He Carried On | FLASH FICTION | 137 Word Story

There was a man with a tat-tat-tat-t-te-tat in his heart,
That made him weak and frailer 
Than the next bloke.
And he was plagued by a grief that was stuck in his lungs
That now and then made him cough.
But he traveled on,
Traveled on,
Believing that to spite all that, he’d carry on.
And he did carry on, carry on, carry on,
While the host of men gave up the…
Well, I hate to say it out loud,
But you know how it ends 
For most.
But not this bloke.
Eventually, of course,
He carried on to the great beyond
But it was different for him.
I won’t relate the strange particulars,
But I will say that he was around far longer than other blokes, 
Because, somewhere along the way, 
He chose to carry on.​