The man turned the lights on at the switch near the front door and felt his legs smothered by two circling cats.  He paid them no heed, and walked across the living room to drop his keys in the wicker basket parked on the kitchen counter of their apartment.  Her doing, of course.  "A place for everything, and everything in its place," so that even the odds and ends had their own receptacle.  

What was in there, anyway?

He rummaged through the tiny basket with one hand.  Buttons she had been promising to sew on his shirts, spare change she was collecting for the wash, the handle from a coffee mug that she must have been intending to glue back on.  She could be so meticulous and yet so forgetful.  It made him laugh to think what a walking-contradiction his wife was.  That coffee mug had been broken for two years now, long before she first went into the hospital.  When was she ever planning to put it back together?  Ah, the hospital again.  It was never far from his thoughts.  It brought to mind the fact that none of these things would ever get done, and while this was likely before anyway, it was definite now.

His hand shot out and swept the basket off the counter.  Its contents scattered across tile and carpet.  He breathed hard and quick for a moment, and then decided that he enjoyed the feeling. 

Why all this order?  She wasn't here.  For all he knew, she wouldn't be back.

He found the coffee cup with the missing handle.  It was the first to go sailing against the kitchen wall, shattering into a million pieces.  The two cats nearly knocked each other over in their haste to leave the kitchen, both disturbingly vocal in their fright.  But the man barely heard them as he opened the cabinets, searching for more of what he desired.

Who needed dishes?  He was in no mood to eat, nor would he ever be.

He smashed three plates, one right after the other, catching their edges against the counter top and watching them break into shards and fragments.  

When he had emptied that cabinet, he moved on to the next one, pulling things out in armfuls and letting them break where they fell.  He opened the next cabinet...

And stopped.

A crystal vase sat in the front row, hiding a pitcher and several old, often unused, glasses behind it.  He extracted it from the cupboard carefully, and clutched it to his chest, then sank against the counter with it until he was sitting on the floor, unconcerned about the glass and broken ceramic shards all around him.  

He used to bring her great big, stout AAA roses when he was courting her.  When he would visit her, he would always wonder where she had put them.  One day, he stopped by her office, and found a bouquet resting on her desk in a light blue plastic Tupperware pitcher.

It was unsuitable for a woman not to own a proper vase, especially when she received flowers on such a regular basis.  So the next bouquet he hand-delivered to her in a genuine crystal vase, and she was so surprised, she nearly dropped it.  

Amazing how fast the years go by, he reminded himself.  The vase was only the beginning. Everything in this house had been bought by her, for her, had her fingerprints on it, smelled of her perfume. Her hair and popcorn kernels were in the cracks of the couch.  Her nail polish stains were on the bathroom sink.

She was a part on him, and where they lived, and all of their belongings.  Were she to die, there would be no way for him to let her go.  She would still be all around him.

The conversation he had with that man (was he Lennon's ghost?) suddenly came to mind.

She wouldn't know and you wouldn't know.  It would be just like starting over.

He had lied.  He had said he wouldn't, when in reality, that was all he wanted, all he could think of.  Anything to make this pain go away.  She didn't need him.  She had her parents, her brother, her friends.  If they had never met, she would not be alone right now.  And when she took her final rest, she wouldn't know pain, or longing, or devastation.  But he would.  He would always know it.  Sure, if given the chance, he would go back in time and make sure she never got cancer instead, but how would one even do that?  How would one even go back in time?  Why was he bothering thinking about this at all?  

He took a deep breath and pulled his brain away from this fantasy that that charlatan John Lennon had placed in his head.  Best to deal with the here and now.  He carefully placed the vase on the floor next to him and sought the tools necessary to clean up his mess.  

                               *          *          *

The man was pouring himself a cup of coffee from the dispenser in the cafeteria, when he felt someone standing behind him who had not been there a moment before.  He turned carefully around, Styrofoam cup full of coffee in one hand, and looked straight into the face of John Lennon.  Or that same dude who looked like John Lennon.  Scarily like John Lennon.  He was still amazed at the sight.

"Well, hello again, my friend," said Lennon.  "Fancy running into you here.  Would you like to join me?"

The man hesitated, but then conceded, and followed the Beatle to his table near one of the windows that separated the cafeteria from the corridors outside.  

"How is your wife doing?"  

The man shook his head, his eyes downcast in an instant.  

"I am sorry to hear that, mate," Lennon said.  

Taken by his genuine concern, the man felt compelled to open up.  "It's funny.  You know that question you asked the last time we met?"

His companion nodded.  

"I can't seem to get that thought out of my head.  It'd certainly be tempting, if it was possible.  Makes me feel like a horrible person for saying that out loud."

John Lennon laughed.  "No judgements here, brother.  Whatever gets you through the night, eh?"  He lowered his voice conspiratorially.  "But what if I were to tell you that it was indeed possible to do just what I had suggested?"

The man sipped from his cup of coffee without looking up.  "I would say that you have lost your mind, sir."

He felt a hand abruptly seize his wrist, causing him to spill his coffee down the front of his shirt and across the table.  He locked eyes with Lennon through his round-framed glasses.  The Beatle's gaze was intense.  "What if I could prove it to you?" he said in his heavy accent.  The man's heart beat fast.  What was happening here?

Lennon averted his gaze, and the man suddenly took notice of his surroundings.  The room had gone white.  The other tables and chairs and lunch counter had disappeared.  All that remained were himself, this man who looked and sounded like John Lennon still clutching at his arm, and their table with its two chairs. 

"Where are we?" asked the man, hoarsely, barely able to breathe.  "What is this place?"

"This is the place of limbo," said Lennon.  "This is where all the big decisions start."  

"What big decisions?"

"Why yours, of course.  Mate, you have the chance of a lifetime.  A rare and precious gift.  Will you go on as you are now, or will you go back in time to change things, to make it so that you never met your wife?  To save yourself this pain.  Think it over carefully.  When you need me, I'll be around."  He let go of his wrist.

Suddenly, the man was back in the cafeteria, the white light having been sucked out of the room.  The furniture had returned.  John Lennon had disappeared.

The man looked down.  He was still drenched in coffee.