Short Stories

It was time to go for a walk

Speechless was how Bernard White felt. Forty years earning a modest living in the Civil Service, a small bungalow for his retirement, children who lived their own lives and had barely seen him since their mother died and now this. How did he feel? A bit of a silly question really. What was it that idiot presenter was saying?

“I can now tell you that the grand total is £22,376,403. Mr White, what will you do with the money? Is it going to change your life?”

He was seventy-six for goodness sake, what was the point of changing his life now? No, Bernard had a clear idea of what he would do with the money. The one thing he had wanted to do since boyhood. “I’m going into space.” He said confidently.

The audience gasped and the presenter who, until now, had been the over confident type, stammered “Right, well…, what I meant was…, Aren’t you too old?”

There he’d said it. So much for anti ageist legislation, once you were over 50 people presumed you stopped wanting to live. Well blow that. Bernard hadn’t finished living and ‘space tourism’ didn’t seem to have an age limit, as long as you had the money and now he had.