Kirschbaum’s Folly
Kirschbaum placed the flowers on the bedside table closest to the window and pondered their varied, colorful life as he listened to the raspy breath behind him. The sigh from his mouth was deep as he turned and sat down to face the dying old man lying withered and sleeping in the only bed of this tight, white, and sterile room.
He felt stupid now; foolish really. The selfish thoughts early this morning seemed so petty but as he tried to pry them away from his mind they only dug in deeper. He had met his birthday morning with one desperate wish: if getting back at least half of his fifty years on this earth carried a price he would pay it smiling. Kirschbaum had sat drinking tea at his kitchen table wanting only the ability to peel back the errors in judgment, lost opportunities, things he had said or didn’t say, and roll them up like a tired old carpet and toss them in the dumpster.
These thoughts made the morning unique only for the fact it was the day of his birth and the wistful feeling he normally had when accounting all the misplaced steps in his past a fire-stoked fervor to truly make it so had replaced it. Kirscbaum had sat there drinking his tea with the lavender ’For My Loving Husband’ birthday card his wife had left for him tossed in the trash, and had come to one startling, undeniable conclusion about his life.
“The square root of fuck all,” he thought in his balance and ledger trained mind, is the very existence I open my eyes to each day. He rose up then, washed his cup in the sink and placed it in the strainer to dry and walked out the door.
He gazed now at the dry old face that slept deep before him and realized, with the clarity of an afternoon sun breaking through the last cloud, his folly. He looked at the familiar face and could almost see his lips moving, and hear the lightly winking voice of the man in his head. “Regret; useless thing to bother with, only thing it does is build more of the same and all you can do is carry it with you on your back.” Kirschbaum stared am him and since they were alone, laughed out loud and clapped his hands together with delighted guilt.
He thought then of the lavender card lying with mocking disdain in the trash and decided he would leave and get home early to get it out, dust it off and place it on their chest of drawers. He would, in fact, end this silliness today. This doe-eyed girl and motels paid in cash held nothing but further regret over him. If the square root of fuck all was his life then he would live it, and live it as well as he could, for as long as he could. And infidelity could not bring back a dead son.
Kirschbaum stood and after briefly brushing the fresh flowers with his hand, kissed the sleeping old man on the forehead thinking how strange it was to be the last walking, living person, with his name.
“I’ll bring Maggie with me tomorrow brother,” he said, “if you’re up for it, maybe we’ll play some checkers.”
Tags: death, Fiction, flash fiction
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