The End of the Day

Outside all was quiet and peaceful; the garden slept in the deep heat of a summer afternoon and the pool burbled quietly away. Birds flew in and out of the sprinklers in the herbaceous borders, bees buzzed quietly in and out of the flowers, and the big dog slept against the sliding glass doors to the patio.

Inside he was putting the finishing touches to a painting, his thoughts far away as he brushed at the canvas. Although she had been dead less than five months, suddenly, the silence was broken by the sound of her voice calling him repeatedly from somewhere inside the house. The dog immediately rose up, skidding on the tiled floor, his hackles standing on end; he looked into the darkened house and barked softly. The painter got up from his painting and went to investigate – but there was nothing to be seen or found.

Some days later, after a bad night when he had lain awake for a long time worrying about this and that detail of the future, he heard, through the mists of sleep, the phone ringing. He looked at his watch; it was only 6.45 a.m. and so he curled up again and went back to sleep. At nine he woke up, stretched, and reached for the morning pill, realising from the congestion in his chest, that he had to get to the nebulizer quickly.

He staggered into the living room, loaded the nebulizer, switched it on, and put it to his mouth to take the first relieving breaths of the morning. Suddenly, his mouth was filled with something horrid – something that struggled and moved around, and eventually bit him quite hard in the left cheek. He coughed and spluttered and spat the offending thing out on the floor. It was a spider which had found its way into the mouthpiece of the nebulizer and now lay, dying, on the floor.

He paid it little heed at the time, finishing off his time on the machine before going to make the customary morning tea. His mouth felt a little numb and vaguely unpleasant, but he soon forgot about it as he went about the chores of the day – one of which was to see who had phoned so early in the morning.

It wasn’t until much later in the morning that he became aware that his mouth was still tingly and rather numb, and he idly wondered why. He walked out to the kitchen and started the washing-up from the day before, listening with one ear to the radio which blared out its usual hash of reggae and popular music of the day, interspersed with the occasional news bulletin and the same adverts that had been spewing forth for the last two weeks from the speakers. He didn’t really have the radio on to listen to it, more for the company as he went about his solitary day.

It was after lunch that he first realised there might be something wrong. His mouth still felt a little numb, but nothing to worry about, but now he felt how the glands under his arms were enlarged, and a kind of drowsiness crept over him in waves. He stood up from the computer where he was working and took a few steps towards the kitchen with the intention of making a cup of tea. Suddenly, without warning, he found himself lying flat on the floor of the passage. The door frames seemed to be all the wrong way up and the windows, where he could see them, were all upside-down. He was quite conscious yet he knew that he couldn’t move, couldn’t even reach for the phone in his pocket, let alone remember what numbers to dial. He lay like that for some time. The dog came and snuffled at his face, eventually lying down beside him because he understood that, somehow, his master couldn’t move properly. The only thing he could do was to lie there and see that no harm came to him. Outside the silence of the midday persisted.

After what seemed like a long time, he was able to get up again and walk shakily to the bedroom, where he lay down on the bed. The dog followed him, licking his face and snuffling against him, but to no avail, because the dog couldn’t speak English, or any other language. He only understood that something was wrong with his master, and he wasn’t going to move.

Some time later, in the mid afternoon it must have been, he found enough strength to get to the kitchen and switch on the kettle. His mouth was no longer numb and he was beginning to feel better; but hardly had he found a cup and poured the hot water into it on top of the teabag, than he was once more overcome with giddiness and tiredness, and it was all he could do to get as far as the bed and fall, noisily, on top of it. The dog followed him, knowing in his way that there was something wrong, but being quite unable to deal with it.

He must have slept for an hour or so, and when he woke up the tea was still by the bed and the dog was lying peacefully on the floor. He struggled up and took a couple of mouthfuls of cold tea and then lay back, exhausted, on the pillows. The room had begun to come and go again in his vision. One moment it was dark and quiet, the next it seemed full of light and he could hear many voices just outside his ability to understand what they were trying to say. These voices the dog couldn’t hear.

He must have lain there for several hours, because the next time he opened his eyes, the light had faded to twilight and the evening was well advanced. He had a vague memory of the phone ringing somewhere in the distance, but he wasn’t quite sure where, or what he had done with the instrument which he normally carried with him. The dog was now restless, because it was past his time for eating, and he was hungry, but the man on the bed could not find the energy to get as far as the kitchen and dig out the food.

Later, when he awoke again, it was fully dark outside, and the whole house was in darkness. He realised, with a certain sort of alarm, that he couldn’t really feel his feet, and that other extremities seemed to have gone to sleep. The dog remained curled up at the side of the bed, not wanting to leave his master for even one minute. He tried to lean over and touch the dog, to ruffle its head and say that all was OK, but he couldn’t do it. With a kind of resignation, he realised that perhaps he would never be able to get up off this bed again – but somehow it didn’t seem to matter.

The voices were coming nearer, but he still couldn’t understand what they were trying to say. At times the room seemed full of light and he could see faint shapes moving somewhere beyond his vision, but he soon gave up trying to see them or to understand what they were saying. He must have dozed off again because when he woke later, it seemed that the night was well advanced. He heard, in the distance, the sound of a clock chiming three. And then, suddenly, the room was filled with light and he could see people he hadn’t seen for many years and he could almost understand what they were trying to say. It was then that he remembered the spider and the calls in the quiet afternoon, and he lay back, exhausted, and allowed the people and the room to gradually swallow him up into their strange embrace. He breathed his last, stertorous breath, at 3.30 a.m. and then lay back and surrendered to those who had come to fetch him.

Three days later the cleaning lady came in and found him, dead on the bed, the dog still lying faithfully at his side on the bedside mat. She let out a piercing shriek and ran for help. The dog didn’t move because as long as his master was still there, this was his place and he was not going to forsake it for anyone.

Two hours later, the ambulance had come and gone on its last trip, and a friendly neighbour coaxed the old dog to his final resting place at the local vet. The past was now over – finished. Nothing mattered any more.