Behind Lifeless Eyes: Issue One: New Life

The End is the Beginning

Every tale must start somewhere. Sometimes a new tale will start just as the old one comes to its end. Other times a new story will spring up in the middle of the current one and weave itself into the older tale. Occasionally a tale will start off normally before splitting into multiple paths which spiral off wildly and create new tales along the way. This is not one of those stories, at least not yet.

This story starts at a hospice in a rural valley in Southern England, not that this is important. The hospice is surrounded on all sides by dense woodland comprised of firs and birch, with a wide river gently weaving through the valley, this is not really important either. The hospice was just another rural manor house until a few weeks ago where it was hastily renovated for its first, and possibly last, patient. This is slightly important.

The patient residing on the second floor master bedroom is held in high esteem by his people, although he does not fully believe he is deserving of such. Who is this man? His name is Geoffrey Hughes and he is very important indeed.

Geoffrey lay on his death bed and he knew in his heart he wouldn't last another day. Looking back at the seventy-two years he had been on this world, he had acquired a fair share of regrets as well as a hefty dose of righteous pride. 

"Admittedly" he thought "most of the regrets weren't because of something I did. It was bloody typical that when you sorted out one mess, a bigger one comes screaming out of the blue."

"Well at least I got it all sorted out before I left, it wouldn't be right to leave my children and grandchildren to clean up my mess. In the end, that's all that matters. It's the only thing that ever has."

"I'll definitely have to come back one day and check on them. I just have to make sure I don't materialise in the middle of the table whilst they're having their dinner. Maybe I'll be able to convince Jenny to join me. Oh it'll be so great to see her again. I hope I'll be able to keep roughly the same shape."

Geoffrey had a big idea. And the thing with big ideas, at least to Geoffrey, was that they only worked if you paid them no attention at all until the very last moment. It had worked with every other big problem he dealt with in life, except cooking dinner, so why wouldn't it work with death?

He turned his head to the blurry, brown lump he hoped was still a table and fumbled for his glasses. Geoffrey managed to grab his glasses without knocking his cider over, at least this time anyway. 

"I hope the carpet hasn't been ruined, it sounded pretty thick when they carried me in here." Geoffrey pondered on this for a little bit, before grunting in annoyance. "Crap, I was thinking out loud, not a good sign. Maybe a day is a bit too optimistic." 

Geoffrey turned his head to the clock on the wall. The wall was plastered with absolutely ghastly wallpaper by the way, trust me on this, it was just ghastly. The clock was slowly ticking time away, or was it time slowly ticking the clock away, I can't remember.

Anyway, the clock showed that it was a quarter to five. Geoffrey's family would be turning up to pay their last respects soon and take down his final words before he was left in peace. Geoffrey lay their twiddling his fingers, which was pretty much all his body was up to doing at the moment.

Geoffrey spent the last few minutes before the arrival of his family reflecting on his demise, as you do. 

"It's not a bad way to go really. A bit boring and a tad slow though. It's probably because my body is so full of painkillers. I probably wouldn't know if I got stabbed in my sleep unless they left the knife in me. Gods know there's worse ways to go than this." 

Geoffrey then sensibly repressed all the terrible ways he'd seen people die in his long, hard life. If he died with tears and despair on his face, he'd never hear the end of it later.