Consider that language is always one step ahead: read words attain meaning through the life experience of the reader, not the author. Remember how a person’s life is like water cupped momentarily from the bottomless bowl of the universe? And how when the vessel tires, the water returns, only to be scooped again, partly or entirely?

You can’t say I haven’t at least laid the groundwork.

I know you probably wouldn’t say it to my face, but even if you do believe all this is simply the washed-out philosophy of a dying man trying to bargain his way back into life⁠—even one without memory⁠—because the idea of living again mitigates fear of impending nothingness, then just let me go on. Give me that luxury. Please. There isn’t much I’ve asked for these past few months (except for small things like Marmite).

Truthfully, I didn’t believe in any of this two years ago. Though, to be honest, that was probably because I had never thought about it.

I knew this day would come⁠—I just thought Hadley and I would be old, bedridden eccentrics who chew with their mouths open and keep the radio turned up to eleven.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re not just tools for nature with the illusion of free will. Take that night when Alan and Daphne joined us for the last supper, for instance, the evening of my big reveal to Hadley. Maybe it wasn’t a chance encounter, but nature insisting on Hadley’s survival in the form of a horny dentist and a magnanimous ex-wife.

Oh, bugger, hold on . . . someone is looking at me through the mesh window in the door.

It’s the doctor.

Knocks while entering, as usual.

All smiles, as usual.

Time passes.

The doctor came in to say she’d be back at the end of her rounds. I hope she doesn’t return when Hadley and Jeremy are here. I like to enjoy their company in peace, not while being probed like an undercooked chicken.

Twenty minutes have elapsed since I typed that last sentence.

I’ve had some time to think.

I also fluffed my pillow and looked at my face in a small mirror beside my bed.

It’s certainly not the face I remember as mine, I’ve lost so much weight. Physically, I shall die as a stranger to myself.

3.

“Tell me more,” said Carol. “If you feel like it.”

“Did I mention he was a dentist?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, anyway, Alan and his ex-wife basically ruined everything.”

“How so?”

“After such an unexpected surprise, I couldn’t tell Hadley about my condition.”

“Why is that, Max?”

“Well, in fiction it’s usually understood that you can’t have two big reveals in the same chapter . . . I think that’s also true for life.”

I paused as Carol jotted something down.