The boxes were starting to block the hall, piling high. Each with a scribble on the side; books, ornaments, kitchenware, scarves. Moving vans would not arrive until the end of the week, still plenty of time to organise everything. The family had been helping over the last few todays, today it was just James. The motivation had entirely left him, he found himself wandering about the house. Room to room, drinking it all in, reliving memories, of the years, which had seemed to fall away.

Of course, this wasn’t his home, well not anymore. It still held all its sentimentality, its familiarity, its warmth, even its character. It had been years though, since it was home. He wished the walls would talk, tell him all the stories, from his youth. Both had lived long enough to meet their grandchildren, to watch them grow. He wondered would his own walk the halls of their home one day, thinking of him. The dining room had not been touched since it happened, he stepped inside, sitting down.

They had always sat in this room, tucked away at the back of the house. She would sit there, battling balls of wool, night after night. Beside her, he would sit reading, book after book, fiction, instructional, biography, it never mattered. They would stop from time to time, to talk, to laugh, to think about the past, talk about their future. In the corner of the room, a radiogram, filling the air. Each night, a new album as they sat silently, but happily, together.

James would come to see them often, more so as the years had gone on. He wished it had been more, it seemed like he never had time, until it was too late. His father had sat there, many years longer than his mother. James coming to see him, finding the notes of songs slipping into the hallway, his father would be there in this chair, reading. The pile of books alongside, smaller than before. James found him here , just the week before. He seemed to the world to be sleeping, book on his chest, in his favourite place, their favourite place, one last time.

James rose from the chair and opened the sliding door of the radiogram to find a record. It was dusty from sitting out, untouched. It was an old favourite of theirs ‘Hits from the 60s’. He turned the record on, dusting it as it spun, then slowly lifted the needle onto it. The fuzz filled the room, the anticipation, of the opening notes, of the first song. Then like a gust of air filled the room, it slipped from the speakers. He immediately felt the weight of the song, possibly the last his father ever heard. Returning to the chair, tears began to fall, as he sat in silence. An unmistakable crooning voice began to sing

“And now, the end is near. I must face the final curtain”