text: At ninety-two years old, Herman Barrett had been through a hell of a lot in his life, and complained about it a hell of a lot more. In his mind, however, he’d earned that right. Those kids today, those yuppies, those whippersnappers, just didn’t know how good they had it. The things his generation had gone through to give them the cushy, oversaturated lives they blasted shamelessly over the internet. He’d make sure they knew it though. Darn sure. Herman was born on the cusp of the Great Depression. His father slaved away in a rubber factory to put food on the table of their ramshackle apartment, earning a fatal cancer as an end-of-year bonus. By the time Herman finished high school, he faced death himself, serving in a little thing called WWII. Barely able to fend off his local bullies, he was placed against the might of the Jerry army, promptly wounded when he misfired his own artillery shell. He woke up screaming on the boat back across the Atlantic, his searing side loaded with shrapnel. The war hadn’t been all bad though. Without it, he wouldn’t have been forced to recover in that dreary Toronto hospital, his bedpan emptied by a pretty nurse named Cordelia Robbins. Once he’d been deemed ‘healed enough’ to leave, he took the opportunity to marry her. Though he wanted to stay in the city, times were tough, so they left for Cordelia’s sleepy hometown of Day’s End, where he could work in her father’s metal shop. They moved into a small two-floor home on the corner of Swindon and Bristol, where they spent some seventy-odd years together. There they raised three boys and a host of dogs, celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases- a barrage of happy memories. Times had changed though. They’d certainly changed. Now Cordelia resided in a brass urn on the mantle, and Herman’s only regular human contact was with Juanita, the caregiver his eldest son hired to maintain his fragile longevity. Herman had convinced himself that Juanita was more for his son’s peace of mind than his own wellbeing. At the very least, her daily visits meant that he didn’t have to be locked up in a home- he’d take a second load of shrapnel before he let that happen. Currently, Herman was seated at his kitchen table. He was flanked by the usual fare- orange pill cups and bowls with hardened-on oatmeal residue. Juanita was across from him, watching the blood pressure monitor that gripped his forearm like a chain. “Hold still” she instructed, voice professional despite her shrinking patience. “This is stupid!” Herman spat back. “Thing’s so tight it’s gonna chop my arm off!” Juanita rolled her eyes as the rubber cuff swelled, the gauge arrow rocking side-to-side until it finally settled on a reading. “One-forty-five, Mr. Barrett. Still high” she reported disapprovingly. “You need to lay off the cupcakes.” “What cupcakes?” Herman asked, brushing a rogue sprinkle from the tablecloth. His caregiver sighed heavily, pulling off the monitor with a crackle of Velcro. She placed it in a bulging grey case of what Herman saw as further instruments of torture. “Are we about done?” he grumbled. “The Wendigos are on at 2. Although a lot of players have stupid hair nowadays, you ever notice that? What happened to just a nice, short Sunday cut? Now you’ve got mohawks and dreadlocks and hipster beards and all this crap.” “You still need to do your exercises.” “Exercises?!” Herman gasped. “Oh no, I’ve got things to do. Important things. The exercises can wait. I’ll just double it up tomorrow.” Juanita frowned. “No arguments, Mr. Barrett. This is your health we’re talking about. You refuse to use a walker, so your legs need to be in tip-top condition.” She always said that. *Tip-top*. It drove Herman insane. Juanita lifted a rolled-up mat from her bottomless chest of supplies. “I’ll get this set up. You just stay here and relax...and that means *stay*.” She flicked on a nearby radio, the Glenn Miller Orchestra swelling from nothingness. Herman scowled, watching as Juanita disappeared from the kitchen. He didn’t *mind* her company, truth be told. She was someone to speak to. Someone who would listen to his long, meandering stories. But she was certainly no Cordelia. Cordelia wouldn’t have forced him to do exercises or have his blood pressure taken or swallow pills the size of his head. She would’ve wrapped her arms lovingly around him from behind, whispered sweet nothings in his ear, her red locks brushing the side of his face. She certainly wouldn’t have made him stay in any one spot, that was for sure. Gripping the chair-back, Herman hoisted himself up, vertebrae cracking like pistol shots. He’d been warned not to move too much on his own, especially up and down the stairs. One morning Juanita arrived to find him lying sideways by the bottom step, hip bone jutting out like a dorsal fin. He was admittedly not as swift as he used to be, but an old war wound plus being almost a hundred basically guaranteed that. He headed defiantly to the den, with a stride resembling Frankenstein’s monster. Rather than a cane or walker (“what do you think I am, some kind of old man?!”), Herman had set up an elaborate trail of chairs throughout the main floor of the house, allowing him to grapple his way around. It also gave him quick places to rest, which he needed every few feet. He was already out of breath by the time his slippers sunk into the den carpet, the Orchestra but a muffle of brass. He collapsed into his favourite armchair, a thin sunbeam slipping through the musty drapes. The chair had been there over fifty years now and, though stuffing burst from the seams and it groaned and creaked just as much as he did, to Herman it was the most comfortable thing in the world. It also gave him a perfect view of the fireplace, the inside blackened with soot from blazes long ago. The mantle was covered in old volumes and trinkets, his wife’s urn resting in the centre, on eternal guard over the house she once kept. Beside it was a yellowed photo of the couple from the day they’d moved in, standing on the front lawn over a wooden “SOLD!” sign. His arm was around her, their sparkling ’46 Ford in the driveway. Looking into his own younger eyes, Herman saw himself as almost handsome. He had thick black hair rather than the grey weeds that now sprouted from his scalp. His skin was clear instead of liver-spotted, he stood tall and at attention rather than hunched over like Quasimodo. Cordelia looked even better, though she always had. Despite the black-and-white of the image, he could still see her fiery red hair, the blue of her eyes, the smear of pink on her lips. He could hear her laughing as she told her father to keep the Kodak steady, the smell of wet paint wafting from the new garden fence. “Mr. Barrett!” echoed Juanita’s voice, interrupting his memories. Herman grumbled. Maybe if he pretended to be dead she’d leave him alone. However, his caregiver was already leaning in the doorway, wearing an arm brace. “What are you doing in here? The sooner we start, the sooner we finish. You know that.” He took a longing glance at the photograph. A young Cordelia was smiling at him. “Fine” Herman murmured. It was best not to argue with the woman who controlled his medication. Hoisting himself out of the armchair, he ignored Juanita’s outstretched arm for support and headed down the hall, using seatbacks like stationary crutches. He soon arrived, gasping for oxygen, in what had been a rec-room in its infancy, when the boys were growing up. Back then it was home to a train set and a ping pong table. Once they went off to school, Cordelia transformed it into Herman’s gently-used office. Now it was filled with junk. Towers of cardboard boxes lined the walls, nearly blotting out the overhead light, each crammed to the brim with mementos from ninety-two years of life. The old ping pong table hid behind it all, cobwebs strung from the legs like a second netting. When Herman did bite the big one, his sons were going to have a terrible time sorting through it all. It brought a wry smile to his face. “Alright, Mr. Barrett, easy does it.” He groaned as Juanita slowly lowered him onto the rubber mat, laid out on the dusty tile. He was on his back, as helpless as a turtle, staring up at the plaster ceiling. Juanita tightened her arm brace and rolled up the hem of his corduroy pantleg, exposing a near-skeletal limb. She slowly stretched it upward, trying to combat the stiffness, knowing what was coming. The leg had been raised barely five degrees when Herman started barking in agony. “That’s enough! That’s enough!” As his face contorted, Juanita gently returned the leg to a resting position. The left was always more tender, though probably not as gut-wrenchingly painful as Herman made it out to be. Ignoring him, she went to work on the right. “So, I was speaking with Charlie this morning...” she reported. Charlie was Herman’s eldest son, now a senior himself- he was also the one who paid her to routinely torture him. He had escaped Day’s End for the city the day he turned eighteen, a lifetime ago. “He said you need to finish the final draft of your will.” “Isn’t that some punk lawyer’s job?” “You still have to write it. Charlie just wants to make sure that all your...assets” she glanced around at the looming boxes “...end up where you want them to, and not an estate sale.” “Estate sale? They’ll have to pry this stuff from my cold dead....” Herman clenched his teeth as Juanita gave his leg another jolt. She’d learned how to shut him up when she had to. “He also suggested you leave something to charity. Maybe the Salvation Army?” “Not that thieving cult.” “Well, think about it then. It’d be nice to leave a legacy.” As he stewed over the thought of his will, she suddenly wrenched his leg up a full ten degrees. Herman screamed. “Stop it! Are you trying to kill me woman?! You’re fired! You’re fired!” Juanita let go of the leg, and it flopped to the mat with dead weight. She knew her job was stable- Charlie had assured her as much, no matter what his father said. Herman ‘fired’ her at least once a week. “I can tell you’re tense, Mr. Barrett. Why don’t you try some of those stretches I gave you in your chair tonight, and we’ll give it a second shot tomorrow? *Tip-top*?” Herman sighed. “*Tip-top*.” Juanita smiled weakly, sympathetically, and gathered her equipment. Herman stomped back to the den, and simmered in his armchair until he heard her car back out the messily-paved driveway. Then the silence of the house overtook him. \*\*\* Slowly, Herman hobbled out onto the front porch, a steaming TV dinner in his unstable hand. He wasn’t sure what it was- beef, maybe chicken- but Juanita had left a whole pile of them in the freezer. Must’ve been on sale at Costco. Keeping his free hand on the doorway, he lowered himself into the plastic chair that lounged atop the steps, bordered by a rusted railing. He heard a small crack extend beneath his weight, and prayed he wouldn’t fall through. However, he needed a change from the drab interior of the house, and from the ghosts that lingered there. The front porch was the furthest he could go without needing another new hip. The summer street stretched out before him. It was a row of near-identical suburban bungalows, bathed in the shade of maples and ashes. Sprinklers waved lazily across blooming lawns, catching the late afternoon light. The tire swing across the street twisted in the breeze, and from nearby yards he could hear dogs barking, underscored by the rumble of a distant passing train. A car hummed by- it wasn’t a ’46 Ford, but an ’18 Toyota. Day’s End was picturesque, sure, he couldn’t deny that. Perfect small-town Ontario. But it wasn’t his. It was Cordelia’s. He preferred the facelessness of the big city, while this community- a *damn commune* as he labelled it during their rare spousal arguments- was all hers. Whenever they used to sit out on that very same porch together, as afternoon melted into evening and evening faded into night, she would strike up conversations with whoever passed by- the dogwalkers, the mailman, the mothers bringing their children home from school. They all greeted her with an enthusiastic “Hello Mrs. Barrett!”, as if Herman was just part of the scenery. She gushed as though each was her own child, asking them about their day, their feelings, their cousin’s wedding, everything. Even during Cordelia’s last days, people from all over town brought cards and flowers and homemade chicken soup to try to cheer her up. They were always surprised when Herman answered the door, as if expecting Cordelia to leap out of her bedridden, near-death state to come greet them- which she certainly would’ve, had she been able. When she finally passed, people stopped visiting. Stopped coming to converse. Herman was a pariah, the eternal outsider. He had always wanted to leave- he was a city boy after all. But getting his wife to pack up and move would’ve been like wrenching a child from its parents’ arms. Although he was now ‘free’ (he hated saying things like that), he was long past his expiry date in being able to set up a life elsewhere. So he would die in Day’s End, he assumed, in Cordelia’s shadow. His own passing wouldn’t be the local tragedy that hers was- people would only remark, “oh, the house on Swindon and Bristol is up for sale”. The only prevalent reminder of what had once been was a wooden sign staked in the dirt of the front garden, declaring ‘*Two Old Crows Live Here*’. Cordelia had seen it at the garden centre shortly before Herman’s ninetieth, and thought it was cute. The One Old Crow hadn’t gotten the nerve to remove it. The One Old Crow disliked Day’s End. He took a deep groan when, suddenly, a foam projectile flew from nowhere. It bounced off the porch railing, careened off the chipped doorway, and knocked the TV dinner from Herman’s hands. It splattered to the floor, trails of meat juice making their escape from the plastic tray. “Ah! Look what you made me do!” Herman shouted, despite having no idea what happened. “I’m...I’m sorry mister.” Herman turned his head. The voice had come from the young boy next door, standing on the lawn at the edge of the Barrett property. He was six or so, with hair like a mop and a t-shirt with the logo of a rock band he was much too young for. *Everything wrong with today’s Day’s End*, Herman thought. The kid’s Nerf football sat in the remains of the TV dinner, smeared with gravy and mashed potatoes, slowly shuddering as it came to a rest. “I’m sorry” the boy said again. Herman was about to lay into him, when the thought of Cordelia gave him atypical restraint. “No, it’s...fine” he muttered absent-mindedly. He prepared to hoist himself up, intent on grabbing another dinner, when he noticed the boy was still staring at him, wide-eyed. “What do you want?” “You’re so...” the boy said slowly, as if knowing his comment was inappropriate, but not being able to put his finger on why. “...old.” Herman was slightly stunned. “You bet your butt” he muttered, almost out of nowhere. He nearly said a different word, but maintained his restraint. It was just a kid, after all. “Why do you walk so funny?” the boy asked. It was the type of question only acceptable when it came from the mouth of a child. Herman had seen this particular child before, running around his front yard screaming, playing with his football, forcing Herman to crank up his radio inside. It struck him that he had no idea what the boy’s name was. “I was hurt in a war.” If he was going to answer the kid, he might as well make it interesting. “A war!?” the boy exclaimed, his jaw nearly striking the grass. The inevitable question came next. “Did you ever kill anyone?!” Herman frowned. The closest person he’d come to killing was himself. But the kid didn’t need to know that. “Oh yeah, a *lot* of people. Tons of bad guys. I once had Hitler himself in my sights.” The boy probably had no idea who Hitler was (Herman doubted the town’s education system), but it blew him away nonetheless. “That’s so cool!” he gasped. “Then what happened?!” What did happen? He met Cordelia, moved to Day’s End, had some kids, grew older and crankier. Then he thought of something the boy might like. “I worked at a metal shop. Made all kinds of stuff. I got to use a blowtorch.” That was enough to send the kid spiralling into awe. Herman felt awfully good about himself. Maybe his young neighbour was more curious than he assumed. “Ryder!” called a woman’s voice from the screen door of the adjacent house. The boy glanced over his shoulder. “I gotta go. Suppertime.” Herman was about to nod his head goodbye when he felt a...strange sentiment. “If you ever want to hear some more of my stories, you come back to my porch at anytime, you hear? I can tell you about the time I sailed across the ocean.” He quickly added, “as long as your mother says it’s okay.” The kid lit up. “I will mister!” “Herman. My name’s Herman.” “I will Mr. Herman!” Herman leaned down and lifted the football, wiping off the gravy with his handkerchief. “Go long!” he exclaimed. The boy, in fact, had to rush forward to catch it, but caught it all the same. At least he was still playing outside, Herman thought. He wasn’t one of those drone kids he pictured, glued to the screen of some iThing like a B-movie zombie. Herman watched the kid run off with the energy he wished he still possessed, bounding over the toys scattered across the lawn. The One Old Crow smiled. “See you soon.” \*\*\* “Mr. Barrett!” Juanita called out, her keys fumbling in Herman’s lock. “Mr. Barrett, are you awake?” The door creaked open, and she kicked off her shoes. The house was eerily silent, as if completely abandoned. Juanita hated mornings like this. It was just like the one where she found the old man lying at the base of the stairs, comatose in pain from his shattered hip. On one hand, he could be fine, gently napping in bed. Or there could be something horribly wrong. She walked up the thin, carpeted entryway and turned into the den, worried by what she might find. The scene, however, appeared relatively...peaceful. Herman was lying in his favourite armchair, feet up on the ottoman, slippers pointed towards the ceiling. A NASCAR race blared from the static-y TV, the rapid colour flashes reflected in his reading glasses, which drooped low on his nose. At first Juanita began crossing herself, thinking he was dead, but then she noticed the slow rise of his chest beneath the wool sweater. Herman gave a snort-like snore, turning his head side-to-side as if troubled by whatever he was dreaming about. The war, maybe. Juanita walked over and switched off the TV, plunging the house into total silence. Admittedly thankful that she wouldn’t have to put up with an *awake* Herman for the time being, she tip-toed into the kitchen to set his pills for the day on the counter. That’s when she noticed a printed document lying casually on the tablecloth, beneath an antique lamp. Its letters were blocky and all capitalized, as if drafted on a typewriter. She felt a wave of surprise at the title stenciled across the front- *Last Will and Testimony of Herman Barrett*. Feeling almost voyeuristic, she began flicking through the still-warm pages, hole-punched and bound together by a thick paperclip. She reached a section labelled ‘Endowments’. Herman’s physical and financial holdings were to be split three-ways between his sons, with Charlie gaining ownership of the house. She was surprised to see her own name listed, as the lucky recipient of his wife’s old clothes and belongings, still jammed in boxes in the spare room. *Typical Herman*, she thought. She was probably the only other woman he knew. However, Juanita was most astonished by the last item listed. It was a significant financial endowment, made out to the town of Day’s End. Herman had scribbled beneath it in red ink: *For Cordelia*.