"Sometimes the sun won't come up..."
He said that with a mysterious smile on his lips, as if it was some sort of big secret. A pleasant one. She could not grasp the meaning of it, the point of that sentence. It just sounded empty, impossible, crazy.
"The sun always comes up", she replied. "It always goes down, and it always comes up again."
They were looking at the sunset, holding hands, as couples should. It was all supposed to be very romantic, she guessed, but even the air tasted plastic. It was all fake, all overdone. They just did what they were supposed to, what they'd seen in movies and read in books. It was all just another picture in another magazine. They were just another pair off chess-pawns trying to fit into their little black and white squares.
"The sun don't have to come up again.." He picked a couple of flat stones, made them skip on the surface of the water seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve times. She counted. The effect on the water, still orange and golden from the sunset, was amazing. It was breathtaking beautiful. but that only made her doubt that the world around her was real. That she her self was real. Not to mention the man by her side. But, looking at him, she started seeing him as more real than she had ever seen herself. or anything else, for that matter.
"Like, if I die right now.." he skipped another stone across the lake. "If I die right now, then I would already have seen my last sunrise. So, for me, the sun would never rise again". She shivered. The idea of losing him tonight was so hard, so cold that the warm summer wind, and the warm clothes didn't help any. She had never realised his mortality, before. Not in the fifty years they'd had together. Not even when he had been sick had she ever, even for a moment, said to her self that : "He might die." Her faith in his immortalty, in her own immortality, had neve failed her. It was him and her. Always had been, always would be.
"I've been seeing my doctor a lot, recently" he said, trying to walk her through this as carefully as he could. He'd been scared of doing this, scared of telling her this.
"Have you?" She was surprised. She was the one managing their doctor's appointments, their visits to the dentist, even their visits to their kids. And she'd known nothing about this.
"Yes, I have. I've got Laukemia..Blood-cancer.. I've had it for a while, and now I really feel I'm getting weaker. So I knew I had to tell you.." He still smiled his warm, mysterious smile.
"Could you.. can you get help? Is there any way of beating it?" She bit her lip nervously, knowing what the answer would be.
"You know I'd never do that. When I'm supposed to go, why change it? I've had my years. Many of them, and most of them happy." He hugged her, as he said that. She could feel his warmth, his strong arms around her, and found it hard to believe that this could be one of the last times.Still, she threw her arms around her, almost crushing him. Clinging to him, not willing to let go.
"You will not see me after tonight", he whispered into her ear. "I'll walk one way from this park, you'll walk another. And you won't see me again before my funeral. I've got some people that will take care of it. I've organized it all, written the speeches myself." She could not say anything. She could not move, could not understand what he was telling her..
"I will not let you see me as weakened by the decease. A pale, dying shadow of myself. I will not be remembered that way. I want you to remember me as who I am, without a care in the world, the dreamer, the philosopher. That's who I want you to remember. That's how I want to live on after my body's gone."He hugged his crying wife one last time, kissed her cheek, tasting her tears. Then he got his hat, and walked away. Never looking back.