Blood stained the snow as he pulled himself back up to his feet, wiping the last drops from the edge of his mouth before coughing again and continuing to trudge on.
It was tough work, especially for someone who could still remember driving into Berlin at the end of the last war.
Admittedly, walking these kinds of distances was easier for him back then - two working hips and a good back do wonders for fitness.
Still, he kept walking, carving trenches through the crunching, pale snow.
As he walked his few possessions clinked against each other.
All he'd bothered to take on his final trip was a small green fold-up chair - the very same throne he had sat on when he told his family of his plans; the drip that had continued to shadow him since his last foray to those sterile hospital rooms, permanently fixed to his hand; and the small scrap of paper in his pocket.
He already knew it like the back of his hand (although even that was becoming alien to him), but nevertheless he stopped walking, took it out and read it, then put it away and carried on walking.
Hours and hours passed to the steady crunching of snow, broken only by the reprieves to cough up more precious blood.
The sun was making its final fleeting farewells, giving way to the brightest moon he had ever seen.
Eventually it got so cold that he could swear even the snow began to shiver.
He decided to stop here.
It was a quiet plain; terribly cold but with a good enough view.
He folded out the small green chair and wedged it into the snow so that it sat just right.
Then, he sat the shadowing drip out of the way, and took his throne once more with the small scrap of paper gingerly enclosed in his hand.
Yet more hours passed, and he almost worried he would miss it.
But, at the last moment when he began to lose hope, he finally began to see it.
At first it was just a few small green wisps smudging the heavens, but before long it was everywhere.
In his many years he had never seen anything that could compare to this, never read a word that could do the sight justice.
To call the aurora perfect was an understatement.
It was one of those things that could make him forget everything wrong with the world and just look at the world with admiration.
Just as soon as it had arrived, the night drew to a close, the flying green lights of the aurora quenched by the sun peeking over the edge of the horizon.
His journey was over.
He took the time to dry the single tear that had escaped unknowingly on to his drawn in face, ending its valiant attempt to breach the vast trenches his wrinkles carved through his face, and return to the earth.
Once more, he opened the crinkled scrap of paper, perusing its every word, mapping out its every fold, every crease, every tear on the edges, every stain time had left.
He never remembered reading it, but he had followed its every order perfectly.
It simply read: Bucket List
1: See true beauty
2: Die happy.
He laughed to himself, his tired lips cracking with the effort.
Then he let go of the paper, letting it drift slowly to the ground as he leaned back in his chair, a smile beaming across his weary face as he closed his old eyes for the last time.
• By Tyler Broome, Year 13, Taieri College
