Impossible Existence

Mine is an impossible existence.

Every day, I do the impossible. I get up, eat Cornflakes, go to work. I work in an office. It is quiet. I like that.

I walk through the park on my way home. The birds are singing. The boys are playing football between the trees. Brown, crackling leaves are thick underfoot.

When I get home, I kiss my warm, flustered wife as she hurries past me out the door. She is heading to her shift over at the hospital. She works the evening shift on Wednesdays. She does impossible things there.

The kids - Annie and Michael -  are playing in and out of the hall, chasing each other. The TV is on in the front room. Tom is chasing Jerry round and round the screen, much like Annie and Michael.

Annie is seven and wants to be a nurse. She wants to do impossible things, like her mother. She is small and bright and blonde and has her mother's radiant smile.

Michael is three. He is my impossible child. He has freckles and dimples and mousy brown hair. He is giggling and rolling on the floor as Annie tickles him.

"You're dying." That's what they said at the hospital. "Sort your affairs out now, Mr Ranson. You don't have long. Two years, tops."

That was four years ago.

My life is impossible.

I love it.