The ole white-haird guy trudged thru the snow with his arms full of wood from the shed outside, wondering about how he brought himself to be here, of all places. Looking back over his shoulder as he walked across his one-room home, he chided himself for not remembering to stomp the snow off his boots before he came inside.
He dropped the small pile of logs next to the fire, shrugged out of his old, worn coat, hung it on a peg, then headed to the kitchen area to make a cup of coffee.
Without electricity in this old, isolated cabin, he had to grind his coffee with a hand-cranked grinder that he had found at a flea market in the villiage last year. At first a chore, he now welcomed the opportunity to feel like he was actually making a contribution to his own existence. A silly notion, he had often thought, since everything he did up here contributed to his life...or he wouldn't have one. Still, there was an element of...comfort...in using this old grinder. It was nice for him to see something so old be so useful. Laughing to himself at the irony in that, he finished making his coffee, noting that he would soon have to melt more snow for water, his stash was running low.
Sitting in his overstuffed, down-filled chair up close to the fire, he kicked his boots off, leaving his socks on, and propped his feet on the hearth to see if they would thaw out just one more time. He guessed they would, though it was more and more difficult to warm them now, he noticed. Oh, well...
He missed the dog.
The scruffy looking mutt had shown up at the cabin last spring and just sorta moved in. That was fine, the dog was pretty much like him. Tired. Worn. Forgotten. They made a good couple. The dog was quiet and didn't want too much out of life. It must be nice, the oldster had often thought, to have somebody to scratch behind your ears and care if you got fed. Then about a month ago the dog had wandered outside to do his business. He had found him lying on the ground not too far from the front door. He had looked like he was sleeping...yet there was something wrong with the way he was lying there.
The old fella had cuddled his dead friend on his lap just sitting on the ground where he found him. He cried for his encroaching lonliness for what must have been nearly an hour.
God, how he missed that dog. Who did he have now?
Shit, he thought, I'm so tired. So tired.
It seemed to him as though he had been exhausted for years.
Sipping his coffee he thought back for the millionth time about his kids...missing them, loving them, knowing somehow that things were good with them.
And he thought about her. God, he missed her smile the most. And how soft she was. And how she had loved him. He didn't bother to wipe away the tears any more, and they seem to scald him coursing down his unshaven cheeks into his beard.
He took another sip of his coffee and set the cup down next to him.
Staring into the fire again, then closing his eyes for the last time, he thought that it was too bad no one would cuddle him when they found him...he was so tired.
