The Last Dance

"Ah, come on out nurse. Have a seat beside me." The voice is old, dry as chalk. The old man, now in his eighty sixth year of life, gives a gentle pat to the chair beside him. "I've left a seat free just for you."

"Thank you," David said, sliding the chair a bit closer to Martin and sitting with a grunt. "How have you been?"

"I've been okay. And you?" He stares off into the dark night sky, seemingly deep into the forest that lay beyond the nursing home.

"I've been alright, I suppose. Out here for your nightly intake of fresh air?"

"Oh, yes," Martin said, cornering his eye to look at David. He took in a deep breath, held it for a moment and exhaled a white plume into the chilly October air. "Isn't it exceptional out here?" He exhibited a toothless smile, his lips pursed tight and protruding in their absence. "You can always tell what month it is just by the taste and smell of the air, you know?"

David gave Martin a nod. The elder man posessed the wisdom of most his age, having lived through the ups and downs of others, his country, his surroundings and most of all his own lengthy life. You don't pick information from a brain such as his, you shovel it into heaping mounds to be sorted through later.

"And it sure does smell like July," Martin said. David frowned, but wiped the look from his face before Martin noticed.

"Sure does," David repeated. He studied the mans face, aged with the years left in his wake. He had no distinctive features that would set him apart from any other eighty six year old man. No doubt he wasn't born of a mold that mass produced the same, boring replicas of this human being. He is his own man, his mold destroyed the instant he entered this earth within those four dusty farmhouse walls. The seventh of nine children and the last living sibling. He watched two enter the world and witnessed every last one of them leave it.

"She only comes at night, you know." Martin said, interupting David's thoughts.

"Is that so?" David said. He knew what the man was talking about. It was the same story every time they sat out here together. The second story balcony provided some kind of peace to Martin that David couldn't fully understand. Always outside, two stories from the ground, and at night. The old man would be wheeled out here, but never left alone for safety reasons. The visiting sessions, as David now called them, could last anywhere from three minutes to three hours. Martin paid no attention to David, of course. He was waiting for another visitor.

"Yep. Sure is." That same puckered smile. "She comes right through there. You see those tall pine trees?" He lifted a feeble finger and pointed into the darkness. The moon shone just bright enough to see the trees shadowed against the backdrop canopy of night. The finger shook, as though Parkinson's had set in. "She comes right through there," he said again, his voice lowered and trembling, gravely.

David watched as the old man peered forward like a child watching their first horror movie. His full attention focused on the approaching visitor.

"My Meredith, she comes." Martin slunk down into the chair and pulled the afghan up tight to his neck, dispelling the cold that encroached. His cheeks were sunken, eye sockets deep. Potential tears glistened, giving a bright sheen to his near-black eyes.

"She'll be here," David said, placing a hand on the old man's back. "She always comes, doesn't she?"

Martin sat silent for a moment, and then, "Yes, she does. And she'll be here tonight. Always punctual, that woman. You could set a clock by her, I swear it. I guess I'm just a little over anxious."

"No need to be," David said, comforting the old man. "She'll be here."

Martin turned to face David, gave a narrow smile and nodded before returning his gaze to the woods. They sat in silence for nearly ten minutes, David rubbing his bare arms to ward the chill and Martin with the afghan still pulled tight against him. Gray hairs swirled in the breeze as David admired the man, hoping to some day be as strong.