The music of his life had gotten predictable; it was fading to silence like the favourites of his youth. His feet were locked at the ankles and the wintry chains were looped through an iron mooring ring. So many years had battered his boyhood soul, and because of that, he knew not to struggle against his lonesome destination. Simple wisdom had taught him that even if he did fight, it would be pointless. A pair of a stinging and bloodied ankles would be his reward for defiance.

Seeing the white of the snow pile around the orange of the rusted metal reminded him of the colours of the fish he'd kept as a boy. As much as he loved them, he couldn't help but feel sad that he failed to keep them well. Their life was so vibrant, just as his had been. How could he be so obtuse? It was then that he came to understood why his grandparents needed him so much.

The wind whipped his eyes and he closed the lids with a snivel.

"Oh, the things I could have done differently."

He was speaking to the sea, the narrow sea between his own home and the home of his grandparents. It was a bitter green–or was it grey?–body of water. It swelled with his sorrow and then quickly sank with his bitter, reluctant resignation. At least, he thought, the smell of home would be in his nostrils. His boyhood friends, and all his relations, had all passed on. The sea was his last and only kin, and he saw it through Fitzgerald's eyes; it truly was the bleak waste that made the Norse sagas sad.

The cold blanket reached his knees.

"Happy days, spent so long ago."

Wind splashed over the seawater, pinching his face with tears of its own.

"It's getting worse," he admitted. "It won't be long now."

The snow crept to his waist.

In a panic, he began to fret over who or what should occupy his final thoughts...

The incoming blizzard had piled up to his chin.

Then, a memory, one as melancholy as any, came to him. His grandfather had explained, guardedly, that the men he watched die in the war called out for their mothers at the end.