by Bryan Healey
Oh, goddamn it!
"He's..." Jenny starts to cry.
"Doctor," Brian whispers.
"Is he dying?" Jenny squeaks out.
"I'm afraid so," he answers.
"Oh, Max," and Jenny is beside me, and for surely the last time I hear that familiar rustling of sheets as she comes to me. "Oh, Max, oh, God," she babbles incoherently. She is searching for the words, the final utterance to a man loved slipping from the world, but there are no words. Nothing left.
"Mom," Brian cries.
He is crying...
I don't think I've ever heard my boy cry before.
It breaks my dying heart.
I hear sobbing.
Brian skinned his knee.
"Ouch!" He screams. His mangled bicycle is lying beside him in the middle of the road, him laying beside it clutching his shins. "Daddy!"
I rush over to him, yet smiling.
He'll be fine, it's just a scratch.
"What happened?" Jenny screams.
She's on the porch and can't see us.
"Nothing," I call out as I reach him, and bend down to scoop him into my arms. "Everything is okay. Just a scraped up knee."
"Daddy, it hurts!"
"I know, buddy," and I wipe a tear that was on it's way down his cheek. "But it will pass."
Machines beeping wildly, the sound of dials being turned. I wish I could see what was happening, what changes were being made; or was my doctor only observing? Was he using my final moments to take notes, to watch my body convulse and stop, a morbid science experiment, taking advantage of the moment.
Oh, Jesus, it's agony...
Is this what dying is? Moments of excruciating pain, the wailing of family, the whir of machinery, and then... what? Nothing? The end of consciousness, like slipping into sleep? Will the crippling pain subside; can my final memory not be such horror.
"Oh, Max," Jenny squeaks.
Is that that the last sounds of my wife?
"Oh, God," she calls out, her fingers gripping my back, tearing forward. It hurts, but I don't care.
My hands are cupped under her back, against the bed, pulling her into me with each thrust forward, my lips pressed firmly to her neck, her shoulder, her lips, her tits, her ear...
"Oh, God," and I feel her shudder against me.
"Oh!" I call out synchronously.
"Oh, God," and she shudders again.
"I love you," she whispers as we slowly calm.
"I love you," I return, smile, and kiss her neck.
"Oh, Max," I hear again.
No pleasure in those words...
"I love you, dad," Brian cries.
...the last sounds of my son?
When is my last moment?
I see colors; colors! Jesus, colors!
Have I slipped away?
"Merry Christmas!"
Brian is jumping on the bed, he looks older. He must be at least nine or ten. I blink, smile, and reach to the nightstand to get my pill bottle.
"Good morning!"
"It's Christmas morning!" He shouts.
Jenny grunts beside me.
"Wake your mother," I snicker as I get out of bed and head to the bathroom. I can hear him shouting to her as the door closes.
Goddamn it, this pain has to end!
"Just let go," Brian whispers.
Let go? Let go of what?
I can barely think...
All there is now is the pain, such pain...
I see purple!
Red!
"Oh, Max," Jenny repeats.
Orange!
A machine behind me makes a shrieking noise briefly but then suddenly stops; was it silenced? Is that my heart giving out, is this the end?
"Oh, God," Jenny shouts. "Don't leave me!"
Vicious crying, violent crumpling of sheets...
"Don't leave me!"
"Mom!" Brian shouts.
"Don't touch me!"
"Mom! Please!" They're both crying...
"Max! Don't die! Please!"
Jenny... Jenny...
"Mom, stop!"
"Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"
Jenny...
She is in such pain...
I am causing my bride pain...
"Max," she whispers. I am awake, in a hospital bed, finally feeling the ache in my leg over the all-body horror that had had been the preceding several days.
"Hey," I mumble.
"I missed you," she smiles.
"My leg hurts," I grunt.
"I know, sweetheart," and she wipes my cheek.
"Can you talk to the doctor and-"
"No, Max. Never again."
"Jenny-"
"Max, you listen to me!" She sounds furious.
"What?" I shout defensively.
"I will never go through this again! Do you hear me? Never again!"
"Okay," I whisper, "never again."
"You will get clean, stay clean, and you will be the father and the husband that we, and you, deserve. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," I breath.
"Okay," and she runs her fingers through my hair, around my ear and down my cheek.
And she smiles.
"Max!" And now such pain...
I can't die... I can't die! I have to live!
I have to move!
Move, goddamn it, move!
"Max, please! Please!"
Noises, scuffling...
Move!
Jesus, my chest!
Ugh!
They won't save me; the doctor, the nurse, they will let me die. They won't help me, they'll let my body fail, my heart stop, my mind wither and end...
They won't help me...
...unless I move!
If I move, they'll see it, they'll suddenly need to save me; I'm alive, I'm conscious, I'm here and worth the effort... If I move, they'll save me!
I have to move!
I don't want to die, not here, not now, with my wife, wailing and miserable, crying out for salvation. I want to live, to see her just one more time!
Just one more goddamn time!
The world owes me that!
"Max! Oh, God!"
"Mom!"
"I love you, Max! I love you!"
Fuck, move, move, move!
Please move...
Please, God, help me move!
I have to move!
She devolves into pure madness, screaming, sobbing; more scuffling; they are restraining her.
Leave my wife alone!
"Don't touch me!"
The world dims, no sound...
Oh, God, no sound...
Am I dying? Is this death?
The pain dims, fading to nothing.
No sound, no pain, no feeling...
No sight, no touch; nothing...
Only the void...
"Here he is!"
A nurse appears from behind me as I tend to Jenny, and in her arms, swaddled in pristine white fabric, is my son. It has been weeks since he was born, strapped to a miniature gurney with machinery keeping him breathing, keeping him alive.
And now he is here, being handed to me.
"Jenny," I decide, and point to her before the nurse has a chance to put him in my arms. Jenny does not resist, outstretching her arms, a look of absolute glee plastered across her smile; the nurse rests his tiny head in the crook of her arm, and Jenny sw
allows him.
"Oh, Max," she whispers, tears instantly there.
"He's amazing," as I bend to them.
His eyes are closed tightly, but he's awake, his fists punching the air, his legs squirming beneath the blankets, trying to break free, trying to feel the air.
"Yes, he is," she echoes.
"Little baby Brian," I manage.
And I kiss them both.
"Jesus Christ!"
Brian pierces the gray with furious shouting.
"Max!"
"His finger moved!"
"What?" Jenny wails.
"I saw dad's finger move!"
"His finger did not move," the doctor asserts.
Did my finger move?
The sound fades again, the pain resurfaces, and then fades again, and then back... Am I coming in and out of consciousness? Am I slipping away, slowly, and, oddly, gently, bodily failing with the chaos of panic and desperation swirling around me...
"I'm telling you, I saw his finger move!"
"You did?" Jenny asks, frantic.
"I did! I saw it move!"
"Brian?" Jenny whimpers.
But then sound is gone, again, the pain still oscillating between searing and absent. The sound fades briefly in- "-elp him! His fin-" and then gone again, and then back- "-op it, you're be-" and then gone again, in and out, in and out...
And then the oscillation ends.
No more sound.
No more pain.
No more sadness.
No more regret.
Nothing.
Nothing at all...
Empty.
All there is left, all that I now know, all that remains for me, almost surely forever now, is only the void, thick and gray, outstretched for eternity...
...only the glorious void...
