Today is Wednesday the fourteenth, which means it’s been three days since my father told me he’s ready to die. Ever since he told me this, my normal sleeping habits have completely changed. Instead of staying up all night praying to whichever god will listen with eyes shut, I get my eight hours, if not more. There is not a single person on this earth who sleeps this well. All my credit cards are maxed out, expensive brands of cereal, gourmet chocolate, and organic food fill my cabinets, and my mortgage is so high, that approximately 94% of the people who share this rate are dead, all from suicide. Yet, I sleep like a baby. So does this make me an awful person? The fact that my unconscious mind is glad the lung cancer has finally caught up with my father and he’s ready to breathe his last breath. Give hope and let his soul fly up to the heavens, (his words not mine).

It’s almost 10:30 AM, hence in about five minutes my mother will call crying her eyes out. She calls about every half hour and asks if her only son is ok because she’s feeling terrible. Six months ago, she cheated on my father with some twenty-two year old wannabe lawyer, filed a divorce and took all his cash, and now of course once he’s dying, she feels so damn sorry. I believe the woman drove him to his grave. The phone finally rings and it’s so cheap and old the ring comes off as an animal choking. I pick up the phone and I hear my mother’s weary voice, I don’t know if she’s faking it, but I play along anyway. I start saying things like “God, I wish I can be the cure to heal him” and “Please mom, let’s try to get him to change his mind, please”. Of course I’m lying, I’ve never been so unmoved in my entire life, my writers block is gone, I sleep well, hell, I think I may be even in love, which is an ability I thought I’d lost once I found my mother sleeping with Tom the law student. However, I do a have a heart, I mean, I sympathize with my mother, the guilt is probably eating her alive just like the cancer in my father’s lungs. The only difference is that my father can just end his life and people will understand and empathize, if my mom would do that she’d be remembered as a ___, (Use your imagination here).

I decide to leave my apartment and go to the hospital to visit my dad. I haven’t seen him since the conversation, which ended something like “I’ve lived a long enough life, and I’m ready to blah, blah, blah”.

I get there and the room smells like death, it’s so unbearable that I can barely breathe. It feels like I’m in a quarantine facility and I only have a few hours left till the foam starts gushing from my oral cavity. The EKG machine beats louder than a siren at a murder scene and it stops the hearts of both my father and I. My face turns ghostly pale and it’s chilly in the room, but I’m sweating. The rain outside appears as if the sky is falling and the noise is so irritating it reminds me of the opera singer in Citizen Kane, completely awful. I look out the window and its way too dark for anything to be visible. For all we know, everyone is dead outside and the world is over. I hear the IV being devoured by my father’s body; I bet it’s the only satisfying thing he has left. He looks worse now than that picture I saw from Treblinka where he was too skinny, hungry, and had a face filled with tears and blood. And now, his eyes are shut, his face beaten, and there is so many damn wires around that it kind of reminds me of the episode of “Star Wars” when they bring back Darth Vader. Although this time no one’s bringing anyone back to life. This situation just feels too real, and I’m sober.
I look up at my father and my face turns from pale to sea green in seconds. I run out of the room and try to swallow the vomit that’s about to “courteously” pour out from my lips, but it’s thick and nauseating. So I just let it go. And there it is. Loads of my gourmet dark chocolate and organic fruit filling the hospital hallway floors. S***, now everyone knows about my little spending spree. The view of the vomit make the unwell sicker and the complete healthy visitors begging for an empty room, because they are all suddenly feeling a shortness of breath, irritable headache and a stomach pain. This is embarrassing. I run out of the hospital and let the cold rain hail on my clothes, the vomit drips from my face as I lead a nice little trail, the emptiness I feel is just indescribable, I’ll Let “god” decide my fate now. So, I just sit in the middle the street, close my eyes, let the wind blow, the rain fall… and wait.