Doing Nothing

The blizzard was a bonus. No bearer of condolence would brave this storm and interrupt his plans. Everything was ready. He’d disabled the automatic shutoff on the sauna, and all he needed to do now was nothing, drift off to sleep and let go.

He lay on the upper bench, rising up from time to time to finish the last of his Louis Latour, the most expensive-looking bottle he could find in the cabin, and ran through the checklist. He’d burned her letters; that had hurt, but the rest of the correspondence - all those hospital bills and test results - had been a pleasure to destroy. He’d even waited until the ashes cooled enough to sweep up and add to the compost bin. He liked the idea that they would someday help something grow. Now everything was clean and tidy, his papers organized and laid out on the kitchen table with the note, his clothes folded neatly in a pile by the door.

Walking naked through that swirling white had been perfect. He had strolled slowly and deliberately far out into the field until the house, and everything else but the red light on the sauna door, had disappeared, ignoring his body’s screams for him to hurry. And now, his body was at it again, begging him to leave this stifling box, or at least move to the lower bench. He took another swig and lay back down in the puddle of sweat and said aloud, to his body, “Fuck you!”