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He fingered his watch nervously as he checked for the tenth time in as many minutes. The hands registered 4 am. This was always the worst time, the long hour, the hour before dawn. This was the time when his spirits were at their lowest level and his imagination at its most active. Moving quietly in order not to disturb his sleeping wife he slipped out of bed. In the bathroom he switched on the mirror light and collected the bottle of tablets from the top shelf. He checked the label on the bottle, 鈥淒o Not Exceed the Stated Dosage,鈥� warned the red lettering. Switching off the light he felt his way gingerly downstairs. The glow from a street lamp spilled into the room, casting shadows on the wall. He placed the tablets on the coffee table beside the bottle of 12-year-old whiskey, eased himself into his favourite armchair by the window and closed his eyes.

鈥淎t least with a heart attack,鈥� he mused to himself, 鈥淭he symptoms are obvious and the prognosis fairly clear.鈥� There was the sudden pain like the kick of a horse in the chest, and if you survived the initial trauma then there was always the possibility of surgery to patch up the damage. His eldest brother had had a triple bypass five years ago and had got a new lease of life as a result. But this insidious, god-awful thing which had afflicted him was less defined, more difficult to pin down. At first he had considered his increasing forgetfulness and occasional lapses of memory to be no more than part of the natural process of ageing. After all, when you reached fifty-five you did not expect to have the faculties of someone half your age. Looking back he marvelled at the coping mechanisms he had devised to hide the truth from himself. He had started making lists of things to do and had programmed all his friends鈥� telephone numbers into his mobile. He had convinced himself that word puzzles and crosswords would provide the mental stimulation which would tone up the mental muscles in the same way as a session in the gym would improve physical fitness. He had joined the local branch library and had returned to reading the classics in an effort to keep his mind active. It was all to no avail but it took the best part of a year for him to recognise, and then to admit to himself that he was fighting a losing battle.

Work had become a nightmare. He had become easily confused and he found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. Eventually the deadlines that were ignored, the clients鈥� calls that were not returned and the meetings that were missed resulted in a premature retirement package being forced on him. His area manager had been at his fulsome best at the retirement function, heaping praise on his valuable contribution to the firm and firmly ignoring the fact that he was being prematurely assigned to the scrap heap. With retirement came depression. He sat for hours in this chair beside the window gazing vacantly into the neglected garden. He lost interest in his favourite television programmes and gave up reading the papers. His driving became erratic and bordered on the dangerous. His family and friends, startled by the change in him, grew increasingly concerned. In the end, after much coaxing, his wife prevailed on him to seek help. The initial visit to his GP was the first step on the medical treadmill. A battery of blood tests, scans and interviews led eventually to the office of his consultant in the Dublin hospital. The consultant had been friendly and sympathetic, but friendliness and sympathy could not hide the harsh reality. The condition was irreversible and despite some promising ongoing research in medical circles in America, there was, as yet, no treatment available. The periods of lucidity would become less frequent and the decline into complete oblivion was inevitable and imminent. Physically he was in very good shape for his age but the shadow of becoming a walking shell loomed large on his personal horizon.

There had been the pain of breaking the news to family and friends. He found it very difficult to cope with the well meaning but futile efforts to cheer him up. Advice to:鈥淟ook on the bright side;鈥� and 鈥淣ever say die;鈥� offered by his long time confidants seemed to miss the enormity of the reality which was staring him in the face. Then there was the awkwardness of meeting acquaintances and former colleagues from work. The word was out; he could see it in their eyes, as the vainly tried to pretend that everything was as it had been. He withdrew from human contact. He discouraged visitors and stopped going out. He became increasingly irritable and contrary and vented his frustration on his long suffering wife who was having her own difficulties coping with her own emotional upheaval. It could not go on like this.

He sat forward in the chair and opened his eyes. The time for decision was at hand. Oblivion was unavoidable. Whether it was the oblivion of the living dead or the oblivion of the grave was still a choice that was his to make. From a financial standpoint, long term institutional care was not an option. His early retirement had reduced his pension to a pittance and the expense of educating the children had eaten into the meagre savings account. The alternative to institutional care was to become an oppressive liability on family and friends. He would require constant supervision to ensure that he would not become a danger to himself and others. The children had left home, and, with the exception of his daughter who lived on the other side of town, who had just had her first baby, his wife would have to cope without practical support. The combination of the tablets and the whiskey would resolve one problem but would leave a legacy of grief and guilt, which he was loath to impose on those he loved so much. He found his thoughts turning to his new grandchild. Her arrival had roused him from his depression for a short time. He had summoned up the resolve to visit his daughter in the hospital and he smiled inwardly now as he recalled that precious moment when he had held the little pink bundle of new life in his arms. What would she think of her grandfather in years to come? Would he be a lifeless physical presence, unable to return her love; or would he be a shadowy family memory, spoken of in hurt, hushed tones. What would her mother tell her of the grandfather who had disappeared from her world before she had a chance to know him?

Not much time left to decide. As he reached for the whiskey bottle the liquid inside suddenly glowed amber gold, as it caught the first rays of the rising sun which beamed in through the window. The room was suddenly illuminated and he became aware of the birdsong which wafted in from the garden. Was this new dawn a promise of renewed hope, a symbol of the essential goodness of humanity and the triumph of light over darkness; or was it a false dawn merely illustrating the futility of human endeavour in the fight against the inevitable and irresistible forces of nature? With his hand on the bottle he paused and looked at his watch. The hands registered 5 am. The long hour was over.