Grey Nomads

This short story (1631 words) is about the strong bond between two grey nomads driving around the vast continent of Australia and how they deal with death when it interrupts their travel.

Beginning of the story:

Albert woke up first. It had been like this for 41 years almost without exception. He would generally wake up before Anna, walk down the stairs of their home and put a kettle of water to a boil. In his youth, Albert had been a coffee drinker, but over the years he had learned to enjoy the morning ritual of a cup of tea with Anna. Besides it was easier to just make tea, rather than tea and coffee, especially if you didn’t mind having tea.

For the last eight months Albert didn’t have to go downstairs to put the kettle to a boil. He had to step outside of their small campervan, fill the kettle with water and then put it on the portable hot plate that had been their kitchen. Occasionally on their circumnavigation of Australia they would grill some steaks at the BBQ available at the campground that they had chosen to stay at for that night or week, but most of the time they just cooked on their little hot plate. Sometimes they would cook together with another couple that they would have befriended on a particular leg of their journey. Once they had travelled for 3 weeks with a couple from Melbourne until their ways parted. It had made sense to cook together then. It had been more social that way too. For while grey nomads, the unofficial term for retirees travelling around their home country in caravans, would occasionally travel in groups, it was a mostly solitary affair.
Not solitary in its truest sense, for he had Anna with him. Solitary in the sense that one stayed amongst oneself; Anna and Albert.