Anna's Final Letter - Version I

Anna's Final Letter - Epilogue

Anna's Final Letter - Epilogue:

I lay on the hospital bed, sipping at my glass of water. I had been counting down the days. I was the grand old age of 94, and I had out-lived all of my relatives of the same generation; I had exceeded everyone's expectations for my life span.

But they say: it's either your mind or your physical health that goes. I consider myself lucky to have lost my physical health. My memory was the most precious thing to me.

I was hooked up to a machine that acted as a heart for me, but I was slowly deteriorating regardless - my skin was becoming translucent and my veins more prominent. I knew as well as my doctors that I was slowly dying. But I'm okay with dying, because everyone has to die at some point and I think I've had my fair share at life.

       "How are you today, Mr. Turner?" my kind nurse asks me as she comes into the room. I was lucky to have a good nurse, I almost always saw a secret reporting programme about how many sick elderly people were abused or mistreated by the nursing staff on the television.

       "Very well, thank you, Emily," I reply, making a huge effort to nod my head politely. Emily and I had become well acquainted since I had come to this hospital and she had been the best nurse I could possibly ask for.

I had been in this particular hospital for three long months now. I had wanted to die at home, but I had learnt when I was 17 that things don't always go how you want them to. I was a fair, gracious man, and I had worked hard all of my life. I was the boss of my own publishing company before I retired. Anna would have been very proud. I never became the author that I had longed to be.

I had never married, nor did I have any children. I hadn't even had a relationship with anyone else since Anna. I just couldn't bring myself to, I hadn't ever let her out of my heart. I had never stopped grieving over her death, and her things could still be found in my house. I couldn't 'let her go' like everyone told me to. It seems stupid, but I couldn't bring myself to love anyone else. I was stubborn like that.

My things along with hers would go to my brother's children. When I was in better health, I had made them swear to keep everything and to pass them down to their children. They would probably slowly start throwing the things that were of little value out like Anna's clothes and sell the valuable things, but that was expected. They had never met Anna, and so hadn't made an emotional attachment to her, even though I had told them all about her countless times.

I was ready to go. I was fed up of waiting around for the Grim Reaper to come and order me to head off to the afterlife or wherever we go when we die. I fully leaned back on my bed and closed my eyes. I still remembered what Anna looked like. I opened my eyes and grabbed one of the pictures I had taken into the hospital with me.

       "Is that your daughter?" Emily asked.

       "No," I shake my head and say sorrowfully, "She was my girlfriend when I was 17. She was killed." I still miss her so much, and no one seems to understand how the unfading grief weighs me down.

       "Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. Turner," she says as sympathetically as she can. "Well, it's time for you to get some rest; I'll be back in about an hour. You know what to do if you need me" She smiles and then leaves.

I rest for a few minutes before I decide what I'm going to do. Slowly, I managed to move my frail body over to the right of my bed where that one important machine is. I analyse it for a few moments, figuring out which wires to pull or what switches to flick.

I simply look for the ON/OFF switch, wondering if it was within reach.

It isn't but if I shuffled a bit more to the side...

       "Mr. Turner?" I hear Emily say.

       "Shoot!" I curse under my breath and move back onto my bed.

       "What were you just doing?" she asks, eyeing my suspiciously.

I decide to use my fading eye sight as an excuse. "I thought I'd dropped something down the side, so I was trying to retrieve it. I didn't want to bother you with something so small."

She wasn't fully convinced with my reasoning, but when she walked to the right side of my bed and knelt on the floor, she picked up a scrap of paper. I would have been able to recognise it anywhere.

She handed me the piece of paper, and left the room again, saying "No matter how small something is, just call me."

I open the piece of paper, and I read the letter that I knew by heart. Anna's final letter to me. My heart pounds as I remember my fight to prove that her father had intentionally killed her, and I am re-filled with the passion that only Anna could bring out of me.

I shuffle back over to the right side of the bed, trying my hardest not to be heard, and I find a switch that can turn of the heart machine. I carefully turn it off, and I take in one last long breath.

It isn't the best way to go, but I use my last breath to say, "I'm coming, Anna, my love."

My broken heart finally rested.



*****

I find myself in the woods were we used to spend our summers, and I hear Anna's vibrant laugh.

       "I've been waiting for you," she says, spinning me around. She still looks the same as she was when I last saw her, not that I was expecting her to change a single bit.

       "I've missed you so much, Anna," I tell her as I hold and stroke her face with my hands. My youth has been returned to me, and I know that I am probably 17 again.

She smiles, and kisses me. I haven't felt as great as I did in that moment for a long time, and I willingly kiss her back, gently deepening it. She was like my own personal drug, my oxygen.

       "I never got over the fact that you were pregnant," I tell her when we finally break apart. We have a huge amount of catching up to do, though I'm sure she's been watching over me this whole time and so will know most of what has been happening.

       "The pill fails sometimes," she says as she shrugs her shoulders. She's had plenty of time to think over and accept everything that had happened in her life.

       "I was going to propose to you that day, you know." I laugh as she looks at me in shock.

       "Geez, Blake, I forgot about that for a minute."

       "I know, I know..." Then a idea comes to my head. "Do you think we could marry in the afterlife?"

She grins and nods her head a few times.

       "In which case..." I kneel down and she pretends to be surprised, like she never saw it coming. "Anna, would you do me the absolute honor of being my wife?"

       "Hell, yes!" She says as she practically jumps on me, making us fall onto the muddy forest floor among the fallen leaves and twigs. After a few moments, she says "And by the way, I heard everything you said when you came by my grave every day. I love you more than anything, Blakey"

I playfully scowl at her use of that nickname before my face softens at what she said, before getting to my feet, lending her my hand so she can get up more easily. "And I meant every word I said."



She smiles at me as I take her hand and we begin to walk towards the light together.