12:28 pm

"Ham on rye was my favorite back when I was a brat," he blurted while he served us. "It was my favorite too when my wife could still cook. Now that she's gone, I don't think mines are good enough, so I stopped."

"Sorry for your loss," I said.

"…Sorry."

"Oh, never understood why people are sorry 'bout that. That's the funny thing 'bout death, y'know it'll come, but ye're still amazed when it does and then 'sorry'. Well, 'scuse me missy and Mr. Burglar, it's just some old man's rambling. Come on, the plates won't disappear on their own."

It was still good though. I might've never eaten rye, but I like how it tasted. She repeated many times that the meal was delicious, and so did I. The old Henry only shrugged.

"…Could you tell us more about your wife?"

"But of course missy. Let's see… Throughout my life, I've pretty much been a vagrant, with my camper and my lousy shirts. Around my 30s, I met Joan on clear August evening. Now that the reminiscences get my ass, it should be around this time of the year. Anyway, I just arrived in town by night and wanted to get my ass away as soon as possible. The scene is a bridge near here and my headlights are even weaker than the moonlight. Joan is perched above a somber ravine, as somber as her face. She was so beautiful under that moonlight. I didn't particularly wanna stop her from jumping, but I wanted to hear her story somehow. I parked my camper and she moved a step back as I got closer. 'What do you want?' her voice was awfully sharp, almost mean. I answered back 'And what do ya want with that pit?'. Now, I can count back the seconds that elapsed before her answer. 'I'll die either way,' she replied. Even under the moonlight, she could tell that I was raising an eyebrow. 'Care to explain?' I asked, and she said 'Lung cancer. 5 years at best.' 'Come on, 5 years' a lot. Ya can do anything during that remaining time' I replied. It was more absurd to me than pathetic at the time. 'I'll die either way' she repeated. Her repeating it bugged me. It was absurd. Still, I know loads of people who'd think that way. But it really bugged me, so I gripped her hand. 'Come on, don't do stupid shit like this. Ya got 5 years ahead,' I shouted. 'Get the fuck away,' she hissed. I ended up grabbing her by the waist and while she yelled for help as if I was some rapist (no, missy, I assure ye I ain't one!), I carried her to my camper and dropped her on the front seat. I know, I sound like a rapist, and I even locked the doors! I asked her 'Where do ya live?' and she sucked her teeth and crossed her arms and let an exasperated sigh. She muttered the directions 'til her house and I drove there while she still wore that offended look of hers (well, ya must've guessed it by now, it was this house. Well, it was her parents' but they left it to her when they died). Going back to our story now—I almost lit a cigarette in that confined space with a girl with lung cancer in it! 'You fucking serious? I'm dying of lung cancer and you still can light a cigarette in front of my face?' she insulted me for a while then, between her directions. She rushed out of my ride without any hesitation when we got there. Somehow, I didn't want to leave her alone, so I 'annoyed' her a bit more. 'Hey, hey, wait please! I know I'm an asshole, so let me make up for it, aight?' I said. She looked at me with her eyes that said exactly 'How could you help? You're an asshole and probably retard.' 'I could drive ya to yer consultations and such, y'know, that kind of thing,' I replied. She walked away but I still followed her to her porch. She stopped midway though and thought a bit. And for the first time, she clearly looked straight in my eyes and hers reflected the moonlight. 'I don't need it…' she answered and I was about to insist when she added 'But, since you've been such an asshole, you gotta make up for it, as you said. So, I want you to take me to a roadtrip, a long roadtrip!' Never was I so surprised of my life. 'Wait! Some dude just happens to save ya from killing yaself and now ya just wanna have a roadtrip with him?' 'I'll die either way. And you're too much of an asshole to harm me,' whatever she meant! She went in the house, I didn't dare to intrude, and she came back a while after with some luggage. Damn, I might've fallen in love with her in that exact same moment she fastened her seatbelt and joyfully announced in the dead of the night 'Where shall we go?' And for two years, we drifted away on desert roads, going god knows where and loved each other and married again for god knows which reason… But that thing was slowly killing her inside, it carried on its death march, and ultimately, we went back here and she started to take a treatment. It was too late, as soon as they diagnosed it before the first time we met, it was too late. She was trapped by this singular fate. And y'know what the worst was? It wasn't that she was slowly dying, no, she was slowly becoming indifferent of everything. Not even my love for her moved that poisoned, chemotherapied heart of hers… That joyful, sassy girl I'd met gradually decayed as she was replaced by an indifferent corpse. It's been seventeen years since she's gone now, but these five last years—that maximum she'd guessed, thankfully reached—still haunt me to this very day like an encore of the human tragedy. O Joan… Your life was a moonlight," he finally sighed.

Meanwhile, she'd completely stopped eating her ham on rye and her cress; some tears escaped her blind eyes and almost rainbowed the sun gushing in the room. If Joan's life was a moonlight, maybe hers was a rainbow, or so I thought. She was fundamentally sympathizing with the deceased wife of the old Henry. I had stopped too to look at the old man's face; a bitter smile hung there as the good and bad nuanced into greyish memories that haunted him. He must have discarded these thoughts, so he grabbed a forkful of cress and resumed eating.

"Sorry for this sad story missy," he apologized. "Really…"

It left a bitter taste of ham on rye in my mouth.