The Last Drill

It was their 50th wedding anniversary. Pols looked over at his wife of fifty years, how could it be fifty years already? She looked more beautiful then ever. If he was critical and he wasn't, he would have noticed the fine wrinkles around her eyes and lips, the greying hair, the extra fifteen pounds that she had put on.

Oh, who was he kidding, if he looked at the mirror he would see the same wrinkles, the same grey hair, the same fifteen pounds. Shoot, make that twenty pounds. He was no spring chicken. He was okay with that.

He opened up the little black journal he had brought along to document this trip. He had picked it up from Barnes and Noble the day before the cruise. It was a Moleskine, black and so soft, it was like touching a velvet couch.

This was their dream cruise. A cruise around Antartica, nineteen days and they will get to see the penguins. They will round Cape Horn and go through Drakes Passage. This is what they had dreamed of, longed for, what they had worked for.

Pols hadn't worked up the nerve to tell her about the doctors visit. He hadn't told her about the $20,000 that he had gotten from his works charity. The charity that paid for this 21 day cruise. He wanted her to remember him as he was, not what he will become.

He picked up the pen. A cruise ship, generic pen, they handed these things out for winning trivia. He sighed, looked out at the expansive water and wondered how he could pen a love letter, his last letter to his beautiful wife.

The doctors told him the brain tumor would slowly erode his senses. He would probably start shaking in the hands, his eyes would lose their focus, his sense of smell and taste would go, then his mind. They thought at most 3 months left to live.

How do you live in three months? How do you cram what you want to see and do in three months? How do you say goodbye?

Pols began to write. He wrote of their time on the cruise, the funny things that had happened. The wine that they liked. That Italian pork dish that was so delicious, it melted in your mouth.

He looked out the window at the black water. He felt a jolt. Then he was thrown from his seat. He picked himself back up. He folded the black journal closed and laid the pen down.

The emergency siren blared. The captain came on the loudspeaker. Something about hitting an ice patch. The minutes ticked by. Where was she? Probably talking to someone she had just met. That wife of his could make friends with a porcupine. She had said she was going to the bathroom, yet hadn't returned.

He looked around and saw crew members running. Oh no. Thats not good. He went to the window, looking down, he could see a gash in the side of the ship. Water was streaming in. He had to find his wife and fast.

He went to the bathroom, no sign of her. The loudspeaker blared again, asking all passengers to return to their staterooms and get their lifejackets and meet at their muster station.

This is for real. He hurried along the packed corridor to his room. He found the life jackets. He put his on. He hesitated. He knew that she would come along. Where was she?

The loudspeaker came on again, demanding all passengers to go to their assigned muster stations. A life jacket will be provided at the muster station. QUICKLY! There was no more time to wait for his missing wife. Pols put the black journal that he never filled up inside her life jacket. He left their cabin.

He joined the passengers and crew outside on the freezing decks. He was jostled constantly from the flux of frantic passengers. Was that her? Pols thought he had spied her going in the opposite direction. He called out her name. Shouted for her. She never turned around.

The ship listed quit suddenly. People were thrown over the rails. Pols grabbed onto the railing. It was slick with sleet almost ice. He called out once more for his love, his life, his wife. The next jolt threw him over the rails and into the icy waters.

At first he tried to swim, to struggle, to fight for his life. The water was so cold. There was no way he could move his arms, to swim. She won't see me die, he thought as the icy water stroked his spine and shivered up to his brain, shutting down all vital organs.

She arrived back in their stateroom, put on the life jacket and found the little black journal. She opened it. Pols had written...Always remember I love you.