An old man in his late seventies gets up from his desk. It is a cluttered desk in a cluttered room. So many books. You can see one book imprinted on his forehead. He wears a robe. Garments barely.

  He struggles to walk around his bookly chamber. The door is knocking. He is too old to stop the knocking as fast as he wishes.

  "Please wait. I am old. If my bones were any older, they would be food for the earth."

  He opens the door and it is his son. A young man in his twenties. Long hair and short beard. Handsome college boy.

  "Hey, dad!" He smiles. "Looking sharp, is that new?"

  "Not really. It's old. Everything here is old. Come in." Says the old man as he invites his son inside. He lumbers across his house and towards his reading desk.

  "Have you ever thought of cleaning the place?" Says the son. "I know how much you love your books, but I think you'd love them more when you know where to find them."

  "I can find them pretty well like this." Says the old man. "I don't want some stranger re-arranging the house. It won't be my house anymore."

  "I didn't mention a stranger. I'd do it for you." Says the son. "Besides, how long has it been since we've spent time together? Last semester I had that vacation at Bali, and before that was the honeymoon ... But you're my dad. We should spend more time together."

  "Have a seat. Let me read you a book like the old days." Says the old man as he topples a pile of books and grabs the bottom one. He wipes the dust off the cover. "You used to love this one ..."

  "Yeah, sure. I'd love that. So, dad," the son starts, "have you considered the proposition? You know, the one that uh ... Me and Leia mailed you last month."

  "Remember when you'd snuggle underneath my arms and you were so small that I could make you disappear with my two palms?" Says the old man.

  "I wouldn't remember, dad. I'd have to have been two, or younger."

  "That's right. But you still enjoyed the story. You smiled when I mentioned his name." Laughs the old man. "They were better times."

  "Every time is a better time, dad." Says the son. "Yesterday was good, today is good. And tomorrow will be good."

  The old man opens the book. He feels the pages. He lives upon them.

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  "These pages. They remind me of your mother."

  "So, dad, we were thinking ..." Says the son. "It would just be a better idea that, you know, the place is right next to our house ... And you'll have great, nice people taking care of you ... You won't be alone."

  "I was never alone." Says the old man. "You were with me, every step of the way. Among others. Now can you please ..."

  "Are you feeling fine, dad?" Worries the son, as he sees his old man struggling to get up and clenching his stomach.

  "My stomach is acting up again ... Please take me to the shitter. I need to shit."

  The son takes his father's hand and starts to lead him to the bathroom.

  "And please, fetch me my book with you." Adds the old man, to which the son obliges.

  The son carefully seats his father on the toilet, but he feels something strange ... His father is not doing well, he can feel it.

  "Are you sure you're fine, dad?"

  "I've lived for seven hundred, seventy-seven years. I've seen the fall and rise of man. I've seen the universe." Says the old man, as he hardens his face and clenches himself, grabbing onto his toilet seat. "Let a tired, old man pass in his tired, old home ..."

  "Dad!" The son's worry increases a thousandfold. He gets on his phone within seconds. Faces away, sweating, breathing tenses, covering his face.

  "Son ... They won't make it in time. Stay by my side." Says the old man.

  The son puts the phone down. He struggles to stop his tears. The old man holds onto him as he releases his load onto the toilet. An almost endless onslaught of feces straight beneath. He grabs his son, who struggles to keep his weight, but does it for the love of his old man.

  "Give me the book, son." Says the old man, as he turns to him and smiles. "Let me read it to you one more time, my dear son. Benathan."

  He fetches him the book. The old man opens it. He tries to mouth the words but he fails. His eyes cannot follow them. The son feels his wrists.

  "You're dying, dad!" cries the son.

  "And so, Sir Rupert Vronesberg ... Who never let the weeping woman swallow him as she had swallowed everything else and everyone else ... Upheld his vowes ... He kept his word ... And he saved the realm from ... The weeping woman!" Says the old man.

  "That's not what it says, dad!" Says the son, dialing on the phone again. "Are you okay? Can you see me?"

  "You're right ... That's not what it said." Says the old man. "Perhaps the weeping woman was well within her right ... Should Sir Rupert Vronesberg of the Kingdom's Knights have let himself to the weeping woman? Perhaps, he could have been what he was truly meant to become ... Or perhaps, he is now what he had to be."

  "Dad! Breath, in and out, you need to—"

  "Son ... I'm not dying, son. I cannot die." Says the old man, as he grabs onto his son harder.

  "Dad?"

  "I guess only death can save me now. But I can't die yet. Not while I desperately need to take a shit."

  He clenches his buttcheeks for one last time and releases his most terrifying shit yet.

  He turns to his son with his final breath, and says,

  "Do you want to hear about my father?"

  Suddenly, the roof above his head is ripped apart. Everything is sucked into the sky. All is floating towards the giant hole in the sky.

  He smiles at the weeping woman. Only now he can see that the woman is neither weeping, nor a woman. It is just a hole in the sky, and this time he lets himself go.

  He has found peace. He took his final shit. And now. Everything was fine. And everything was okay. And everything was quiet.

  -------

  Written by Yousef Diaa. All Rights Reserved @ Feb. 2026