Grandfather's Diaries

I watch him day and night. The old man, alone in his rough shack in the forest, so far removed from a world I can barely remember. I watch him eat his simple meals, drink his morning tea, read messages in the stars that I can't see. I don't get hungry or thirsty anymore.

My grandfather has always been a reclusive man. This home, this isolation he'd built, had been his dream. He gave his youth and his naivety away to war in Korea, all those years ago. He'd given his middle age to a factory, making cars and trucks to move things, but never going anywhere himself. All he'd wanted to do was to write, he'd told me once. Sometimes, he'd said, the dreams of your youth get lost with age, but sometimes it's only with age that they can come true.

He'd always been a solitary man. I'd never known my grandmother, and he said very little about her. My mother called him a mad old eccentric, and seldom spoke with him since he left the comforts of urban society behind.

I idolized him as a child. I joined the Canadian Forces because he had done the same when he was my age. When it came time for my tour in Kandahar, I believed I was acting for the greater good. That my presence there would make a difference.

I don't remember how I came to be in these woods. I can't say for certain how long I've asked myself that question. Time seems to be broken. One night can last for a year, one day can end in the space of a single breath. Of course, I don't need to breathe anymore.

The old man was an avid diarist. His home was filled with scraps of paper, musings on napkins, even etchings on the walls. I never knew what he was writing about. Not until the day he finally looked me in the eye.

I watched him as his movements slowed, as the tremors in his hands became more pronounced. I listened to the rattle in his cough worsen. I'd watched him double over, gasping for air, before rising to his feet and smiling. He was seeing me for the first time.

He was holding a book, a great glowing tome. There was a time when I would have recoiled at such a sight, but it all seemed so natural. The old man seemed so content.

"Hello grandpa," I said.

"Hello Alex."

"What is that?" I asked him, nodding towards his book, which he was hugging to his frail chest.

His smile grew, and with it the lines on his face smoothed, and he stood straighter and prouder than I'd ever seen.

"My life," he said. "I've finally finished."

I nodded, and watched as he let it go. The book fell to the floor, pages lost in its own light. We embraced, the old man no longer old. Two generations of soldiers, two generations of ghosts.

"Can we go now?" I asked.

He nodded. "Thank you for waiting."

(511 words)

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