Joseph Alexander

Joseph Alexander sat in his favourite coffee shop drinking his favourite tea counting the last days of his life. The coffee shop, despite being his favourite, was a place with very little character with very uninteresting people, or so Joseph Alexander would say to himself time and again. But there he sat, in his favourite seat—it was by the window, so that he wouldn't have to look at the décor—counting—day 1, day 2, day 3—all the very last days that he had left. "There will be a day when I will go to the library and read every book," he would say to himself. "And another when I shall go to that beach for first and last time." On he went, counting and listing everything that he planned to do, all methodical and quite neat. "I think one day I will save for a special occasion, to do something just absolutely wild. Perhaps I will go to the zoo!" Joseph Alexander continued like this for a good hour or so, and stared out the window, which had not been cleaned this morning, such that everything outside looked hazy and off. He did not quite know why he liked this coffee shop so much, but then, he did not like questioning these sort of things. He was much better as listing all of his "Last Days", he called them. He was very good at this; he did it every morning for as long as he could remember. When exactly any of these days would happen he would not dare, of course. That was not the point. It had nothing to do with when anything was going to happen, just simply that it was listed in proper order, so that when they did come he would know exactly what to do and how. And so Joseph Alexander kept on with his enumeration. Until Death walked in through the door.

M.M. — 21-Apr-2015