The cold room was eerily quiet, save for the soft beeping of machines that marked the passing of each second.

The old man's frail body lay still on the bed, skin stretched thin over his bones, the weight of years heavier than the air around him. His chest rose and fell, rhythm steady yet shallow.

As his eyelids fluttered shut, he wasn't alone-not in the way that mattered. Memories were stirring, like old friends pulling up chairs, coaxing him back into the past.

He was a boy again, bare feet kick- ing up the dirt as he raced through the village field. The wind was sharper then, biting at his cheeks, but the laughter made it warmer.

His mother called from the porch, her voice laced with both love and worry, and he pretended not to hear. There was always more time, more space to run, more days to stretch into.

Then a young girl appeared.
They'd promised each other the world that day, carved their initials into a tree as if marking time itself. That tree, he recalled, had grown tall and strong, but their love... it had been both fragile and fierce, surviving storms but not untouched by them.

He was always rushing somewhere -always too busy.
The room filled with the echoes of children's laughter now. He saw them-his son and daughter-small hands reaching for him, tugging at his trousers. They wanted him to stay, to play, to be present. But there were meetings, deadlines, projects more pressing.

He had told them, "Later, maybe tomorrow." But tomorrow came and went, and soon they had grown taller, more distant, no longer tugging at his trousers, no longer asking.

A pang of regret flickered in his chest, more piercing than the beeping machine tethering him to the present. He blinked, but he couldn't open his eyes. His legs felt lighter now, free of the weight they had carried for years.

He was older, sitting on a park bench, the sun low in the sky. His grandchildren ran circles around him, and for once, he wasn't rushing anywhere.

He had learned, finally, to sit still. To watch the way the light played on the leaves, the way the earth breathed beneath him. But the years had slipped through his fingers like sand.

He had missed so much. The children's laughter was bittersweet -joyful, yes, but laced with the knowledge of everything he hadn't done.

The old man's breath came slower now, almost like a whisper. He was back in the room, the sterile smell of antiseptic and bleach filling his nostrils. His eyes remained closed, but the visions had slowed, softening at the edges.

A hand-soft, warm-slipped into his. His wife. She was here, her grip steady, though weaker than he remembered. She didn't speak, but she didn't need to.

His chest rose and fell again, one last time. And then, nothing.

But somewhere, in that stillness, there was a feeling-soft, almost imperceptible-that it wasn't the years in his life that had mattered. It was those fleeting moments, the ones that seemed small at the time but had filled his years with life.