Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #16 July 2015 | Page 33

Passing

waiting for us.” She looked at her brother’s face for a
second, searching for the look she was waiting for and
fearing. “He said to hurry.”
John had picked her up half an hour ago, just
as the storm was starting. They had both received
the phone call, come at once the nurse had said. Her
brother had arrived minutes later, not even giving her
time to change into more comfortable shoes rather
than the heels she had been wearing as she prepared to
go out for a posh meal with her family. She had kissed
her husband and told her children to behave then hurried to her brother’s car, the drive had been made in
silence, with only the rain drumming on the windows
and roof. Both alone with their thoughts.

By Jim King
John Henry Wilton hit the glass door with his
shoulder, barging it open by brute force and almost
running through the doorway into the room beyond.
Water poured down his coat in rivulets, splashing
on the tiled floor and leaving a trail of little puddles
behind him.

John had dropped her at the hospital door then
gone to park while she spoke to the receptionist and
asked where their father was, which room, how to get
there.

The door slowly closed behind him, the pistons making a tiny hiss almost lost in the sound of
the storm outside. John stopped walking and grabbed
the sides of his overcoat where it was unbuttoned and
shook it. The coat flapped like a frantic bird, and water
splashed onto the tiles beneath him while droplets
were thrown around him like a rain shower.
Ignoring the disapproving look of a nurse, he
paused then decided the coat was as dry as he was
going to get it.
“That was rude John. I thought the nurse was
going to tell you off.”
“Tough, it’s bloody pouring out there. Besides
it’s just water.They must have a mop somewhere.” He
paused for a second, then spoke again but almost hesitantly. “Did you get a room number? Do you know
where he is?”
Elizabeth Sandra Tyler Wilton nodded. Younger by ten minutes, she had the same fair hair as her
older brother though her blue eyes were more like the
summer sky than his steel. “Second floor, the doctor’s

Now she led the way, John behind her, still
silent but she could feel his presence, his anger, his
darkness. Up the stairs, along a corridor, through the
double doors, another corridor, endless off-white
walls, the smell of chemicals and pain fading as they
became used to it. More stairs and one last corridor,
then the same doctor they had spoken to on previous
visits, waiting for them, a door open beside him.
John reached the doorway and stepped into the
room without hesitation but the set of his shoulders
told his sister how tense he was. He was here because
it was a duty.He was keeping the pain bottled up, had
been since they had met in the waiting room of the
emergency room when their father had first collapsed
three weeks ago. She had seen his face then, she had
seen the pain and the sorrow as they looked at their father, pale and wasting away from within as the cancer
he had hidden from his children destroyed him. She
had seen her brother’s pain then and never since.
John strode into the room, half wishing he
had worn boots so he could stomp. The old man in
the bed wasn’t his father—this shrunken stick figure
wasn’t the tall, vital man that had brought them up.
This wasn’t the strong, energetic man that would greet

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