title: joke
author: eithne
disclaimer: not mine; not yet.
rating: pg13
notes: because one time house died, and nobody's touched it.
summary: stop me if you've heard this one before.
•
it's a flash, but it's there and quite the bitch. he will never forget because his leg won't let him.
he diagnosed himself, again; he's good and should have prescribed himself bed rest, "you've got about twenty seconds ..." he yelled, and it's not a near death experience, it's a death experience he won't get to experience, so he said, "i was wrong," he's surprised, for once.
the machines, his breathing and movement all faded into the background.
--his heartrate?
(1. and it's dropping ... dropping ... dropping,
2. like mercury in a cheap thermometer or the punch line to a joke no one will ever understand. jokes are funny that way,
or not--
depending; a person has to know their audience, themselves, that spot on the wall discolored just enough to piss them off; it's everything or nothing and the joke's found
between.
3. if found at all.)
like the soundtrack to a bad, but, ultimately, re-watchable 1980s movie starring Bette Midler in a shirt that hangs off of her shoulder.
the drugs they put him on must be generic because he was on a farm, at a volleyball game? weren't any sweaty girl on girl fumblings in a pool filled with chocolate, not something enjoyable before he died.
life sucks and then you die.
death sucked, too.
dante forgot that circle of hell;
it's not even a circle, probably;
not sinister enough;
perhaps a trapezoid?
he had visions of protractors and textbooks, as he sat next to anne, with her brown hair and always-approval; he'd forget his textbook so she'd share hers, displaying the greatness that was euclidean geometry, her thigh pressed against him was fire. what a way to die.
then he felt a tightness in his chest, like his ribcage was shrinking, or his heart was growing ten times its normal size, or something fantastic (the generic drugs) to be explained away later (using words with -ia, -ous, -osis suffixes). and the white light went back from wherever it had come; it was never good, didn't divide night from day; it was only black and white; he didn't have time to glance at the clock. he wishes people would stop asking:
"how long were you dead?" stupid stranger asks.
without blinking, or caring, "i'll tell you when i'm alive," he answers, because even when his heart is breaking, when he's dying, he doesn't miss a beat, an opportunity to show a person just how human they are.
(confusion; not on his part.) people are pricks and his disheartening circumstances don't make pigs fly.
he woke up, a let down, of sorts. he had expected to be dead, underground, requiescat in pace. when he dies the ground will shake. or cameron will think it should, she'd fall to the earth and not be swallowed whole. but, there he was, stacy was there with her baggage, her betrayal, and there was no room for that. he knew then but she'd find out later.
he still had his leg, though, however, he managed to lose
ten pounds of his thigh, somewhere,
when he was in a coma, and
he'd.like.that.back.right.away!
he knew hell existed; he's smart (his one certainty), because he looked around the hospital room, the pain in his leg pulsated throughout his body, his bitterness and resignation radiated off of him, and he knew hell existed because it was staring him so boldly in the face.