Content warnings

Pet death. Illness. Bereavement. Hospice setting. Suicide.

Spring. Wood anemones opening their petals to greet the sunlight. Lesser celandines spangling the ground in constellations of yellow stars. And most magical of all, bluebells receding in an endless haze of deep blue flowers, with trees rising from the carpet of colour like pillars of the sky.

Laurence strolls through the woodland, enjoying the heady sensation of walking in the open air. He hasn’t been outside in months. And he can move so easily, in pain-free strides: no arthritis or crocked knee. The proxy body is strong and tireless.

There are drawbacks, of course. The proxy’s pseudo-skin can’t feel the warmth of the sun’s rays darting through newly green branches. But Laurence’s room at the hospice is warm enough to let him imagine the sun’s heat, aided by the sight of sunshine in a cloudless blue sky.

The proxy sniffs the air with chemical sensors, and some approximation of the bluebells’ delicate scent reaches the hospice’s telepresence rig—in vain, because Laurence has lost his sense of smell in old age. Only memory can supply the subtle fragrance of Laurence’s favourite flower. He’s clung to life in the hope of seeing one last Spring, a final glorious swathe of bluebells. And now he’s here, albeit in a borrowed body.

The flowers bloom afresh each year, untouched by time, like an annual glimpse into an eternal faerie realm. Yet the decades hang heavily upon Laurence. He’s alone, as for so long since Marjorie passed away. With a rush of nostalgia, he recalls woodland walks with Marjorie and her irrepressible Border Collie lolloping through the undergrowth. The dog had died first. That awful trip to the vet, returning with just the collar...

Then Marjorie. Laurence stood vigil beside her in hospital, in a tiny private ward with just one potted primula for greenery. She’d lingered for weeks, seeing only those too-familiar walls enclosing her like a coffin. That was before the invention of the proxy gave bedridden patients the precious gift of access to the outside world.

Now Laurence’s turn has come, heralded by chest pains that need ever stronger medication to suppress. There’s no-one left to visit his deathbed, but at least he can walk away from it—when he can book a slot, since the hospice only has one proxy that everyone shares. As Laurence’s condition deteriorated, his claim to priority increased. When Spring arrived, he bagged one final spot on the proxy’s rota.

Birdsong fills the air like liquid silver. By the river, a heron leaps from stone to stone, gazing into the depths in search of fish. Ahead, far down the path, something stirs—a flash of brown fur. A rabbit? Perhaps. Laurence has learned to be cautious. “That’s a big rabbit,” he’d once said. “A very big rabbit—it’s a deer!” Marjorie replied, as the shy creature unfolded to its full height and bolted through the trees. She’d never let him live that down. It was one of their shared jokes. Now Marjorie lives only in their shared history, those treasured moments of connection.

Laurence marches onward, picking up a stick out of habit. Drat that dog, always running off! Where’s she gone this time? He gazes around, expecting to see a black and white lump of mischief romping through the flowers.

He drops the stick when he remembers. Time is scrambling his mind. The eternal bluebells make it seem as though the past surrounds him, a different year behind each tree.

Beside the path lies a fallen tree-trunk, its bark cushioned with accumulated moss. The long-dead tree has left a legacy in the landscape, a memorial bench that will last until it reverts entirely to earth, all trace of it gone. Laurence sits on the log. The moss looks damp, but the proxy has no sensors in its backside to report the sensation of soggy trousers.

In the old days, Laurence would delve into his rucksack for a sandwich and a cuppa. The dog would fetch sticks hopefully, her soulful eyes entreating the humans to play. Marjorie, seeing beauty everywhere, would snap a picture of the copper-coloured fungi growing on the log’s underside.

Now there’s no dog, no Marjorie, no cuppa—only the bluebells engulfing the forest floor. Each stem holds a dozen fluted bells, drooping demurely, shaking in the wind, occasionally disturbed by a fat bee questing for nectar. The gurgle of the nearby river soothes Laurence’s fevered brain.

It’s good to be out here, even alone in a mechanical body. It’s good to remember happier times. Memories are all he has left.

There is no sandwich; he’s being fed intravenously anyway. The proxy isn’t carrying—and can’t taste—the chocolate that had once been Laurence’s post-snack indulgence. Nevertheless, Laurence has an alternative treat. Back at the hospice, he presses a button on the apparatus by his bed. Opiates surge through the drip, quelling the ever-present ache in his chest. He can self-medicate on demand now, since the risk of addiction is no longer relevant.

The bluebells shimmer in the bright sunlight. Laurence seems to feel Marjorie sitting beside him, a comforting presence on the solid tree-trunk. The dog licks his hand.

The heron rises between the trees, flapping with long wing-beats up and away, receding across the sky until it disappears into the blue.

Author’s note

This story was written as a reaction to growing older and confronting mortality. It was inspired by real circumstances. Nothing in the story is literally true, but it's all emotionally true.

Ian Creasey

Ian Creasey lives in Yorkshire, England. He began writing when rock & roll stardom failed to return his calls. So far he has sold seventy-odd short stories to various magazines and anthologies. A collection of his short fiction, "The Shapes of Strangers", was published by NewCon Press in 2019.