12:51 pm

The bitter taste remains in my mouth 'til the end of the meal. At least, she settled down a bit but she still sniffled when the old Henry decided to show me his camper. I wanted to take her with me, but he just shook he head and gestured me to come. I ended up leaving her by the windowsill so that she can see the afternoon sky. The old man's garage was pretty dusty but it's one of the only places where the scent of ash might not rule. He lit a cigarette and gave me another; the last time I smoke was around the end of high school. I just quitted 'cause it gnawed on my allowance and booze is just cheaper. Maybe he wasn't accustomed to a smell other than cigarettes.

"I started to smoke like hell when Joan died. I can pretty much guess what a psychoanalyst might say about me, but I won't change either way."

He removed the tarpaulin on his Volkswagen type 2, or so he told me after since I don't know shit about cars. But I could at least tell it was a hippie camper, though I can't imagine the old Henry dressing up and behaving like one in some past. It was fortunately spared from the dust. I might take it to a carwash like he suggested, and also refilling the tank and check the wheels. The once white paint of the camper had turned into a pretty disgusting grey too. He opened up the garage to let some light in before giving me the key.

"Hope it still works, try it out, Mr. Burglar."

I was relieved to not see a dream-catcher inside the camper. The leather covering the front seat was already crackling dry. I took a glimpse in the back and there was a thin, not-soft-looking mat in there with some sheets and a rusty toolbox. The windshield definitely needed some cleaning; it only turned filtering-through light more yellowish. Luckily, the engine started the second time I tried to turn the key, and I ended up taking it out in front of the porch. The old Henry was quite amazed that it was still running fine and he puffed his cigarette with a proud grin while I wheeled the camper.

"Welp, here ya go. Ya should leave soon anyway."

"Thank you Henry," and we shook hands.

"Anyway, there's something I've been wanting to tell ya. Two things that are actually one. I spared the missy the first thing since she wept, but the second one is directly concerning her and for ya."

I sat on the porch while the old man just stood there staring at the grass and exhaling some fumes out of his lungs. His puffs were so thick that it looked like lost clouds.

"It has to do with her illness I guess."

"Ya quite a sharp one, huh. No wonder why ya keep that diary."

"Just got nothing to do better than write everything down," and he laughed a bit.

"Anyway, there's something that I omitted concerning Joan since it's awfully close to the missy. Joan's mental health declined but round the last year I was with her, she'd blurt out things that didn't make sense. Things like 'I wanna smell the sun'. See where I'm getting at? And just like that, she'd also talk to me again and it almost looked like the joyful, sassy girl I knew. I think there's a name for that…"

"Terminal lucidity? Something like that I think."

"Yeah, something like that. I pondered it at bit, and here was what I came up with; their absurd desires might be a way to not succumb to illness. I mean, Joan, whose lungs were pretty much fucked up, wanted to 'smell the sun', and our missy, who I take will gradually lose the control over her body, wants to 'touch the sky'."

"That's pretty fucked up if you ask me, but I kinda understand."

"And the sea," he puffed his cigarette harder before throwing it away. "Our missy is dying, I can see it. That 'terminal lucidity' of yours might be what's happening to her, a 'one last shot', but there's something else. The way our missy looks at the sky is the same way Joan looked at her sun-filled hospital room and the crimson-tinged walls at dusk. It must be so beautiful."

"Is that the 'a fool will be cured before his death'?"

"I like that statement. When ya know so well that ya'll die as they do, I can't even wonder how beautiful this world must be to them. That's the chief thing that help me understand why our missy wanted to go to the sea. Because it's beautiful."

"Maybe we'll all come to understand now that it's the end of the world. And maybe that explains why people are so calm about it."

"Oh, but I think ya kinda already got it, Mr. Burglar. That's why ya helped her. Welp, ya should get going by now, so take care of that missy for me please."

Our weird discussion ended there and he entered inside while I'm looking one last time at the sky. Me too, I can't even wonder how beautiful the sky is to her.