BEYOND THE PALE

 

John was glad when the queen died. He thought it was about time. He had this idea that people shouldn’t hang around too long, becoming a burden to others, and preventing the younger generation from receiving their rightful inheritance, and thought generally that people should just let themselves die when the time came. Medical treatment, he believed, should be denied to those over eighty, maybe even over seventy-five. He – he was sure – would deny any treatment offered to him once he reached old age. “Just let me die,” he imagined himself saying when the time came. And, besides, he was taking steps to ensure that he wasn’t even around to receive such offers. He smoked heavily at every opportunity, and, though he ate rather healthily (only because he wasn’t a child and preferred healthy food, not because he wanted to be healthy), never exercised. On the day of the funeral, distressed by the wall-to-wall coverage on the television, he went for a walk. Breathless after walking for ten minutes or so, he stopped at a bench outside one of the supermarkets for a cigarette. From where he sat he couldn’t see another living soul. “Fucking morons,” he said to himself, thinking of all those stuck inside, glued to this pantomime, this fairy tale of national history. He sat there for a few minutes smoking and wondering what was wrong with everyone. Then, his cigarette exhausted, he crushed it underfoot, immediately lit another, inhaled deeply, and coughed.