Someone

once told him that when a person dies, their brain releases a chemical
that makes them believe that they are still alive, reliving former memories as if they
were tangible dreams.
Isnt that a troubling thought, wearing dreams and actualities as if they were made
out of the same cloth?
When he was little, his imagination would project his dreams onto the world in
front of him. When he grew up, his fantasies dissipated into a different stratosphere,
a sky filled with dark clouds and burning stars alike. Just because he couldnt
envision his own design in his adolescence didnt mean he couldnt feel something
pulling at all of his limbs with the force of a vaticinal tidal wave. He often felt like he
was waiting to be swept away, helplessly led into his equivocal destiny.
He didnt believe in free will, yet he sought to have control over his own affairs.
Ironically, he believed his destiny, this feeling of indescribable power and weakness
that he felt in the air around him since he was a child, was an indigenous identity,
insuppressibly flowing like the universe. It could not be captured or understood by
his narrow human mind.
But he never stopped trying to contemplate identities other than his own. It was
what his mind thought about in the moments before he drifted off to sleep, as he
was doing now with fleeting eyes hanging around the trees of past. There were so
many leaves on the ground.
Old Tom was a warm person, impressionable to those who took the time to sit
with him on his porch for an afternoon coffee. The adjective old that preceded his
name was a part of Old Toms identity. Old Tom was wise, caring, and wanted

nothing more than to discuss what others thought of the significance of mundane
events that occur throughout our small lives. And he loved hearing others describe
the emotions they felt for people in their lives, sometimes strangers and sometimes
friends, all of interest to Old Tom, who was always willing to listen and speak his
mind. Old Tom showed a youthful exuberance that was inspiring, given his situation.
Old Tom had gone through tragedy in his lifetimetrue tragedy, the kind you
never recover from. At 20, his wife went missing, taking their car and a suitcase full
of clothes with her; she always talked to Old Tom about packing up and leaving this
city. She was impulsive in love and life, hopelessly beautiful with eyes that saw the
world through a lens of a Leica camera. Photography wasnt her method of
escapism; it was her method of capturing her old world because her mind was
spinning and churning out new ideas and emotions with each passing day. When
troubled, she would speed out of Charon to find somewhere new to take photos.
With each photo she took, she felt like she was leaving something behind and
gaining something new. Old Tom was the one who used to sort through her photos
and he decided which ones he should send to the magazines.
She only bothered to look at her photos once after she took them and maybe once
more after that. Now Old Tom was the only one who looked at her photos. He looked
at them every single day for 62 years.
The walls of his home were filled with her photographs printed in various sizes.
People would gaze at her photos in awe, pleading for Old Tom to sell them copies for
their own home. Whatever the offer, twenty dollars or several thousand, Old Tom
would decline and give them the artwork for free, telling the person interested that

he would not profit off of his wifes work. If the artwork spoke to a person, Old Tom
always said, then it was appreciated the way she wanted it to be. After all, thats
what the photos did for, even though she never bothered to linger on the words that
her art emanated.
When 44, his wife was found. She was dead. She had been dead since the day they
started searching.
There was a ferocious snowstorm during the days that they started searching. The
tire marks where she drove into the lake were covered within an hour that night, as
if it never happened. The lake was an anomalythe deepest in the world, and Old
Toms wife sunk right to the bottom and suffocated alone in a place where light
could not touch.
Even today, she was still sitting in the drivers seat of their 77 Oldsmobile
completely decomposed with not a single piece of flesh on her. At 8000 feet, the lake
was too deep for scuba divers to retrieve the body.
Old Tom would spend most of his summer reading on the beach where she was
discovered. They pieced the story together when a piece of her torn up leather
luggage was found buried in the sand.
Old Tom was there that day. A little child found the remnants of Old Toms wifes
belongings while he was building a sand castle.
Look Mommy, the child shouted, I found something gross!
The mother looked at her child and so did Old Tom.

 Old Tom dropped his book and ran to the child. He recognized the mangled object
that used to belong to the love of his life. He instantly broke down in tears, dropped
to his knees, and started to hysterically rock back and forth in the sand.
The people at the beach started to surround their familiar friend, all asking in
concern, Whats the matter, Tom?
Its hers, Old Tom shouted over his sobs. Its hers, its hersits hers, he
repeated over and over until the words retreated into his head. For a month, those
words were the only thoughts in Old Toms head.
Old Tom didnt go back to being Old Tom for over a year. No one could help him
during that time. The people that were there swore he drowned that day with his
wife.
They were right too.
Old Tom never recovered on the inside. Old Tom once told him that he was simply
waiting to die.
Why, Old Tom?
He thought he knew the answer when he asked the question. Yet Old Tom
surprised him with his answer.
I dont believe in GodIn fact, Ive only seen the devil. But when Im dead and
gone, Im sure Ill meet my wife again, somehow, in some shape or form I gotta
believe thats true.
I dont understand. Thats touching, but if youre an atheist
I never said that, young man. I just dont believe in goddamn heaven or hell. I
believe in second chances. I know shell try to runaway from me again, Old Tom

paused for a gulp of bourbon. Shes a free soul and she doesnt need me, but I just
want a chance to giver her a proper goodbye this time.
How could you let someone you love so much go?
Old Tom finished the rest of his glass in one swig and stood up, indicating that he
was ready to withdraw back into his empty home.
When you realize that youre suffocating the one you love, you just have to let
them breathe. It doesnt matter if they leave and forgot about how sweet the air
used to be; it just matters that theyre still alive. We live and die through our lovers
existence. Remember that if you take anything at all away from our conversations.
Old Tom went into his house and closed the door. From the porch he could hear
Old Tom crumble to his knees, crying with his forehead planted against his cold
hardwood floor.
Goodnight, Old Tom.
They buried an empty casket and put up a gravestone after they assumed she was
dead at the bottom of the lake. Old Toms wifes family was mostly absent at the
funeral. The ones that were there barely knew her at all, and they pestered Old Tom
about their share of her inheritance before they got a chance to know Old Tom at all.
Although Old Tom treated them kindly, explaining there was no money, only her
photographs, there was subdued fire in his eyes as if he was ready to throw these
horrible people in his wifes empty casket and put them in the ground where they
belonged. They scowled and bickered at the thought of such a measly inheritance, as
they had never seen her photographs in their lives; if they had, they wouldve
wanted all of them to sell.

 Old Tom never visited her grave after the initial funeral. Instead, he would go to
the lake at least several times per week, no matter the weather. Sometimes he
would sit in silence, reflecting, and other times he would sit and look at pictures his
wife took ages ago.
Old Tom would rarely talk about his life. Like most people, Old Tom never talked
about his true feelings. If he offered anything at all about himself, it was always from
the outermost layer of his heart. As if he was at the bottom of a lake, no one could
see what was really there.
If we only know people based on our own observations, do we even know anyone at
all?
He never had another lover, and although he spent most of his older days chatting
with friends and neighbours, he spent his life alone. Old Tom worked as a carpenter
for a living until the Parkinsons took his hands. He was never artistic in any sense;
he was content with admiring his wifes art as if he had had a part in it. Old Tom
would rarely spend time inside of his house; he was always out for walks, visiting
his wife, or sitting on his porch. He was skinny, frail because he rarely ate, but he
was strong from years of hard work. Old Tom was a drinker during the night, he
needed to be to fall asleep, but he never got drunk and never gave cause to concern.
He was a constant figure in everyones lives. Everyone would take the time in his or
hers week to visit Old Tom, sitting down on one of the straw chairs on his porch to
have a friendly chat. As if there was sort of cosmological schedule dictating
everyones lives, no one would miss their appointment with Old Tomperhaps
because he was so comforting, but it was likely something else. The reason Old Tom

was so hypnotic, was that everyone wanted to find out what was on the inside. No
one would ask, though. They were all hoping that he would value them enough to
tell them by his own accord. Even when Old Tom offered them nothing about what
drove him, they would still come for chats, thinking that Old Tom was just Old Tom
and nothing more. He watched the neighbourhood grow up while he stayed the
same.
He stayed the same until the day he didnt wake up. He had died in his sleep at the
ripe age of 83, surrounded by only the murky oxygen in his empty house. He had a
stroke and died violently, unable to reach the phone to call for help. A visitor,
undoubtedly expecting a good conversation, found his body the next afternoon.
Everyone came out to see what had happened to Old Tom after they saw the
ambulance perched outside of his door. Nearly the whole neighbourhood witnessed
the paramedics wheel Old Toms covered body away. They all cried when they
discovered his horrible fate.
For the first time in history, Old Toms guests left his property in heavy sadness. A
constant in their lives was taken from them without warning. Even though he was
old, the prospect of Old Tom dying seemed unrealistic.
He didnt leave a recent will. The only will he had was when he and his wife first
got married, saying that everything would go to her. It was discovered that Old Tom
had a brother from the other side of the country, and he was the one who took care
of the arrangements. His brother was a good person; he had everything Old Tom
never got to have: a wife, children and grandchildren. He was catholic too, having
faith in a God while Old Tom only had faith in second chances, if anything at all.

 Did Old Tom ever get his second chance?

Old Tom got a catholic funeral and a burial next to his wifes empty grave. His
brother said that Old Tom never returned his phone calls, but he still remembered
the relationship that they had when they were children. Old Toms brother said he
never really knew the man that Old Tom became, so it was lucky for him that Old
Toms neighbours and friends could tell him about the man they knew and love. The
funeral procession lasted hours; everyone there shared a conversation they had
with Old Tom that affected their lives profoundly.
There wasnt a single person at his funeral that was ready to put Old Tom to rest.
His soft voice was bound to stay in their minds until the day that it was time to have
their own funerals.
His brother was shocked at everyones sentiment; he said this man sounded
nothing like the sibling he had grown up with. He was amazed at how many people
loved Old Tom. His brother decided to sell Old Toms house, letting the neighbours
distribute the possessions inside the house amongst themselves. Old Toms wifes
stunning negatives were given to a local photographer to reproduce and for
safekeeping. Due to his kindness, most people already had all the prints that they
wanted in their homes. It was discovered that one box of negatives was labelled the
week before Old Tom passed away. It was full of photographs he presumably took.
They werent magical or breathtaking. They were, quite frankly, awful. He had none
of the experience or artistic vision that his wife had. Though the effort was
charming, and people wondered if Old Tom knew that these pictures were horrible,

or if he was planning to print them out and put them next to his wifes, seeing
something that they were unable.
The person who bought Old Toms house was planning to flip the property and
sell it for a profit. And although thats exactly what the person did, in time, any profit
whatsoever wasnt worth the shock. It surely wasnt worth the hole it stabbed in the
neighbourhoods heart.
The builders found Old Toms wife underneath the hardwood by his front door.
The maggots had eaten away her flesh, but there wasnt any doubt that it was Old
Toms wife and the DNA testing confirmed it. She was never missing; Old Tom had
murdered her.
Why, Old Tom? Why did you do it?
Though it was pointless, he wondered why before he passed away himself,
wasting his last thoughts on something that didnt matter.