The Retirement List

To say that Max Cameron had been excited to retire would be an understatement. He had longed for days where time would crawl by like a wounded insect. He couldn’t wait for the clock to become just another item of furniture, rather than his time-keeper glaring furiously from the corner of the room. Now that day had finally come. As he walked through his front door, after his last ever day, he knew that his new life was about to begin. Time, now, finally, stretched out before him like an open sky. 

On his first day off he hadn’t set his alarm, yet he woke at 5:42am, eighteen minutes prior to his usual morning call. Regardless of the early hour, he donned his slippers and sauntered off to his kitchen, keen as he was to make the most of his new unbridled time. Just like any other day, he popped two pieces of white bread into the toaster. Just like any other day, they jumped up hot and slightly burnt. Just like any other day, he placed them on a plain white dish and lavished them in salted butter. Unlike any other day, where he would wolf the toast down at an impressive speed and jump straight in the shower, he brought his plate back into his bedroom and got back into bed. Giggling like a naughty school boy, he pulled up the covers, and began to eat his still-warm breakfast. Max savoured each morsel, a few runaway crumbs spilling onto his duvet. He watched them fall, smiling to himself and turned on the TV. A familiar news anchor was nattering on about gale force winds. He was saying, ‘Red warning in North-East Engla-’, he quickly turned it back off and grabbed his notepad. He would no longer be a spectator, he would now be a doer, he thought to himself. 

The notepad bore the engraving of Meadwalk School, the school that he had dedicated the last forty-five years of his life to. He stroked the crest, not quite believing that he was never going back to work. Max had been a hard-working, yet forgettable member of the science department with more acquaintances than friends. He taught with fairness for the pupils and the subject and a dedication to just get the job done. 

‘The classroom is not a place for fun and laughter!’, he would tell the pupils who had messed around. He was there to teach, not to make friends, especially with his twenty-something head of faculty who had usurped him for the job a year previously. That’s all in the past, he thought to himself, now it was time to really live. Max turned to the page where he had written: ‘Things to do once I’ve retired.’ and began to read:

Ask Linda for a date. 

Travel!

Max hadn’t been on holiday for as long as he could remember, nor had he taken any trips or had any time off for that matter. About twenty years ago he had taken a huge pay cut, due to a newly elected prime minister cutting teachers' wages, and so Max began working another job during the school holidays and weekends. More than half of Max’s paycheque paid for his younger brother's care home, so by the time taxes, his mortgage and bills came out he was left with next to nothing. Therefore, when he wasn’t teaching snotty fourteen year olds about Newton’s Third Law he was at his local council doing repetitive administrative tasks. Like the posters on the wall of their small office, he was viewed as old and boring, and was therefore, rarely glanced upon. It suited him that way, he would say to himself, this was just work. A means to an end. Although if he was being honest, there was another reason why he had got the second job: Linda Jones. He first saw her when he was sitting on a park bench eating a burger from Mcdonalds on his lunch break. She had walked past in a smart lilac two piece suit carrying a salad and a book entitled: The Sky Is Your Limit. He looked up at her, chip oil dripping down his face, feeling the familiar twinge of arousal. The next day he returned to the same spot to see her majestically walking past again and into the Town Hall. The day after that, a Saturday, he had walked into the building and applied for a job. The job itself was soul destroying and the people soulless, but each time Linda had walked past his small desk and a window flew open in his heart. Max was a reasonable man, he knew he was no George Clooney, and his tight purse strings didn’t exactly cry: date me! So, his plan was, once he had retired, he would finally ask Linda out and they could travel the world together. He turned back to his list. 

Learn how to fly a plane. 

Max had wanted to be a pilot since he was a young boy. On one of her good days, his mother had taken him and his little brother Callum to a small runway to watch the beautiful antique planes take off. After they carried Callum out of his wheelchair, they stretched out on their picnic blanket and looked up at the pale blue sky spotted with white wisps and all took in a collective deep breath. The serene moment was punctured by the sound of a growling engine which sped off into the expanse above them. Max shot up, unblinking, adrenaline running through his body and watched the plane fade into blue.  ‘Did you see that?’ Max turned to Callum, his face alight. 

His brother’s face was solemn, a single tear falling onto the blanket beneath him. Neither of them had ever been on a plane. Although their mother worked tirelessly at the local fabric factory, she was the sole provider. The only traces of their father were left in the dregs of cider swirling in the bottom of their mothers glass each night. The boys would sit in front of the bright light of the television, taking it in turns to reach their hand over to their mother’s tiny wrists to feel her pulse when her snores had stifled. Those were the bad days, stuck in the cramped house, the only sound coming from the canned laughter of the TV. That day was not today though and in that moment, watching the planes wizz off into the sky, Max knew what he wanted to do. 

Now he was sixty-three and his life was about to take off, he just had to lose weight and become fit enough to pass the medical and he would soon be soaring. He glanced back down at the list:

Start cooking proper meals.

Start running. 

Lose weight. (At least 6st) 

Becoming healthy had been a hill that Max had been wanting to climb for a long time. But every time he took three steps up, he slid back down again. Like everyone else, he started out each week with good intentions but soon reality would steer him past the fruit and veg aisle and straight to the confectionery and before he knew it, he would be halfway through an entire chocolate cake before 8pm. As for exercise, he had never been particularly sporty growing up, in fact the only exercise he would ever do would be wheeling his younger brother around as he was rarely allowed to leave his side. There weren't enough hours in the day for Max to look after himself properly and so heartburn and indigestion were daily visitors. The hours that he did have to spare were spent visiting his brother at the care home, sitting by his bed as they watched A Place In The Sun on repeat. Ever since their mother had drank herself to an early grave when Max was 18, he had become his brother’s protector. The two black-cladded boys wept by her grave, grieving the life that she never had, the mother they never had. Once they returned home from the funeral, Max boxed up his copies of books about flying his letters from Cranfield Flying School and marched to the bin before he could change his mind. Walking past his brother in the living room, the bright light of the television casting shadows on the creases of his face, he knew he was doing the right thing. Max only had three weeks left of school, and he used those weeks to conduct a future whereby he had enough money to look after his brother. So, after Max had finished his final exam, his peers were all sipping vodka cokes in the nearby park and talking about their plans for the future, and he was washing test tubes in the school science lab - a skill he would perfect over the next forty-five years. Meticulously cleaning beakers day after day whilst his own plates grew mouldy in the sink. That would all change today though. He opened the fridge and looked at the contents: 

A microwave macaroni and cheese meal.

Half a cheesecake.

Milk.

He threw out everything except the milk and went to his bedroom to put on his running shoes. His plan was this: run to the shop, buy healthy ingredients for a healthy dinner. Then, walk back (the long way, past the Town Hall) and ask Linda if she would like to come for dinner tonight! Then he would go by the care home, and tell Callum the great news: he was finally going to apply for his pilot licence! Soon they would be soaring through the air towards a place in the sun. It was all perfect. 

Bursting with excitement and dressed in his newly purchased exercise gear, he pushed open his door and jogged down the garden path. He got no further than that. Blissfully unaware of the extremely windy weather, he was knocked off his feet by a flying wheelie bin and his head thwacked against the curb of the pavement. Below him, a thick red stream began to gush from his crown. Above him, the last thing he saw: the wide open sky.