Isaac sat at his computer and stared at the word software he had open, more specifically the tab near the top of the page which represented the margins. He couldn’t draw his eyes away, chin propped up in his arms as he thought about how life had turned. Having entered a college as soon as he could, he was nearing the end of his four-year journey with a degree in psychology within grasp. One of his pastimes was writing, just freely typing on a page if he found himself on a computer with free time. Sometimes short stories, the occasional chapter for a book he’d been writing, even just his vague thoughts clicked away on the keyboard. He was about to begin his fourth chapter for the aforementioned novel when his mind wandered, leaving him with an empty page and a clouded head.
A month prior, Isaac’s grandmother had passed away at the age of fifty-seven after a long bout with breast cancer. It was an unfortunate case of a return from remission; Daniel could only watch as the once-loving, Christian woman’s rather large being shrank into a weak body over a thin frame. It was to be expected that she wouldn’t make it; her weight combined with her hesitation to attend her chemotherapy appointments for whatever reason took their toll over the course of three years. He couldn’t visit her in the hospital, plagued with important exams of all sorts. It wasn’t that he wasn’t willing to stay with her in her last weeks; in a lengthy phone call, he had expressed his need to visit her but she encouraged him to stay and continue his studies. It was all he could do to follow her wishes, relying on more phone calls to keep in touch. She had passed two weeks after the initial conversation and following a funeral and a week of internal mourning, everything seemed to have calmed down.
He now sat in a rolling chair, slowly twisting back and forth as he stared at the margin bar. He was most acquainted with leaving half an inch of space on the first line of his works, complying with traditional school format. He now stared at the five-quarter-inch mark, expression blank. He wondered how much a human life was worth, how much all of the years of joy and anguish, hardships and reprieves could account for once everything was over. His grandmother was a prominent figure in the few memories of childhood he could recall, being a lively and caring woman whom all who she had interacted with grew happier in her presence. How much were her years worth? Could her absence be compensated for with a quarter-inch in a document two or three people would read and no one would notice? Would it atone for his lack of communication with her in past years, make for a weak attempt in tribute for her loss?
Isaac sighed quietly, covering his face with his hands and wondering why this had come to his mind. He clasped his hands and dropped them, tired brown eyes staring at the screen. The pointer marking the margin stared back.
He dragged it forward to the five-quarter-inch mark.
