A long journey over a short distance

We sat quietly as the world grew smaller, enclosing us in an ever-diminishing bubble. Little to say, so I held your hand and we gazed at the walls of your room, and up at the fancy top of the four-poster bed. In the distance phones rang, people bustled… we were dimly aware of the energy being created by your quiet retreat.

I rubbed your back, the first time in your life or mine that I had ever done so, and was shocked by thinness of your skin, the strange hardness beneath it and I wondered what I was touching. But in your shrinking world, few pleasures were left to you. Those that remained, you enjoyed to the full.

“Are you afraid?” I asked.

“I’m not afraid”, you replied. “I’m almost eager. I’m ready now”.

You paused. I couldn’t tell whether you were thinking, or drifting away for a moment.

“I feel like I’m going on a long journey over a short distance”.

And so your journey began. Slowly, gently, you ebbed away. Afterwards, long after your laboured, groaning breath had finally ceased, you seemed to glow.

I wondered where you had gone. I wonder if your journey has ended yet.