shines back at him. His father was indeed a strange fellow.

Warmed by the first morning sun of the summer, Walt brings his coffee into the sitting room, slides into the red armchair and contemplates all he has written. One of the other leather journals catches him and he picks it up and flicks through the yellowed leaves, filled with his fine handwriting.

"Oh, that's where I got it from." He places it back with care, and turns to the empty bookshelf, save for one more leather-bound journal.

"The last one," he says aloud to no-one in particular, but with a tilt of his head towards Kathleen's chair. He finishes his coffee, rises to meet the last book, then returns to his writing desk and continues as he did earlier, transforming each of the passing moments into words that will live on eternally.

His exercise halts with an abrupt flap of the metal letter box. Brow furrowed, he leaves his desk and finds a small cream envelope addressed to him in calligraphic writing. He opens it, reads it, and a nervous anxiety creeps up to him.

"Walter," the letter begins. "There has been a change of plans. The coachman will arrive this evening to take you onwards. Sincerely, J. Ferryman."

He runs back to the living room to continue his writing, tripping over the brown trunk, but catching himself safely on the desk chair. When he kicks the trunk in anger, a side compartment clicks open and gapes at him like an empty void. It had been on the side of the trunk, but he had never seen it before. The anxiety mutates into a monstrous terror.

Panicked, Walt seizes the rotary dial telephone near the front door and dials a number written on an adjacent notepad.

"Yes, Mr O'Mahony?" the phone answers.

"Yes, it's me. Look, I got your letter."

"Did you honestly contact me just to tell me what I already know?" the person asks.

Walt puts the receiver between his eyes, and presses the cold device against his forehead, before he replies: "Please, just give me more time. I didn't realise."

"The instructions were clear."

"Yes, yes, I know that but..."

"So you are aware of the consequences of not putting everything into that suitcase," the person says, statement-like and not as a question.

"Yes, but...no," Walt snaps. Then his tone hardens and turns petulant. "No, that's not fair, you tricked me!"

"If there is nothing else you wish to discuss, I shall end our call. Have a pleasant afterlife."

The phone dies, and leaves Walt with the terrifying realisation that his time has come. His anger passes like one of the infinite moments he has written about, and leaves him resigned. He returns to his writing desk, finishes the last journal, but knows there is still room in the last compartment.

Upstairs, Walt has a dreamless sleep, until awoken by the last burn of the setting sun shining through his curtains. Of the room he has occupied for the past few decades, only the bed and the dresser remain. Ferryman had advised he could leave those behind. His clothes, including the suits he wore to his first Holy Communion, his confirmation and his wedding, the trinkets he and Kathleen had collected over the years, even her clothes he had been unable to sell, could now be found within one of the infinite compartments of the suitcase. When he had first received it by delivery, he was worried that everything he ever owned and everything he had ever done would simply not fit. Now, he faced the opposite problem.

Right of his bedroom, he enters another room. The crib, unused, had already been packed. All that remained were the animals he had once spent days drawing on the walls, though they were now interred somewhere between the leaves of his journals.

A gurgle of Walt's stomach entices him downstairs, but he feels no usual joy when he fries the eggs and the bacon and pops the toast. He eats as an automaton, then washes his plate and cutlery, the frying pan, cleans the toaster, and piles them all into the suitcase. With the last of the bread and cheese, he makes a sandwich for his journey.

The clock ticks, and he turns the lights on when it gets too dark. He slumps back in the armchair and stares at the aimless, empty void of the last compartment of the trunk. Kathleen's chair fits perfect, but he decides to leave his own chair. Ferryman had said it was okay. As he lifts Kathleen's chair, her familiar scent, dulled but not disappeared, greets him like an old lover. As he puts the chair in, he looks back at the journals. Eyes narrowed, he picks out one of the journals and flicks through it. Then he finds it. The number.

Walt hurtles to the phone, and dials the number.

"The number you have dialled has not been recognised."

"No, no, no," he groans.

He dials it again, slowly this time in case he missed a digit in his panic.

"Hello?" the other person yawns.

"Mike?"

"Who is this?"

"It’s Walter."

"Walter?" Mike asks.

"Kathleen and Walter."

Mike sighs. "What do you want?"

"Could you take me to the airport?"

"Walter, I'm retired. And even if I wasn't..."

"But you know drivers, right? Just give me someone to call."

Mike says nothing for a moment. "Have you nothing else to say for yourself?"

"Now is not the time, Michael!" Walter bellows. "Look, I can’t explain now, please just send someone, anyone. I just need to get out of here now."

"It will cost you."

"Yes, that won’t be a problem. Please, just get a driver out here."

Mike yawned down the phone. "Alright, I'll ask someone. But after this, I never want to speak to you again. What I said at the funeral? I still mean it."

They both hang up at the same time. Walt returns to the sitting room. The clock on the wall ticks. Each second, he commits to his last remaining journal until it is finished and he puts it in the trunk, the last belonging. When no-one arrives within the quarter of an hour, he slumps back in his chair. The coachman would be here soon.

The door knocks. He stands up, takes a last look around, and then puts on his coat and lifts his trunk by the handle and wheels it to the front door. He opens and sees a small, slight man with a name badge and a large black beard.

"Cab to the airport?"

Walter smiles. "Yes, thank you."

The man reaches for the trunk. "Travelling light, aren't we?" he asks when he lifts it to place into the car boot.

On the way to the airport, the driver's phone rings. He answers with one hand, frowns then looks up at Walt in the rear view mirror.

"Someone calling for you? Ferryman?"

Walter grins, takes the phone from the driver. "Yes, J.?"

"That was a very big mistake, Mr O'Mahony."

"Well, you never said otherwise."

"You'll never see her again, you know that right?"

"I suppose I won't," Walter sighs.

"What are you going to do now?"

"I suppose I will seek another life."

"I shall not spoil the ending for you, Mr O'Mahony. Have a pleasant life."

Walt hands the phone back to the driver, and looks out at the night sky, gazing at the stars waving him goodbye.