"June 15 2008"
One last sip was all it took to put him under. His bunk remained as lifeless and cold as he was, now, in the refrigerator at some morgue downtown. His pillow was crumpled with a few strands of dark hair scattered on top and his sheets were shoved to the bottom of the bed. A card from his daughter lay untouched under the pillow. "Happy Father's Day Daddy, I hope you come home soon!" His Rolex watch had been placed in the bag with his clothes, glasses, wallet, and wedding ring.
The tan line on his left ring finger screamed some kind of commitment. His eyes were open, but glazed and filmy, his lips slightly parted and brow furrowed in confusion. His hair was brushed back, making him look so much younger than he really was. He looked exactly as he had the last ten years of his life. He didn't look pained like he had forty-eight hours ago, no longer shaking or hiccuping or vomiting. His body was not as pickled on the outside as the coroner's report indicated the insides were, though it did explain high levels of prolactin and proteins on his cheeks, listed right next to "Brain Weight: 3.24 Lbs."
She twisted her wedding band around her finger as she stared blankly at the wall, warm tears streaming down her nose, over her lips, and onto the head of the little girl in her lap. The phone clanged somewhere in the house, unanswered. The doorbell rang and people walked away without catching a glimpse of her, he widow. She watched as good friends walked in anyway, felt as they squeezed her, and watched them walk out again leaving her and and her daughter alone. She heard as they commented on how she was unresponsive, unaware, and glazed over. She heard the replies: What else was she supposed to be?
She finally drove, dazed, to his last home. She picked up the bag full of clothes and checked its contents for the ring and the card he must have kept. She pulled the ring out and slid it over her finger next to her own ring, still grabbing for the card. Not finding it, she turned to the bunk and smelled her husband's unmistakable scent of Jose Cuervo. She found the card as she hugged the pillow, adding prolactin and proteins to the mix of substances on the white pillowcase.
On the door, a sign read "Memories of Kane."
She meticulously wrote, "He promised to get better, no matter what the cost."
2 comments:
Wow! Can't believe you wrote this nearly 4 months before he died. Crazy! Prophetic? I love your writing; I can "see" it all. <3 U
Actually. I titled it for Father's day in 2008. It's a fictional story based on true events that I wrote last week. So much for prophesy lol
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