"that place where we all exist"

 "Moth's leaning against the stone wall of a ruined building. He seems to be watching the last of the light, but he's not really here; his thoughts are beyond the horizon.

Are you okay? What's on your mind? Shall we go now and just get some sleep? I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted.

Me too, but lately I've realized that it doesn't matter how tired I am, I can't miss times like this. I have to hold on to every moment I can. 

But if you get too tired you won't be able to, you'll be sleeping through all the moments. As I say it, the memory of his endless sleeping before we left Cornwall floods my mind. The days lost in a fog of exhaustion and the doctor's warnings of 'don't get too tired'. It's taken every ounce of his willpower to get him to where we are now; I fear that extra hour of physical effort, or even the wind in the wrong direction, will be enough to send him right back to where he started from, or even further down.

I might have said the same before we left, but this trip has taught me something about all of this - the living, the dying, the void in between. It's not about how long it lasts, it's about the value of each moment. It's like one of your pans of mushroom soup.

It's almost completely dark, on the edge of an island stuck out in the North Sea, a chilly north-easterly wind blowing in from Scandinavia, and he's comparing life and death to a pan of soup. 

What?

It takes loads of mushrooms, so you only ever make enough for two bowls, but it's full of such deep and complex flavours - thyme and garlic, and earth - that it doesn't matter. That one bowl is enough, because it holds so much.

Earth? That's probably the compost I haven't washed off the mushrooms. 

You don't have to do that. 

Do what?

Whenever I mention death, you joke about it, or change the subject. Don't you get it? It's part of the soup. There's always more flavour when the mushrooms are about to go off: it makes the soup so much richer.

I might not make that soup again, not if it makes you think of earth and death, it's tomato from now on.

You know I see right through you, don't you?

I know. But you also know this trip's always been about gathering the ingredients for a great soup. 

It's already good soup.

The very best soup.

We walk away as darkness falls, somewhere in the void between life and death, that place where we all exist."

                                                            Landlines, by Raynor Winn

I hope it's not illegal to print this here!