Professor Friedrich Icklebohm lived in a small cottage behind a white wooden fence not far from the village monument. His father and his grandfather had lived there before him; and soon, or so the Professor suspected, his own name would be added to the list of ancestors denoted on the brass plaque mounted by the front door.  For the present though he lived predominantly in the moment, preferring to ignore what, by frank account, was an inevitable and impending reality, unfriendly as it is unpredictable.

Meanwhile Professor Icklebohm was instead intent upon addressing a more immediate and less baneful certainty; namely, the arrival of his old friend Rolf Mersch PhD from across the globe where he and the Professor were formerly colleagues at the district university. That was very long ago. The joking competitive ramblings in the academic lounge that once characterized their philosophic discussions had melted and given way to the tedium of medical and pain complaints, absorption in the downward and narrowing spiral of isolation that comes with old age. Mersch was due to arrive at the airport tomorrow. The Professor had been busy for weeks assembling a variety of things that he and Mersch might do together for old times. That too would wait.

On this uncommonly warm and remarkably sunny autumnal day, after completing his daily breakfast, Professor Icklebohm spoke briefly with his live-in housekeeper Ilsa, then left the cottage through the front door. There he gathered his tricycle by the porch and pushed off through the creaky swinging wooden gate along the bumpy roadway into the village. He was shopping for groceries. At his advanced age (surpassing eight decades) grocery shopping was the only domestic pursuit he insisted to preserve. It was not that he was a good cook; nor that he was a fusspot about wheat for example. Rather it was that he found it maintained his equilibrium to eat the foods for which he had unreservedly developed a preference and tolerance. Importantly the several aisles of the old grocery store with their faded plank floors were wide enough to accommodate him on his trike with its basket in the back. Naturally the owner of the store – a man who had known the professor and his family for many years – welcomed the opportunity to assist his esteemed customer. Such is the nature of a corner grocery store.

Before he arrived at the grocery store (which bordered the town square) and while rolling along the sandy roadway to that destination past the rustic homes in the area, he encountered Wanda walking her tiny dog. It was no accident that Wanda always looked as though she were going somewhere. No matter that it was early in the morning, she manifestly cared for her appearance and ensured she was well turned out with fresh clothing and colourful accessories. Her little dog Minnie sat politely at her side, a certainty that Wanda proposed to talk with the professor on this blissful morning.

She screamed an indecipherable greeting to the professor and waved her hand. The professor stopped his tricycle before her. Wanda instantly summarized the weather forecast and warned of the coming winter peril. But matters of escape were already on her mind as she speedily disclosed the intention of her and her husband to take a jaunt to the Yucatán Peninsula next month. Wanda and her husband Kevin were among those who historically wintered in the southern climes including in particular the Caribbean. They – not unlike many others – had lately become estranged from the erstwhile customs, a result of age and simple disparity. They had concluded they were purely changing address while continuing the identical features of prolonged household management – the performance of which had become increasingly unappealing. Significantly a recent random debilitating bout with Covid accelerated the need for opportunistic and unexploited choices. Their prior plane reservation on Porter Airlines to the maritimes was not refundable unless used by a specified date; hence the reconsidered decision to go to the Riviera Maya in the late fall. It was an exotic and inviting alternative, one which distinguished the plan from all others.

After concluding the normal niceties of roadside conversation, the two parted. The professor continued his endeavour towards the grocery store. In his approach to the store, he arranged in his mind the muddled ideas about what he proposed to buy. There wasn’t room for ambivalence.  The professor was a classic case of the victim of habit and routine. Granted there were periods contaminated by dietary yearnings in his youth when the choices of food had the appearance of novelty and singularity; but those distinctions, with the effluxion of time and growing expediency, had evaporated. Now everything was effectively a repeat – though perhaps animated occasionally by something unusually fresh or atypical. This is not to say there wasn’t a healthful element on his grocery list. Au contraire! From meat and cheese – the former credentials of nourishment, the list had descended chiefly to raw vegetables notwithstanding the simplicity of which the Professor insisted strictly upon finely pressed oil and genuine wine vinegar.

There were only a few others in the store upon his arrival. It was early Wednesday morning and seemingly business hadn’t yet begun with it usual numbers and conviviality. Thus the professor effortlessly collected the required stores then headed back homeward. His thoughts progressively retired from the earnestness of shopping and switched instead to that philosophic medium of contemplation which to him was both entertaining and meaningful. The Professor saw life with not only the magic and beauty of a defined flock of honking geese crossing the azure sky late afternoon in early autumn, but the unparalleled replication of humanity and nature in annual routines. Certainly there were at times dreadful repercussions. The professor knew too that there is no answer. The imperative however was building gratification from the blocks afforded each of us for construction and assembly. Already he was reviving the sinews of his longstanding friendship with Dr. Mersch. There was much to talk about.

To be continued…