Dying to be with Sylvie (standard:romance, 2994 words)
Author: Alan Willoughby	Added: Oct 12 2015	Views/Reads: 2611/1945	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
An old man remembers his life and his lost love

Dying To Be With Sylvie 

Copyright Alan Willoughby 2015 

The old man ate his lunch in silence, largely oblivious to the people
surrounding him, as they were of him.  Nowadays his life was very much 
lived in the past.  Remembering all those joys and fears of his youth, 
the loves he loved and the loves he lost, recalling the names and faces 
as though it all happened only yesterday. 

“Come along, dear,” said the kindly voice in his ear, “Let's get you
into the lounge where you can socialize with the others.  Maybe you'd 
like a game of cards or something, do you think?” 

Her name badge said she was ‘Debra'.  Funny, he thought, I always
recalled Deborah as having an ‘o' and an ‘h' in it.  How things change. 
 He let her help him from his chair and leant heavily on her arm which 
supported him as he limped on sore and stiffened joints to his 
favourite chair by the window in the lounge. 

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he sighed as he sank into the comfortable
chair.  “I think I'll just sit for a while; maybe have a game later 
on.” 

“That's fine.  Now you be good and don't go running away anywhere,” she
chided jokingly. 

He replied with a smile, gazing into the beautiful blue-green eyes that
so reminded him of his Sylvie.  Debra moved away to help others while 
he gazed out the window at the weak winter sunshine patterning the 
ground through the now naked branches of the trees.  How appropriate, 
he thought, a winter scene for the winter of his life. 

His mind drifted back to winters past, learning to ski, he and his wife,
the first one, taking their new baby to the snow in a perambulator 
fitted with skis instead of wheels; how proud they had been of her, and 
of the two sons who followed.  Proud until he returned home to a note 
saying it had all ended, ‘Don't come looking for me'. 

It had been an almost sexless marriage, completely frustrating, starting
with high hopes and an emotion mistaken for love, and ending in 
acrimony and divorce.  Best forgotten. 

He moved on to the next stage of his life, the devastation of his entire
being as he sought meaning from life after losing all those who 
mattered to him.  He thought of the friend he made, alcohol, and how he 
could lose himself in his friend's company, meaning he didn't have to 
face life alone; didn't have to face a loveless, joyless existence; 
didn't have to face his loneliness, his loss, his failure, himself. 

In his mind he moved to his savior, Sylvie.  Every person on earth has
someone who is there for them.  Often they are a person who will 
challenge them, maybe even a person they consider a competitor or an 
enemy.  Yet always that person is there for them.  Sylvie was that 
person for him.  Was it just coincidence that she and he were both at 
the same hostel?  Was it just coincidence that she asked him to teach 
her to ride her motor bike when the person she had meant to ask wasn't 
there?  Was it just coincidence that she sat by the winter fire 
knitting a jersey while he really had no warm winter wear?  Was it just 
coincidence that she agreed to knit him a jersey but “it will cost you 
a night out”?  Was it just coincidence that this night out became their 
first date? 

Of course not. 

They courted cautiously; news of amorous liaisons spread fast in the
hostel.  He was, after all, still married, a state that caused great 
concern among Sylvie's family.  The first date led to others and trust 
and intimacy gradually grew. 

As he remembered the first night she came to his bed, his lined face
cracked into a smile.  He closed his eyes to better remember the 
feelings of love, of actually being loved for himself by this wonderful 
being, Sylvie.  He was impatient, she was inexperienced.  The condom 
was a problem, breaking the flow of love making.  He came quickly, 


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