A continuation that reflects on duration as an inescapable gravity formed by decades together, the persistence of memory after a spouse’s death, the reflection of one’s own mortality in old age, and the remaining life lived as a “half-dead” state between life and death.

When sixty years have passed since first meeting and fifty years since living together, the thing called duration.
2016-12-04
Thirdly, when sixty years have passed since first meeting and fifty years since living together, an inescapable weight of what is called duration is formed, and it acts as a kind of gravity upon one’s mental and physical movements, making one realize that even after the partner has passed away, one cannot be free from that past in the form of memory.
Before this old man’s eyes, which may be considered natural for someone in advanced old age, the image of his own death has begun to be reflected.
In the case of the so-called widower who has been predeceased by his wife—perhaps a Chinese-accented metaphor likening him to a monster catfish—what the inevitably arriving “state in which life and death coexist,” namely the remaining years as a “half-dead person,” will be like.
Since everyone will surely come to know that for themselves, there is no need to expend words explaining it here.
This manuscript continues.