The smell of fresh cut grass permeated the old Victorian farmhouse. The kitchen especially, with it's open windows, hardwood floors, and the screen door to the mud room. It was a mundane room, but a cozy room, one most noted for the scent of fresh bread being baked during the winter. But alas, it was mid-summer and the only odor was of the freshly mowed lawn. The owner of the house, an old woman, perhaps an octogenarian, sat in front of the window for hours listening to the birds chirp and the wind blow through the leaves of the old oak trees surrounding her property. Once in a while she would comment on the state of the house or the neighborhood, muttering almost silently to herself.
She was known once in the community for being a sprightly young dancer but had given up such things for a simple life at home. She married her since deceased husband, raised three boys, all who moved out years ago and had resolved to sit in her kitchen she loved so much until they came home. Summers and winters would pass with no sign of her boys, but her steely resolve never wandered. She would wait.
That's what she did, for twenty years she sat, the only company being her nurse who would come around once a day to give her medication and make sure she was still alive. The nurse, Jacqueline was her name, would indulge the woman in conversation most days, but it was too superficial. Jacqueline would comment on the weather and maybe tell the woman about happenings in the middle east or the west coast depending on the state of the world at the time. The old woman looked forward to the visits, but it was nothing compared the the joy she would feel when her sons returned to take her away from the house that had become a crypt for her disintegrating body.
The woman yearned for her youth, for the years she spent dancing for princes and dignitaries. She was a performer at heart and she never really forgave herself for giving it up to raise a family. Most likely, the woman wouldn't have done it any other way, she loved her sons more than she loved life. She toyed with the notion of ending her life, perhaps what came next would be preferable to the pain she was enduring now, but she couldn't bring herself to find out. She had plenty of pills, plenty of knives, plenty of electronics to drop in the tub when the nurse wasn't looking... but she couldn't conquer the fear of the unknown long enough to change her current state.
On this current afternoon, however, with the nurse having left for the day to tend to her many other patients, the old woman was toying with the notion once again. Her heart would skip a beat thinking about how much her children would miss her when she was gone. How upset they would be to think that they had neglected their mother and she died thinking that they didn't love her. Of course, she knew they loved her, they were just busy with their lives and their children that she had never met. She knew, but they would never know. So instead of staring at the sloping lawns of her humble property, today she decided she would spite her children by using the only method to kill the pain of being at rock bottom.
She slowly stood up, arthritis was wreaking havoc on her joints so it took her a minute, but she was eventually standing. The old woman then shuffled to her living room where the nurse left her medication. She reached for her pills, knowing that these breaths were among the last she would take on this earth. The woman had become accustomed to taking pills and swallowed them without needing any water at all. They went down and she laid down on the oriental rug to wait for the pills to take effect.
She closed her eyes and immediately saw an ethereal vision. One of magnificent proportions with vivid colors she hadn't seen with her eyes open since her eyes were young and she had the vitality of a woman in her twenties. She watched as she soared free through a surreal expanse of people and places she had seen long before she became an old woman. She regretted spending so long sitting in her chair, so much time wasted longing for her boys. She regretted not seeing more of the world in her old age while she had less responsibilities and more time. She should have caught up with all of her living friends and family. She should have put forth the effort.
Suddenly her vision ended. The old woman was ripped back into reality by a suffocating feeling. Her body was paralyzed as she opened her eyes and for a moment realized she was choking on the contents of her stomach.
There was so much regret. She needed this to stop so she could go see her boys. She wanted to see the grand canyon. She wasn't ready to go. She wants to see her grandchildren but all she could see was the ceiling. All she could feel was the stifling thickness of lungs full of vomit. She twitched for several seconds, eventually breaking her resolve and letting a single tear fall from her right eye. Her body gave a final shudder.
And then there was emptiness.
