A Day Long Remembered
“After I began high school, I joined the junior varsity football team like any boy who loves sports would. At the time, I just wanted to join my friends. And my friends wanted me to join them. They would have killed to protect me. No days in my life filled me with happiness like those.” Ruefully, he said, “Why does time always vanish as quickly as the midday dew?” Wilt held his chin on his heavily lined hand, with his bloodshot eyes lost in remembrance. He sat inside his room in the retirement home that had housed him for thirteen years. By his side, Melinda leaned back, trying to recall when she entered high school. Nightly, he brought the years back, like a robot programmed with one purpose alone. “My father hated the sport, unusual for a father, I think, but my mom would wash and iron my uniform before practice. She took scuffs off my shoes with the polish kept for her leather shoes.”
Wilt closed his eyes tightly, and brushed his hand through his thin hair like the action brought physical pain to his body. Almost every action brought pain to the body of Melinda, but people her age rarely complain. While her friend talked onward, his voice trailed like a fire about to extinguish. After thirty minutes, he slumped his head like it weighed fifty pounds. With intense effort, Melinda held her wood cane, a birthday present from her friend, and pulled her body to her feet. When she turned to walk to her room, with Wilt asleep, she looked back happily. She smiled until she noticed her friend didn’t sit normally, but slumped awkwardly, with his bones about to break. When she put her fingers on his neck, a formality with the elderly, she realized if the bones did break, they wouldn’t bother Wilt. After ninety-six years, Wilt had joined the friends of yesteryear, wherever they were.
After the nurse of the home wheeled Wilt into the hallway for transport to the hospital, Melinda sat in her room across the hall with the television tuned to some national talk show. She wanted to watch television throughout the night, like only teenagers do. When the sun shone brightly through the window, she would welcome the day lonely and empty; after all, she would join her friend no more. She hadn’t witnessed a sunrise in many years; she wanted to look upon the cloudy sky and marvel at the yellow dawn. It would take just five hours.
After fifteen lively minutes of the show, she heard a knock at her door. With everybody asleep, she expected to look at the nurse, who probably came back to question Melinda. Probably the black-haired nurse, who looked youthful and lovely in ways Melinda resented, wished to inquire about a burial for Wilt. After all, Melinda qualified as family to the elderly male because he had nobody else. Wilt had married but had produced no children; his wife had passed away twenty years before. Initially, the landlord had informed her that nobody would disturb her after dinnertime. Intrigued, she looked through the peephole after she lumbered her body onto her wooden stick and walked toward the door. Nobody waited in the hallway.
With another look, she saw a person below the view. The boy stood about five feet in height by the funhouse-mirror quality brought by the hole, and appeared to wear an unusual costume. Holding a helmet, he wore red and blue stripes and white pants that stopped at the knees. Vaguely, he looked familiar, and Melinda snapped her fingers. Naturally, the nurse buzzer wouldn’t help. Melinda alone would likely see the boy. Unquestionably, the uniform had been washed. And Melinda knew instinctively that his mom had ironed it before he arrived.
