Simon Armitage – Knowing What We Know Now lyrics

The elf said to Kevin, "You're probably wondering why I'm sitting here at your breakfast table this morning, helping myself to your condiments. Kevin, I'm here to make you a very special offer - let's call it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Today you're 44 years and thirty-six days old, and that's exactly how long you've got left! Let me save you the mental arithmetic: you're going to live till you're eighty-eight and seventy-two days, and you have just crossed the halfway line. It's what we elves like to call "the tipping point". So, Kevin, as of now, you can either carry on regardless and pretend we never met. Or say the word, and I can flip the hourglass on its head. Do you see what I'm saying? So instead of getting older you'll be heading back in the other direction. I've got all the forms - you just sign here, here and here and it's goodbye incontinence, hello Ibiza. What do you say, Kevin?"

The arthritis in Kevin's shoulder had been bothering him of late, and the prospect of revitalising his tired and aching joints was tantalising to say the least. Imagine crusading once again through the unconquered landscapes of early manhood, knowing what he knew now.

But what about Annie, the woman he loved, the only woman he'd loved in his whole life? Could he really go swanning around with a young man's intentions and a fashionable t-shirt while she slipped towards undignified infirmity and toothless old age? How cowardly, to let her walk death's shadowy footpath alone, thus betraying his every promise to her, thus breaking every vow. And an image formed in his mind - Annie with ghostly hair and faraway eyes, cradling him in her limp, skinny arms, roses in a vase on the bedside table next to tissues and ventilator, his flawless cheek against her grey cotton gown, his tiny mouth moving hungrily towards her sunken breast.

"I won't do it. Because of my Annie", said Kevin, emphatically.

The elf said, "Kevin you're a gentleman, and God knows there aren't many of them around. And your Annie, she's one in a million". He wiped a few crumbs of crispbread from the corner of his mouth and added, "no two ways about it: I had the pleasure of breakfasting with her just a few months ago. A stunning, captivating woman. And looking younger every day".

Then with a shuffle of his silver slippers on the hardwood floor, he was gone.