Your Life's Final Copulation And Do You Know When The Time Has Come?

The last 'anything' is interesting. But the last copulation is somehow the most poignant. Just how long after the act does it usually dawn on you that - back then, right then, that was the last time. Surely it usually is this way round? I'm guessing that few actually plan the 'last time', that few women actually say to themselves On Saturday I'll let him have it this one last time; then that'll be it; that few men actually decide to make this the last time, and to move into the care-home the next day. Small tragedy or blessed relief from the tyranny of desire, either way it is one of those endings in a life that are rarely talked about or written about. There are many other 'lasts' of course: the very last time you turn off a car's engine; the very last tennis match; the moment you leave your work-place for the last time.

These things are largely missing from autobiographies aren't they? Of course all autobiographies are distortions - from a mass of routine they are a selection of a few noteworthy matters. But missing out all these 'endings' takes away the slow deterioration of all lives; or if not this then it at least alters the narrative of a life to one with a rather unanticipated finish.