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Restser t1_iw9dttx wrote

Remains of the Day

Mortality, or our sense of it, rarely comes to mind when we're young. My eyes were first opened when I was nine. A schoolfriend was hit by a car. It's different when it's close, for then the heart pumps and the head swims. That was so long ago, yet I remember hearing the news, then thinking for the first time that life is an allotment of time and its quantum a mystery.

I'm sitting on my couch staring at the aquarium. Is my perspective that different from theirs? I have no more ability to see the future than these fish, just more awareness that there is one, limited though it is. I often reflect on the past, mainly because it's the only passage of time I have experience of. What is to come amounts to a wishlist, what has been merely tickmarks with thousands of footnotes for events I never planned. Some of those accompany deep regrets.

When time is short I think we become jealous of how we spend it. My list is filled with things I never got around to doing and now can't - building a boat, seeing Machu Pichu, taking a trip to space. For the few I can, I waste the remains of the day trying to choose among them the one that will be most fitting. Perhaps I will paint. The longing has been there since I was a lad. The appeal is strong for the same reason I ignored it for so long; it lacks excitement. A sedentary pastime suits my aging mood. Besides, unlike life, I can paint over my mistakes.

[WC: 271]

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katpoker666 t1_iwnk1d2 wrote

I like this thoughtful contemplation on life, Restser. It might be me but it feels more like an essay than a story piece in that there’s a lot of telling but not so much showing.

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Restser t1_iws09ny wrote

Thanks katpoker66 for reading and commenting. You are right about the style. I try to write these pieces in a single pass with a single edit review. I had trouble getting sufficiently close to MC's mind to make this work the way I'd like. There's always next week.

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