Death Watch

Death was neither early nor late, on time or past deadline. There were factors that made him less an exact science and more an estimation. She was ready. What the cancer hadn’t taken was dim and fading, but she refused to face him. He’d wait.

Her son tiptoed in with a tray, and placed it down gingerly, she knew him as John the orderly. He sat down. Death acquainted himself with the anger that flared behind his ice blue eyes.

“Where’s my petunia?” she asked John the orderly.

Bryan answered, “She’s out Mum. Here, take these,” and handed her a fistful of pills.

For the past sixty days she had subsisted on room temperature Ensure and morphine. She reached for her smokes. “Mum, you shouldn’t smoke those.” he asserted.

“Hmmph, why not?” she replied, her point too poignant to argue.

He let her smoke, watching her nod out. “Why are you lying to me about Jess?” she asked.

“Mum, she left,” is all he offered in reply.

“Where’s Kevin?”

“He’s in prison, Mum.”

Her face contorted. “Bryan? My Bryan, please take care of him? He needs you.”

“I know, Mum, I will.” he replied unconvincingly.

Tears rolled hers and his. “He’s so angry. He won’t handle this well.” She looked over to where Death stood in the shadows. “What’s he doing here?” she asked.

“Who?” he asked.

“That guy.” She pointed to the corner

“Don’t know. What’s he want?”

She pondered, “He’s here to get me.”

“So go.” he said.

“Fuck that.”

“Well, you didn’t go when Uncle Teddy came, or The Goddess.”

“Well, he’s creepy.” she added.

“Mum, lay, I need to change your bandage.”

She acquiesced. He exposed the bandage that covered her stomach, peeling it back. Death shifted from one shadow to another, closer. The tumor threatened to breach her abdomen. Death watched her son’s reaction to his stench. Not long now.

Her son left. She stared. Death stared. “I can’t go yet. I don’t want to leave my kids.”

No answer.

“Fuck you!”

By nightfall, she fell into a trance. He put her where no one could reach her. Her eyes fell blank. She shivered. Her eyes failed to close or even blink. Death marked her passing by extinguishing each candle, one by one. While the last one flickered, he pulled her from her vessel.