Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro
Chris Woods

Lying under crumpled sheets, the old man puts down his history book. Plastic tubes are inserted into his nostrils to help him breath, and with each breath in comes a quick shoot of air, hissing shortly. On his dresser is two purple hearts he received in the Second World War and small lead sculptures of soldiers of most wars from 1800 on, and every soldier of World War II from every country, except the French. The old man couldn’t find those toy soldiers anywhere. He breathes again sharply as he son sits down in the chair next to the bed.
“How you doing pop?” his son asked, and the old man looked at the wall. “Fine, fine I suppose. A little bored. I just wish I would die already.” His son winced, “don’t say that pop, please don’t say that.” The old man patted his son’s hand. “Sorry, David.” There was a long pause, son staring at the wall, father staring at the ceiling.
“Do you know a story that goes like this, David?” his father started. “An old warrior lay on his death bed, waiting for his last breath. He had seen many days and many battles, and lived through them all, only to be killed by time itself. After days and days of waiting, he whispered to his wife, ‘please, have mercy. Kill me.’ The wife took her husband’s knife, and held it to his throat, but hesitated. ‘Do it!’ he cried, tears running down both of their cheeks. But the wife couldn’t draw a drop of blood.” David could feel tears building up behind his eyelid, but he held them back, squinting his eyes tightly.
“Finally, after weeks of waiting, the man saw a dark winged creature in his window. ‘You’re here at last,’ he said, gathering the strength to sit up. The winged creature took him by the shoulders, and they flew out of the window. They flew and flew over the trees and through the clouds, up to a mountain white with snow. ‘Kilimanjaro,’ the old warrior said, and the winged creature let out a screech. ‘So this is where I die,’ and the old warrior let go.” The only sound that could be heard was the quick hissing of the oxygen tank.
~~~
David put his keys on the table, announcing, “Diane, I’m home.” His wife leaned back, peeking her head through the door, and smiled. “I just put the kettle on,” she said as she nodded her head for him to come over. The embraced, he lightly gave her a peck on the cheek, and looked at each other for a while, Diane’s smile fading to frown. “What’s wrong?”
“It was something dad said when I saw him at lunch break. He said he wanted to die, just get it over with already.” David turned away from his wife and looked down. Diane put her arms around him, her head on his shoulder. She could feel his slight tremble. “The thing is, though, is I kind of agreed with him.”
“What?” Diane jumped back and took her arms from David. “How could you say something like that?”
“I don’t know.” He put his hand to his brow, covering his eyes. “I just don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
They stood, avoiding each other’s eyes until the teapot began to whistle.
~~~
“It’s good you got this done,” Diane said. “It’s like a cleansing. I always feel great when I clean up.
“But I wasn’t cleaning up, I was packing up my dad’s old house.” David was growing more and more irritable as Diane unfolded a shirt from, looked at it, and folded it back again, placing it beside the box she got it from. Moving his father’s things out of his old apartment was the last thing David wanted to do, but with the landlord’s patience running thin, she threatened to move the old man’s stuff to the dumpster. After all, it had been two months without an occupant, and without rent. David let out an overdramatic sigh that tells his wife that this is the end of the conversation. He stared down at the table.
“Okay, fine” she said, giving up. She lifted an off-white bed sheet out of the box and fluffed it out.
“Hey, did your dad have a bird or something?”
“What? I think you’d know if he had a bird,” David looked up at his wife, and in her hand, he saw a large black feather. “Where did you get that?”
“It was here in this bed sheet. The feather fell out when I shook it.” David took the black feather between his thumb and forefinger, holding it close to his eyes. The words “Kilimanjaro” escaping his smiling lips.