Chapter 2 (Draft)

GIVE ME A TICKET

As his eyes blinked open to the soft gray light seeping through the curtains, the details of the dream began to fade, replaced by the familiar contours of his bedroom: the light from the bathroom skylight, the bedside lamp and the digital clock that read 5:37.

He stretched his stiff limbs and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The old ache in his knees had mostly retreated with the knee replacement surgeries. But this morning it greeted him like an old friend. He moved through his morning routine with the same quiet precision he always did: a cup of strong black coffee, meditating in the small bedroom sauna to keep his joints loose, a series of stretches and crunches to remind his body it was still alive, an hour of yard work under the rising sun, the smell of fresh-cut grass mingling with the scent of damp earth. Only then, when he felt the familiar pang of hunger, did he allow himself breakfast.

Later, as he rode his golf cart down to the mailbox, the dream returned to him in fragments, like a song heard long ago. The envelope he found waiting among the usual junk mail was plain, except for a faded British postmark in the corner. His hands hesitated for a moment, trembling slightly as he tore it open. Inside was a letter from a solicitor in England.

The words were formal, carefully chosen. Someone from his past, someone he hadn’t thought about in years—decades, perhaps—had passed away. A woman without any family, without any heirs. She had left him a house and a small parcel of land in some quiet corner of England. The lawyer suggested that he could easily arrange for a real estate agent to sell the property if he wished, but there was another option. The will had made a provision for a trip to see the place, even for a relocation if it suited him. All expenses would be covered. They awaited his reply.

He read the letter twice, then folded it neatly and slipped it back into the envelope. The sun was climbing higher, warming the back of his neck, but a chill ran through him. He looked down the long, empty road stretching away from his driveway, its destination hidden by the bends and turns that lay ahead.

For the first time in years, the old man felt a flutter of something in his chest—a feeling he thought he had forgotten, a feeling somewhere between dread and anticipation.