The afternoon was unusually cold and dry, he hadn’t seen such cold afternoon in more than five decades. He took out his pipe and put in a new batch of tobacco and started smoking. Smoking was one of the habits he had from his teens and he still continued it. He had herd people say it isn't good for health and always wondered “what's wrong with people now a days I am seventy seven and I have been smoking for last fifty god damn years and nothing has happened to me, people just make up such things when they have nothing else to do.”
He was feeling mild discomfort that afternoon and he blamed the cold and dry afternoon for that. He knew a few minutes with his white burley in pipe and all the discomfort is gone and he is good to go and start his work in farm.He loved the first few puff of the white burley it felt the problems also flew away along with the smoke and each smoke made his life simpler. But today it was different that uneasiness was still there, in fact it has increased now the uneasiness has crept down into the abdominal area and with a slight heartburn.
“The damn meat was too rare for me, my woman still don’t know what type of meat I like.” He was sure it was the meat and he have to suffer the heartburn till supper or worst the whole damn night. He had a sudden feeling of light-headedness “ Damn, white burley really is kicking today, may be I used a little too much.” Now the discomfort had completely gone, it was followed by slight pain, pressure, fullness and squeezing of the the chest. The pain was fast spreading to shoulders, arms, neck jaw and teeth. He was panting for breath now. He knew it is neither the cold and dry after noon, or the rare meat or the white burley.
His heart was beating fast, the pie in his hand had fallen down and he was called his wife for help. She came running dressed in an apron and some metal scrubber in her hands she was still cleaning after the lunch. When she saw he was about to fall on the ground holding his chest, she was just in time to support him. She took him inside and called the other people in the house for help.
He was eight, he could hear his parents debating over to send him to his aunts house as they didn’t have food and electric city as his father lost his job with half of the country because of great depression. He still felt that hopelessness which he felt as a kid to leave his family and still that agony was the same.
He was sixteen and was out with a girl for the first time, he was walking her back to her house they had reached her house. He was nervous he was unsure whether to kiss her or not he had never kissed anyone yet, unsure he leaned in to bid a farewell kiss. He kissed her cheeks first she didn’t move, he could smell the light aroma of the talcum powder she had used, slowly he moved towards her lips and so did she. He slowly place his lips over hers, she broke the kiss quickly and as she pulled away slowly they shyly exchanged good byes. She still didn’t meet his eyes.
He remembered the first time they had done it. It was beautiful for both of them and both of them knew they are going to get married someday. It felt wonderful somehow completing him, filling in a void. Making him the special someone to her.
Shortly after it they got married and he was enrolled in military and was send to fight for the country. That was the longest he was away from her. he came back home after four years of war and retiring from the army with ample savings to start a family.
He was twenty four when they were having their first kid. It was a baby boy, he had never seen such a beautiful and healthy boy before. He knew he will do anything and everything in his power to protect the child and to provide him with the best facility.
He was thirty nine and he lost his parents in a accident in his farm, he still blamed himself for that. The same year their first born was going for the first boy girl dance. He had his first father son moment then, he told him about kissing a girl for the first time.Many moments from his life unfurled in front of him, he had no regrets he lived it fully and with dignity. When life gave him lemons he made lemonades out of it.
The noise around him was slowly fading, the light was getting dimmer and then it all went silent.
