The Mess {Muke}

Epilogue; Goodbye

Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it. ~Trey Parker

Luke's POV

**Thirty Years Later; Fifty Years Total**

This Chapter May Contain Gross Levels of Sadness.

Every breath filling the depths of my lungs, every step shaking my steps, and every blink wiping away the ancient dust of memories from my mind. Every thought that circled through my head was fading, as I knew that eventually his death would be less than a memory. 

 I was diagnosed with alzheimer's maybe, a month ago. Only a few weeks after Michael had passed away. Now the sound of his voice, his face, his warmth would all fade from me before I would slowly decompose into death myself. 

Remembering how to do the simpler things in life was a challenge, and so was keeping Michael. I still wake up sometimes and forget that he ever left me, sometimes I think that he's just gone to work early. Then he never comes home, and I text, and I call his phone. I drive to the restaurant, and they tell me the same thing every time.

You can go home Luke, Michael isn't coming back.

Then they look at me like I'm crazy, like a deranged old man. 

My children like to try and help, but sometimes I think my memory irritates them. They're always sick of the fact that I can barely remember the name of my grandchildren, remember what bills need to be paid when, and they talk about putting me away in an retirement home. I would agree if I wanted to go to one. In all honesty, I would rather die before I made it to that point. 

Death, what a funny thing. 

What once seemed like my deepest fear was now.. Well a distant reality. Something I would face before I was ready, but now my bones ache, my head hurts and my hair falls out in alarming clumps. I would rather die than continue on this path, looking at the wrinkles in my sinking face, looking at the depression in my eyes as the color fades out of them.

There was nothing left for me, but I knew that I could not go and off myself. I did not have the courage nor the desire to leave just yet. There still felt like there was something left I could do, to change a life I could help someone. 

Although, I couldn't even help myself.

Nothing made sense to me anymore. Everything jumbled in my head and what was said to me went in one ear and out the other. The hospital trips were frequent, the arguing became a constant in my life. Sometimes I liked to wander out to the park and sit on a bench, watching the people walk by. Every now and again, a nice teenager would stop and talk to me. Sometimes I would stop the ones who looked like they wanted to off themselves. 

I always saw the same people doing the same thing, and it drove my mind wild to think that we were so insignificant as humans. When we pass, someone takes our place. It always happens, someone takes your place and you are constantly taking someone else's place. 

The ground is littered with bodies that lay just underneath the surface. Six feet underneath with stones that remind you someone was buried there. However, I think you would find skeletons if you dug up your own backyard. 

Something to consider doing. 

I thought about digging my own grave once, getting in the coffin, pulling the dirt over and staying there. Then again, I don't know how I would get the dirt to cover me, and I don't think suffocation sounds like a viable option to die. 

Everyday, I boxed something else up. In the rooms of my house there were boxes and everything was labeled. My children never said anything about it when they came over. They must have assumed I was ready to leave this house, or at least making it that way. 

Not exactly the case, I was dividing everything up. Writing who gets what on the boxes, writing out a will that would be signed by me. I think back to when I was growing up, how lonesome my life was. I think about when I met Michael when I was seventeen. I think about the states of a bloodied horror I saw him in. I saw Samantha cry and cried myself. I almost killed Ashton, I wondered what happened to him.

What happened to any of us? 

We drifted apart, when marriage came along, and when children walked into the picture, we drifted apart. We had jobs and families to manage and as much as it tore me apart to realize that we would never drift together again, I had to accept it. 

So now, I sit alone in a house that echos every step and every word I saw in the empty house. I like when the mail delivery people come, and they come inside and leave it on the table. Ask me how my day is, I always tell them the same thing. "A day." 

I like to walk outside and sit on the porch and hear the neighborhood kids run around and scream in the warm fall air. I like to see them pile drive one another in the snow. I like to watch the sunsets too.

I see the teenagers driving fast cars and skateboarding on the sidewalks. I like to remember my life through their acts. I breathe in the air and I let it out in a form of carbon. 

Sometimes the kids will stop. 

"Hi, Mr. Hemmings!" They'll call and smile. Sometimes I make them treats and offer to get them drinks. The teenagers will "tp" my house then come and clean it up the next day because they feel guilty about it. 

They don't feel guilty when they do it to my neighbors though. 

When Michael passed away, they all stopped and brought me flowers. They cried too, they liked him a lot. Sometimes they come and ask me stories, but the stories grow shorter, as I can no longer remember the details. They sit on the steps and tell me how lucky I was to have met Michael, after all, "falling in love must be a wonderful thing." Now I fall from the high though, and I will crash.

For today though, I sit in my kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee. Stirring in the cream and artificial sweeteners. Then I felt my eyelids falling, and I tried to keep them open but for some reason, they never wanted to listen. I could feel my breathing slow, and I laid my head down on the cold table. My hand falling off to the side as everything blurred together. The sun shining through the kitchen window, and my eyes closed, leaving me in the calm. 

AUTHOR'S NOTIFICATION; Ariana

Wow this kind of is really depressing, ah well what do you expect tbh. I wasn't going to do an "old person view" chapter, but then I was like...NAH I GOTTA. I have a theme of when one of them outlives their significant other, and I needed to show it. 

So anyways, I hope you enjoyed The Mess! I remembered not starting it super long ago and it has come a long way, now we can make room for my new book. It is called Disordered and I should have it up really soon if you guys want to take a look at it.

I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think and if you want to see anything particular in the future! 

Thank you!

And for the last time in The Mess...

Hugs, Kisses, Cuddles and Serenades xX