He fights daily to remember as his thoughts are held captive, and his world goes silent and fades. He says his prayers every night, lying in a bed he shared for so many years, and all he has left of it is a cloudy image and distant scent that seems to surround her picture on the nightstand. He doesn't regret his life. It was complete and held meaning until it didn't. He looks in the mirror and laughs at the vision he sees, wondering who this ancient being staring back at him is. Surely not him. The faucet drips as he holds a razor, preparing to shave as he did every day back then. But he shuts the water off and puts the razor down, asking himself who he was trying to impress. Who would see his freshly shaven face with patches of missed strokes and tiny pieces of toilet tissue to soak up the blood? Just him? Today and every day, he looks through photo albums, trying to put names to faces and places he has traveled with her. Some draw a blank as he turns another page and finds the empty white spaces a reminder that like pictures life has an ending that even memories can't find.
Mike 2024
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