When ye get old, there’s this right strange change in yer perception of time.

When ye’re young, time seems like a never-ending field. Ye cannae see the horizon, even though ye ken it’s there, so it feels infinite.

But when ye get older, even though ye dinnae ken exactly where the end is, ye can feel it approaching all the time. Ye think about when it’s going to be over, constantly.

It changes the way ye feel about life.

Aside from the obvious physical or financial difficulties of getting old, ye nae langer make plans for what ye’re going to do. At least, no’ the way ye used to. People say it’s because of physical limitations, financial strains, or maybe just a lack of energy.

Maybe that’s right, but there’s also something about perspective.

I know this bloke my age who lives on the mainland. He’s got a lot of money, a beautiful wife, a business that almost runs itself, and good health. And what’s he doing? He’s going to the same holiday spot every year and otherwise just stays at home.

He told me the other day, “I don’t really want to go anywhere.”

It’s like the impending vision of death, the horizon coming closer, has paralysed him.

He means to do things, but he disnae.

Of course, there are folk who seem to be racing out there, like pensioners who have the money and go on a cruise every year or something like that.

Sure, they exist. But are they doing that because the horizon still feels far away, or because they’re stressed out of their minds that it’s coming closer? I lean towards the latter. I think there are only two reactions to the horizon closing in.

If ye have a reasonable amount of means and ye’re no’ too unhealthy, ye either get paralysed, feeling life is closing in and ye cannae move, or ye get manic, trying to squeeze everything out of what little time ye feel ye have left.

No matter how ye react, though, the basic feeling is the same: the prison cell is shrinking, the horizon is coming closer. There’s nae langer a big open space.

So, no matter how ye react, that feeling gets to all of us.

It’ll get to ye too, and ye’ll have to find a way to deal with it.

So far, I havenae been particularly successful in dealing with it. I was ill for many years—still am, I guess. My knee was shot up, and the drinking didn’t do wonders for my liver. I’m still taking 19 pills a day, praying to God they dinnae add more.

I havenae done a great deal in my life. The only reason I got straightened out was because of Sheila.

I was divorced many years ago, but Sheila, she’s good to me. It takes a good woman to straighten out a man, to set him on the right course. Sheila cannae do everything for me, of course, and I’ve got to do one last thing.

What is the last thing for me? What will make me feel like life is worth something?

Something that’s got just a slice of that energy, that vitality I felt when I was younger. A slice of those feelings of opportunity. I cannae say exactly what it is, but I know I lack that energy, that optimism, or even just hope.

What can I do to get it back?

At this point, I’m living alone with Sheila in my old house on the Isle of Skye. My daughter is in America; we see her seldom.

My son is dead—killed in Afghanistan over ten years ago.

My ex-wife is in the United States too. She remarried.

If ye’re old and ye cannae afford to go to the mainland, where prices are higher, ye’re stuck with these thoughts.

That’s the question that’s confronted me for years and years. And then I met this guy online, in a group for veterans, an Argentinian guy named Pablo.

This is one of those things that makes ye wonder if there’s a God or what is going on. I shouldn’t have met this guy, but I did.

We had some discussions and, with the help of Google Translate, found out that he was the guy who shot me back in the day, just before the Battle of Goose Green.

I was hit by a bullet that crushed my knee, and I didnae get to fight anymore. I just lay in a bog all night. We won the battle but no thanks to me.

After some back-and-forth, we found out it was probably him. It was certainly him. I won’t bore ye with the details, but we figured it out.

He was there, he’s still alive, living in Argentina today, with children and grandchildren, and he’s been working as a teacher. Can ye believe that?

He was 19 years old, never killed a man before, never trained much for it either.

They were all conscripts, and I was a trained commando. I just got unlucky.

Our lives changed in that moment—mine for years. I started drinking, got divorced, and my relationship with Caroline went down the toilet.

I havenae talked to Pablo about this problem, but I’m going to, because I’m going to Argentina to meet him for the first time since the war.

We’re going to the Falklands, or Malvinas as they call them, and Caroline is coming with me because she knows Spanish.

I can order a beer in Spanish, and that’s about it, so if I cannae use Google Translate on the fly, I’m done for.

But Caroline is coming with me.

We don’t talk about the horizon problem—what I call the horizon problem—her and I. She’s barely 40. But we talk again. That’s good.

But I’m going to talk to Pablo, and I think I’m going to ask him about it. Ye can tell, even through translations, that life has been hard on him too.

It’s hard getting older.

One of Pablo’s grandkids died in a car accident. My God, if something happened to Emma or Michael…I don’t know what I would do.

Anyway, I wonder about the dreams he had before they put him on that boat to the Falklands—what happened to those dreams?

The horizon is coming. I’d like to ask him about it.

I think he’s probably one of the only people who can gie me an answer that will somehow be useful to me, even if I dinnae ken what it’s going to be or how he could possibly have a solution to that problem.

We’re all going to die. Probably, it’s more about how many regrets we have when we die than anything else.

So, I dinnae ken what he could say, but maybe it disnae matter what he says.

Maybe it’s just that he can say, “I’ve been there too, and I’m going to the same place as ye are.”

And we’re nae langer going to shoot each other. We’re going there together—to the horizon.

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CALUM MCDONNELL (Carrie‘s father) – August 2016

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End of the story-in-stories “Pieces of Peace” – part II

NEXT UP: CARRIE

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Cover photo – Wikipedia – Argentine trench on the Falkland Islands

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72B-210824

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Song: Desireless – “Voyage, Voyage”

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Chris recommends

Farewell to Arms?

Calum’s first meeting with the man who shot him – online.

A Question of Time

Hints at what happened between Carrie and her father back when she was an addict and her brother had just died …

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