Nocturne by Saul Tanpepper

Nocturne
When the Mayfly Nymph sheds his lacquered skin and spreads his nascent wings, so recommences the Imago’s frantic dance. But the Nocturne’s reel is quickly run. Dawn whispers upon the freshened World and, like sun-kissed wind on honeyed Dew, evaporates his mating song. Thereafter shall He falter, worn and tattered, nearly spent. He makes one last midflight conjugal stab, then flutters to the ground, to settle on winters’ past rotting leaves. And there, amongst the anonymous shells of those who danced before him, He dies.
    —from La Danse Éphémères
    by Jacobin G. de Bessieres, 1842
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    The Man had already cheated Death once this morning , so when he turned away from the radiant face of his wife and stepped off the porch and into the busy-bright flow of the September day, the crisp, loud clack of the hard rubber soles of his shoes on the sidewalk sounded to him like an affirmation of life and living and all things that are vibrant. The breathless air was crisp and clear. He held his gaze determinedly forward, in front of himself. A sort of a smile touched the corners of his face. Today will be different, he assured himself, even though he knew it wouldn’t be. Before he had even reached the front sidewalk, his footsteps sounded to him like the ceaseless ticking of a clock.
    He cheated Death like a man cheats at poker, by knowing he will someday be caught; a man who plays at the game long enough and cheats often enough knows it is inevitable. Maybe not this hand or the next, but eventually. Sooner. Later. The game must end: win, lose or draw; whether by fair or by foul.
    He didn’t fear the end of the game—not really—only the waiting, and the form it might take.
    You don’t get to choose.
    That he’d even woken up at all that morning, that he’d become aware that the night had ended and he himself was still alive and in apparent excellent health, had been a cause for some personal distress. But then again, just the idea of dying in his bed so ignominiously splayed was enough to propel him out of it, away from his still-beautiful wife and her tranquil face, away from her gently rising and falling breast. He slipped from beneath the suffocating blankets and out into the brittleness of a morning so frigid that it foretold what was sure to be a bitterly cold winter.
    The temperature hadn’t fallen quite enough overnight to trigger the heater at six o’clock, but it was nonetheless cold enough. The thought crossed his mind that maybe he’d go ahead and bump the thermostat up anyway, but when he remembered that he hadn’t been down in the cellar to clean the filter since last fall, images of the accumulated dust flowing into the vents and carrying diseased mold spores made him stop. Besides, attempting to navigate the rickety cellar stairs in such a state—the inebriation of sleep still upon him, his muscles stiff and tremulous—would be foolhardy. Is that how he imagined his death? Lying on the clay earth at the bottom of a set of narrow wooden steps?
    He’d clean the filter tonight, after a full meal, if he was in such a capable state and so inclined. He made a mental note to stop and pick up a face mask at the hardware store.
    Arms held close across his chest, he hurried into the bathroom, naked but for his underwear and tee shirt. His hard, pale, bony feet resented the hard, bare, cold floor. He walked on the sides and balls of his heels, his toes curling up. The toilet seat was just as unforgivingly cold and hard.
    After the usual morning ritual, which he always carefully inspected for blood that was perpetually never there, he was overcome with an almost manic sense of urgency. He’d tried masturbating, finishing what he hadn’t been able to the night before in bed. But the effort was barely worth it, hardly satisfying and laden with guilt. It was a waste of another precious five minutes, self-indulgent minutes that he’d have to hurry to make up. He hated hurrying; it made