Final Considerations

When they carry me out of here, they’ll first have to take me from my bedroom to my sitting room, squeezing through the narrow hallway connecting the two, in order to then re-open the in-ward swinging door through which they entered my apartment. They’ll then have access to the stairway descending to the ground floor exit and be able to angle me down and bear me to the outside world, never to return again. But in the brief time they’ll have stood in my sitting room, they will likely have judged it to be a place “of cleanliness and good order,” with everything in its place, reminiscent of a furniture store show room. I hope they’ll also have taken notice of the photo of my smiling children on the end table by my chair. Given the sterility of all the rest, it is the only tangible evidence that a life ever actually occupied that room other than to keep it tidy. Whoever packs up that photo when they clear out my things had better treat it with reverence and respect; I know they loved me.