It was my
birthday.
Tired and
covered in mud, I slowly made my way up the stairs to my apartment. My knees ached at the physical exertion – yet
another annoying reminder that I was no longer the spritely 25 year old I had
once been. In one hand, a long mud
covered shovel, in the other, a dirty pillowcase slung across my shoulder.
Reaching the
top of the stairs, I placed my thumb on the scanner. The front door slid open silently, and I
walked into the living room to see Mitch sat in front of the television. Our new apartment was indeed a modern marvel,
filled with stainless steel accoutrements and transparent aluminium
windows. We’d just moved in – no easy
task for a couple of old bastards – and Mitch had insisted upon a celebration
to mark the occasion. We had never lived
together in our youth, but now, as I approached my 65th birthday, I
found him an unlikely housemate. Despite
his cantankerous disposition, it was good to be living with my best friend.
“What took you
so long?” he asked, irritated, his stringy white hair dangling over his
spectacles.
“You try digging a grave with a
holographic heart!” I replied, still breathless from my ascent.
“Did you find
him?” he asked, glaring at me from the sofa.
Dumping the
shovel and pillowcase on the floor, I leaned against the wall and wiped the
sweat from my brow.
“Most of him”
I replied, my chest heaving.
“What do you
mean most of him?”
I motioned
towards the dirty pillowcase by my feet.
It sat, lopsided by the front door, its gruesome contents secured
within.
“Well come on
– let’s see him!”
Mustering up
what little energy I had left, I picked up the pillowcase and emptied its
contents onto the coffee table in the middle of the room sending a cloud of
fine brown dirt into the air.
“You’re
getting cranky in your old age”
“Shut up. I’ve always been cranky and you know it!”
With a groan, Mitch
hoisted himself up from his chair and slowly shuffled towards the table to
examine the pile of dirty human bones I had brought home.
“That’s all of
him?” Mitch asked as he regarded the
meagre pile on the table.
“It was the
best I could do!” I shouted, irritated after having spent my afternoon at a
cemetery.
I leaned down
and began examining the bones. Obtaining
them had been no easy task for a man of my age.
I’d never dug a grave before and was still fearful I had been photographed
by one of the federal drones.
“Right scapula…mandible…intercostal
rib…”
“What’s
this?” Mitch held up a large, long bone
with two bulbous ends.
“That’s a
femur. One of his legs”
Mitch held the
bone in his hands, inspecting it closely.
“Poor Owen –
we never did get to say a proper goodbye”
“I know, but I
warned him” I sighed “Turning tricks is a dangerous business – he was bound to
get into trouble sooner or later”
Owen had been
gone some thirty nine years – stabbed in a laneway not long after our group had
dissolved. It had been an undignified
end for him, and a wound that had never truly really healed. Standing over his broken remains, the two of
us shared a moment of silence for our fallen comrade. An air of mournful silence hung between
us. Mitch cleared his throat.
“Well - better
go get the girls”
Mitch slowly
disappeared into the next room as I slowly lowered myself onto the sofa,
grateful to finally be off my feet. Owen’s
dirty bones stared at me from the tabletop, a pitiful memorial to years gone
by. I never wanted to remember him like
this, but Mitch was insistent that we get the gang back together.
“Hey
fucker…” I whispered quietly as I
remembered the first time we met.
“Here they
are!” came Mitch’s voice as he emerged from the next room, carefully carrying
two golden urns. Brushing aside a patch
of dirt, he carefully placed them both on the table next to each other.
“They’re
looking good today – gave them a polish just this morning” Mitch stated proudly
as he admired his work.
The two
vessels, both gleaming, bore carefully engraved inscriptions – ‘Avery’ and ‘Brandy’. These shining containers filled with ash were
all that remained of Mitch’s two wives.
As Mitch sat
down next to me, I took a moment to regard our grim gathering.
“Looks like
we’re finally back together – it only took four decades”
“And just in
time for a smoke” Mitch reached into his pocket and revealed two joints,
carefully rolled. He placed one in his
mouth, lit it and handed me the other.
“Lighter?” I asked as Mitch began puffing away. He leaned over and handed me the laser. He was always stealing mine.
I leaned back
in my chair, relishing the familiar head rush, far more intense than I
remembered it. Since its legalisation in
2032, weed had become a highly sought after commodity. Mitch had sold his entire collection of Magic
the Gathering cards in order to procure a measly two joints.
“Fuck - I just
remembered something!” I reached for my briefcase that sat beside my
chair. I pulled out a small transparent
sheet of clear plastic and handed it to Mitch.
“I found
something in the newspaper today – thought you might like to see it”
Mitch raised
an eyebrow and took the newspaper, activating it with his thumb print. The plastic sheet immediately came to life,
its clear surface suddenly populated with the day’s news headlines. Clumsily tapping his fingers, Mitch scrolled
through the headlines.
“I hate these
new things – they scare me” he grumbled as he regarded the new technology.
“I know you do
– just check out 34C” I said, now halfway through my joint.
Mitch scrolled
to the appropriate page and read out the headline.
“Man dies
after eating twenty seven donuts”
“No not
that! Below it”
Mitch scrolled
down to reveal a photo of a middle aged woman in handcuffs being escorted into
a police station. She looked haggard,
her white hair hanging like rope over her shoulders. Mitch looked puzzled.
“It’s Amber!”
Mitch looked
closer, now reading the caption underneath the photo.
“It is too!”
he exclaimed, suddenly surprised.
Amber had been
arrested for assaulting a woman with an umbrella outside a local
supermarket.
“How bout
that? I hope they throw the book at her!”
Mitch scowled as he zoomed in on Amber fully attired in fluorescent prison
jumpsuit.
Poor Amber, it
looked as if her life had taken a turn for the worse. Though we hadn’t seen either her or Jesse
since their trip to China all those years back, modern technology had allowed
us to keep tabs on them.
Now living in
Bangalore, Jesse had divorced Amber and joined a ‘happiness cult’. There he lived in a high walled compound with
many beautiful women who combed his hair and fathered dozens of his children.
“I love the
internet” I said as Mitch handed the plastic newspaper back to me “Lets you
look up everyone”
“Oh yeah” Mitch
raised a white eyebrow “What about Blade?”
“Dead”
“Nikki?”
“She’s dead
too – killed by a bear!”
“Ha! Serves the bitch right!”
“Our whole
group dude – we’re the last ones!”
It was
true. We were the last ones – at least the last ones living above ground.
“You ever
think about those days? You, me, the
girls and your old apartment?” Mitch asked as he reclined in his chair.
“All the time
dude”
“Do you think
you’ve lead a good life?”
“I’m not sure
if it’s for me to say. I can’t
complain. Got married a couple of
times. Made some money. Lost some money. Fathered a clone child”.
“Oh yeah, I meant
to ask you – how is young Derek these days?
“How the hell
should I know?”
“He really does look a lot like you”
“He’s my
clone. He looks exactly like me!”
And just like
that the two of us were twenty five again, carefree and relatively
innocent. Staying up well into the night
smoking weed, watching cartoons and talking shit. We had, quite literally, out lasted everyone
else. It was true that there appeared to
be fewer days before us than there were behind us, but we didn’t care. We were going to do this one way or another -
him and I - every year on my birthday.
Until there
were no more birthdays at all.
THE END