These old bones

It had been fourteen years since Maureen had died. Fourteen years to the day; perhaps even the hour, if the clocks were still going as they had been fourteen years ago. Barty felt no different today than he had at thirteen years, at ten years, or even the day after she had died. He felt a sense of loneliness. A loneliness he reasoned could never be filled, and which he was reminded of with each empty sigh that caught him off guard.

As he looked out, his eyes crinkling into slits as he surveyed his now parched land, he felt a twinge of sadness that he had not kept up the property that he and Maureen had built together, like he had promised her he would. "Keep it like it is, Barty. Don't let's ever change it. Just like it is; and just like we are. Keep it as our place, my darling." They had been her words. They had echoed in his thoughts every day since she had said them, yet he never felt guilty enough to do them justice. This was no longer his place. He didn't know where his place was, anymore. He longed for it, searched for it. He had searched in towns, in women, in bars in remote postings into the early hours. Yet he had not found his place again. So, the porch-swing now stood rusted and unused, except by resident spiders and cocooned flies. The front steps creaked under every step, threatening him with a broken hip every time he ventured from the house. Each night was a new venture. Each night, the gears cranked his old car into life, and he began his search anew to find his place, his Maureen, the one he had lost. Now however, the sun still shone. The landscape was browned and dusty. No propertier had ever bothered him; there was nothing to value here. An empty sadness shifted in him as the wind changed and the cooler breeze flecked dust off his fingers. He felt he was missing something. He could feel it, sparkling and spittling away from his fingertips, barely tangible in the mist floating over his eyes, but definitely there. He felt urgency, he felt panic, along with calm and reassurance. Perhaps, he thought, I am to find my place tonight. A nervous flow of blood began through his tired body.

As the sun set slowly over the hills at the furthest expanse of the property, a flicker crossed Barty's tired old face; an eagle, coming to rest nearby. Barty did not see the eagle. He had found it. It had come; albeit fourteen years too late, but it had come. The emptiness he had felt, and the loneliness that had consumed him in place of his wife were both fulfilled. As the last rays of light descended over the hills, darkness fell over his tired old bones. Now, they were only bones. At last, death had come, and had taken him to Maureen, to his place.