a minor affliction [ aiden and danny

a i d e n ;

Pills. I don't see the point of them, of my father's insistence that I can be saved. Pills, like little stars shoved down my throat every morning and the morning before that and before that and before that and...

I'm tired of it all, of trying. There are days that I don't even dare get out of bed because there's tar in my lungs and blood in my throat and every time a wipe the drool from the corners of my mouth it's always dark crimson and tastes of rotten pennies.

At this point I am living on his word that life after this will be worth it. That my demons will not once again claw its way down my throat and they will not see the opaque ghosts appear on my lungs once more, deaths fingerprints stained into my flesh.

I keep telling him that miracles do not happen twice. Lightning will never crack the same soil. Whatever lives up in the heavens has spared me once and fate will not be so forgiving again. Never again. There is only so much a body can take. 

And the tumor just keeps getting bigger.

I've never had much interest in life after death, never seen myself as anything but ten feet underground once I succumb to this constant sluggishness that has taken me. But I can't help but be curious about what awaits me because the deadline seems to be approaching at an ever increasing rate and there is nothing that I can find that will ease the uneasiness stirring in my gut. Slowing blood that already feels like concrete through my veins. 

One can only stare death in the face for so long before succumbing to the fear it radiates. I am ready to go, have come to terms with the fact that I have had (and will only ever have) eighteen short years to fill what should have been a lifetime but at the same time I am so terrified that sometimes I wish I could fold myself within my blankets and beg for one last bit of kindness, for my life back. 

But I am not so pathetic. 

The bottle is near empty. The stars clang noisily against the plastic cage I soon free them from. Bitter whiteness placed on the back of my tongue, washed away by a wave of clear, tasteless drink. 

Even water makes my stomach churn.

It's a side effect of these chemicals I am so constantly exposing myself to, welcoming them in with a mouth hung wide. They ruin my appetite, they thin my hair. It will not be long until anyone could look at me and see the death that is closing in like vultures to carrion. And then they will pity me, look at me with those sad eyes and mouths turned into pouts. 

It's terrible to see such a young boy go to something like this. You should be out running, not confined to a hospital bed.

(And yet your words change nothing, do they?)

I scrawl a quick note to Father and leave it tacked to the front door, just above the white board meant to keep track of what medications I have to take when. I often wonder when living became such a complicated process. Gone to the pharmacy, big surprise. Don't have a heart attack.

As much as I have some to love my father, there is something so suffocating about all that he has sacrificed for me. Nothing he does will bring Mom back but I don't think he's quite realized it yet. I hold out no hope that he ever will. 

I feel as though I have run a mile before I arrive at a hospital a mere two blocks away. It's not usually this bad, I chide to stop the dread tugging at my heartstrings, today is just a bad day. 

I'm not ready to spend my last few weeks holed up in a white room, not yet.

The smell of antiseptic makes me nauseous. I keep a hand over my mouth as I trudge over to a counter with an old lady stationed behind, one with a motherly smile and a nametag that reads Marlene.

"Hey, Marlene is it?" I give her a smile, feeling pressure building up in my throat with every falsetto word. "I'm here for-," The cough is sudden, coming from somewhere deep in my chest, stirring what had so happily laid dormant. Hands are being wrapped around my lungs, breath lost as i dissolve into a fit of ugly barks. "Sorry I just need- j- j- ust n-need-." 

And suddenly I am helpless, doubled over as pain spreads to even the tips of my fingers and I am retching into my palm, drawing even more attention to an affliction I just want to ignore.

But I guess you cannot ignore death.

[ ugky ]