Wanderlust

Marlowe watched as the sun dipped down below the horizon, past the tall fir trees that lay in the distance. Orange rays of the day's last sunlight poured over the blue sky like spilled watercolors; the clouds were outlined in sparkling pink light, and the remaining sunshine glistened on the white snow.

He breathed in deeply and sighed. Another day gone--another day of his precious life was now spent. And time was running out; he only had two hundred days left.

Two hundred days of life. Two hundred sunsets and two hundred sunrises left for him to watch. He wasn't sure whether to call it a big number or a small one--how much was considered a big number, anyway? He stared at the snow as the last few drops of sunshine melted away, until all he could see was the glittering stars above and the black sky.

"Funny seeing winter in summer, huh?" he said.

Zipper whined slightly and rested his head on Marlowe's knee. He absentmindedly stroked the little dog's head, trying to make out patterns in the stars. "If you connect those," he said, pointing, "it sort of looks like a cat."

Zipper gave a wag of his tail. Then he whined slightly.

"I know," Marlowe sighed. "I know."

***

"You're leaving already?" Leila said in surprise as Marlowe dropped three duffle bags by the front door. Zipper followed him from room to room, his tail wagging--he loved it whenever they moved.

"I have to," Marlowe answered. "There's only 199 days left--I can visit twenty more countries in that time, if I hurry."

His sister sighed. "Why don't you just go back home?" she persisted. "You should be spending the rest of your time with our parents, not jumping from place to place. Besides, it might make you s--"

"It won't make me sicker," Marlowe cut her off. He brought out a red suitcase from his room and lined it up next to the other two he had already packed. "We've talked about this before. I want to see the rest of the world before it happens."

Before he died.

Leila sighed again. "Where are you going this time?" she asked. "I wish you could stay here longer, I've missed you."

Marlowe slipped on his coat. "Australia is great," he said. "And I've missed you too--but I've only visited ten countries. I need to see more of them. I'm going off to Mexico."

Leila nodded sadly. "All right," she relented. "Bring me back a taco."

Marlowe smiled. "I'll try," he said.

***

On the plane, there was a little booklet called To the Moon and Beyond. Since he hadn't brought any reading material with him, he paged through it.

Astronauts, while orbiting earth, can see up to sixteen sunsets and sunrises a day...

That was a lot. Marlowe imagined himself orbiting space, in a huge white spaceship. He'd be able to see sixteen sunsets and sixteen sunrises every day--with the time he had left, that would mean he'd be able to see 6,368 sunsets and sunrises.

It would be like living sixteen times longer. Instead of 199 days left, he'd have 3,184. That would be almost nine years.

Instead of dying at nineteen, he'd die at twenty-eight.

It was still too young, but he would take as many years as he could.

***

Usually when people win the lottery, they spend it on luxuries, such as a huge house, cars, and fancy food. A few people--nice, generous people--might donate it to charity.

Marlowe used it on plane tickets.

Ever since his eighteenth birthday, he'd been buying lottery tickets. He'd watched his parents try and try to get the winning number, but they never did. Leila always said it was a waste of time and money. "Imagine all the candy bars you could've bought," she scolded him.

She kept her words to herself once he won.

He could hardly believe it; he just stared, speechless, as the number that was on his ticket was announced.

"What will you do with the money?" his parents asked the moment he got it. "College? A house? Those are reasonable choices."

But he only shook his head at them. "I'm going to travel the world," he said.

And he did.

So far, he'd visited ten countries--Mexico was to be the eleventh. He'd seen Madagascar and Malaysia, Ireland and Scotland, India and China, Russia and Japan, and Indonesia and Pakistan. He made it his goal--his life's purpose--to visit fifty in all.

But it wasn't meant to be.

***

"Any health issues?" the man at the counter asked.

Marlowe sighed. "Mesothelioma," he said. "Cancer."

The man winced. "You look so young," he said. "Don't only old people get that?"

Marlowe shrugged. "Well, I got it," he said. "Can I go rock climbing or not?"

The man gave him an apologetic look. "Afraid not," he said. "You best not take any risks... why don't you take a walk by Mexico City's Historic Center?"

***

On his 190th day--the last day he would be in Mexico--Marlowe leaned against a tall papaya tree, absentmindedly digging holes in the soft sand with his fingers as he watched the sunrise. He loved sunrises, maybe even more than he loved sunsets. The gentle orange and pink breaking over the night sky was beautiful. He watched as dawn made itself present, and the moon slowly drifted out of sight.

He coughed.

190 more days.

He wanted to cry.

The doctor had said he had around twelve months--one year. That was 365 days, although it could happen sooner or later. But he was counting, trying to make himself think he had an exact date so he could be prepared. Sometimes he had nightmares of him dying, the sickness creeping up on him and surprising him so that it was too late to do anything. Too late to visit more countries. Too late to see the rest of the world. Too late to watch the sunsets and sunrises.

Because every day the sun set, so did a part of his life. And every day the sun rose, a new opportunity came.

He just wished he had more.

***

"You have a bad case of wanderlust," Leila once told him when he was just ten years old. She had been eighteen at the time, almost ready to leave home and move to Australia.

"What's wanderlust?" he asked her.

"It's when you always want to keep going somewhere else, and not want to stay in the same place," Leila explained with a smile. "You always want to keep moving, don't you?"

He did. As he grew up, he always begged his parents to move to another house; he loved change, and he loved moving. He loved it when they went on a vacation to the beach, and once in a while they would visit a distant relative in another country. It had always been his dream to travel the world.

He just wished he could do it at his own pace, instead of hurrying to get to the next country before he died.

***

After Marlowe left Mexico, he visited five more countries; he dined in the fancy restaurants of France, ate ravioli in Italy. He had admired the rose of Sharon trees in Korea, and swam in the blue waters of Hawaii. Though Hawaii couldn't truly be called a country by itself, he felt as if it was. The rest of America wasn't as bright, he observed. And lastly, he went to Germany, where the summer was light and airy.

But that was it.

Only sixteen countries, and he had wanted to see fifty.

***

"Sixteen is better than nothing," his mother said with a wide smile. She'd been smiling for days and simply couldn't stop. Leila was laughing too; her grin brightened up the room and was shining even stronger than the sunrises Marlowe had seen on his travels.

"Woof!" Zipper yapped, running around the room and chasing his tail.

Leila wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight. "I'm so glad you decided to come back," she said.

He smiled. "Me too," he said.

"And I'm glad both of you came to visit," their mother said. Their father laughed and the room was filled with sounds of happiness.

He was twenty-one now.

The doctors were wrong.

He survived.

His heart swelled as he looked around at his smiling family. The treatments had worked; spending the rest of his lottery money on them was completely worth it. He hadn't had enough left over for any more tickets, but he didn't care. Tears sprang to his eyes. Only twenty percent of people with mesothelioma survived after five years of their diagnosis; his doctor said that, with the health he had now, he might even live longer than that.

"Maybe you can stay here for awhile, at least a few months," his mother said hopefully. "Both of you can."

Marlowe smiled. "Why don't we all take a trip to Thailand?" he suggested.

It was never too late for wanderlust.