A Desolate Day
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
Why had Natalie bought that clock as a present for his 75th birthday?
There it was, two rooms away, the grandfather clock, relentlessly counting out the seconds.
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
Just past the front door, just past his umbrella stand.
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
The doctor's only gave him a few months left to live, at the most. Soon he'd be too weak to get up from bed - soon, shudder - they'd want him to go a hospital to be cared for in his last, miserable days.
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
"What was the worst about dying from cancer?" he wondered.
The fact he had agreed to take med's to dull the pain (sooner or later they'd give want to give him some derivative of heroine, Monk shivered - that's what they do to you before they die). Or perhaps, that he was done in by a tumor of multiplying, disorderly, eclectic cells.
No. The worst thing about it was he had failed. He had never got his badge back. He had never solved Trudy's murder.
A knock.
"Come in," said Monk, hoarsely.
"Hello, Mr. Monk," said Natalie. "How are you?"
"Miserable," he complained.
"Don't be, Mr. Monk," said Natalie, walking into the room. "The sun is shining, it's a beautiful day."
Monk was propped up in bed, in usual brown jacket, white shirt and brown trousers.
Natalie, now in her sixties, was similarly still good looking, although her blond hair was now streaked with grey, she had retained her slim figure.
"Guess who's on Channel 11?" asked Natalie.
"I only watch Channel 10," Monk objected.
"Look," said Natalie, ignoring him, "Julie's on. She said you'd like her new hit show. Pretty decent, no sex, no violence, just good ole' fun.
The show was called "Julie's Inn." About a young woman who ran her old uncle's resort hotel, in a bucolic area of the country inhabited by eccentric rural types.
"It's another hit," proclaimed Natalie, proudly. "Best of all, she got the job without ever posing nude, or sleeping with any producer's."
"Good for her," Monk said half heartedly, "I'll be able to see her on the hospital TV."
"Mr. Monk," sighed Natalie, "is that what's getting you down?"
"Of course," said the old man grumpily.