"I'll just wait here then," he says.
But who waits for whom?
The clock ticks. A rose blooms. This moment dies and is replaced by another, and another. You can’t stop it. None of us can. The future spirals ever closer, like a force of nature; like gravity; like the sight of a dead man’s fist clutching an empty revolver.
He waits for you. But who is he – and who are you?
I suppose the details don’t matter. They never did. It’s like your father always said: You can stop the car any time you like, but the road still goes on, with or without you. The most you can do is delay for a time.
He will always wait for us here, in this garden just past the horizon, only a few more sunsets away. Back where it all began, at the end of all things. With tenderness and love in his heart, he waits. They all do. They call us home.
Whatever happens, just know this: We chose it, you and I. We made this happen. Win or lose, our future is a choice we made while trying to avoid it; it is a gong we banged and banged and couldn’t stop banging.
And when it’s time to go out in a blaze of glory, I will have no regrets. I will turn to you, my friend, my soul, and say, it took everything to get us here, and you will finally laugh at the joke.
Until then, well, I guess – I’ll just wait here then.