Attachment By D.I Jolly
“Oh man, and then there was that girl, do you remember? What was her name?”
“Janet.”
“Yeah, Janet that’s right. I swear you could light cigarettes off her, she was HOT! Last night was epic!”
Johnny sat for a moment smiling at his friend, waiting patiently for the inevitable realisation and after a few minutes, it arrived. Josh’s face changed in its usual subtle way, his eyes unfocused and refocused and looked at his friend questioningly.
“But it wasn’t last night, was it?”
“No, that particular party was about sixty years ago.”
“Sixty years, how, how is that possible we still look the same?”
Johnny let out a little chuckle.
“No my friend, we don’t.”
Josh looked down and for a moment saw himself, not as he was but how he used to be. But then his vision shifted and suddenly an old man sat there.
“Oh my God, but, how? what happened?”
“We got old is what happened. We continued to live together for far too long but eventually got our lives together. You got married had some kids, I didn’t get married but also had some kids and we drifted into life. Coming together from time to time. Then as we settled into the final stages of life we decided to move in here and end life the way it started, together.”
As he spoke Josh watched his friend age from the young man at the party to the old man he was now.
“I really got married?”
“Yeah, to Janet actually, I think that’s why you always remember that party so clearly. It was one of the last we attended while living together.”
“But where, where is she? What happened to her and my kids?”
Johnny pointed across the room at an old woman quietly reading a book and smiled, Josh recognised her instantly and his face lit up.
“And my kids?”
“They’ll probably visit on Thursday, that’s normally when they come round.”
“And your kids?”
“Also Thursday, it’s visitor’s day, besides, your son married my daughter.”
Josh’s mind flashed with memories of getting drunk at a wedding.
“Why, why don’t I remember these things?”
“We’re 89 years old. We forget things. But not always, and you always come back with a little encouragement.”
Josh smiled at his friend and remembered a little more, remembered grandchildren sitting on a couch playing video games talking about moving into a house together and growing old together. He remembered how happy he was when they all moved into the care home and how now that they were old, it was acceptable to sit on the couch all day and sleep until the afternoon. And he remembered pumpkin soup.