Old Joints
Breath. The air fogs in the autumn air. My eyes flick and watch it swirl and then be blown back into me. The vapor dissipates, and I blink slowly, wondering where the time has gone. Over decades, once smooth hands have wrinkled into shriveled plums, such sureness of foot is now reduced to the relinquished weight on the hold of a sturdy cane. Yet still, I see the autumn leaves through cataract eyes, their flow from green to reds and yellows like the breath and release of the tides. The seasons are all indications of the passage of time. One to the next, marching on to a fro along life’s transparency.
Water gurgles from the fountain edge I sit upon. My visage inside the liquid swirls, mirroring me, crinkled and haggard of dark complexion and tired eyes. Black pupils drift to passersbys’. The leaves crunch under a jogger’s foot as mothers chat with pushing strollers and children toss up leaves. The pulse of life continues on while I draw back with the receding tide. Numbered days remain.
Mouth a hard flat line, I am the eyes that watch. The being that waits for her ending. Marching then walking then dragging along — left behind in a drifting flow, ever further on the bleak tick, tick of time. How little there is now to take for granted. Bittersweet yet savory does it all go by.
A new day.
A new day.
A new day.
Always there shall be another… until it all finally ends. I am not thankful for those who have passed before me. Each taken by the firing squad beneath the barrel of Father Time is one less by my side. How is it to be lonely and old? To seem to others like a winter’s breeze — chilly and cold, a frigid reminder of the fleeting presence of mortality. I am the reflection of the tick, tick in a quiet internal clock. The next to be taken by the black robes and sweeping scythe of the reaper, which haunts our edged periphery of thought.
No, I shall not be thankful.
To go first or to go last… neither would I choose. To go not at all into this fear — the unknown. I wish to stay eternal, to hold out against that end of darkness where no one knows we go.
Crisp air pulls through my nostrils. There is a slight tremor in my naked hands; ungloved, the skin is veined and thin. To be so fragile yet unaged within. What is the nature of the soul? It was once supple, this body I now drag. Its heartbeat, quick with youth, is now sluggish, tired in mind. Creased eyes peer out from a soul that never ages; above, puffed clouds drift leisurely. The azure blue sky holds the sun behind a half curtain of thick condensation.
The light cold pierces these bones, knocking false teeth together in a quiet chatter. Though muffled in aged ears, I still hear… Headphones blast with harsh beats and raging words as a teenager bobs his head to what he will not remember. Two girls sip coffee from mittened hands, and a dog barks in the distance. Squirrels skitter as they flee up tree bark and twittering chirps lift on the songbirds’ wings from trees.
“And to dust… we shall return.” The words pass with a tang, my tongue rolling with their savor. Another day, another utterance. Soon too, perhaps, this body will drop away. Firm rubber strikes mosaic stone, and with the popping creak of old joints, I rise slowly. Leaning forward, I transfer weight onto my gnarled oak cane. “What a day… what a day.”
Hello! We’re D.J. Hoskins
We are Davena and Jason Hoskins, co-authors of 30+ books and siblings who write under the pseudonym D.J. Hoskins. Three years apart and in our twenties, we have been fascinated by stories from a young age. Davena is a student attending Princeton University, and Jason attends Georgetown University.
