The End

One month, five days and three hours he's been keeping a secret. Something he knows his family will hate him for, even in the place he's in. The scratchy sheets graze his legs as he adjusts himself to lie on his back, how long will he keep it from them? Would it hurt any less if they come into the hospital for a visit and find the orderlies carting him off to the morgue rather than have them sitting around him as he closes his eyes? Does it even make a difference? Fatigue over takes him for a minute, with a sigh he blinks and thinks he sees his family and friends sitting around the room. The sight of them flickers on and off, a light about to snap its filament. Before he can question them he doesn't see them anymore. It was like no one was there to begin with, the cold hard stairs, vacant of any emotion made him thank everything that no one had been present. His lips are dry, his mouth tastes sugary and plastic from the IV drips. A doctor comes in and he's not sure of what he's saying he just wants to sleep, by know he's learned to read what they're saying without catching every syllable. Just more bad news, something he sees as just one more of the many constants in the white coated walls of what's become his world. The Choice is made and no one can do a thing about it, not even the doctor who gives him a skeptical look while the nurses enter the room with a bathing trolley.

It wasn't hard keeping it from them, he just sat there and let them tell him about their day, his son came by and showed him all the pictures he'd drawn at day care. One of them looked like the old Less Paul he had in the back of his closet, he knew he'd done right leaving it to the four year old. His parents took his son home after a while, it was the last straw, his heart fell in a heap of broken pieces at the reluctant look on the toddler's face. He fisted his hands in the itchy sheets and took a breath so he wouldn't cry; he still had several visits to go. It was like clockwork; his parents dropped by with Tony then, his friends who took a lunch break to swing by, Carol, every other day Beatrice and lastly he closed the day with Jack.

By the time Carol left he felt so much better; they had been friends since high school and had survived through collage. He thought someday she might marry Jack and have a kid or two; he'd never find that out now. She told him about the kids in her class and the silly things they did, how she expected Tony to be under her tutelage next year, and that she had a surprise for him that wasn't confirmed yet. How long was it after Carol left? An hour or two, when Beatrice showed up, she was in her work clothes and she looked tired. She planted a kiss on his forehead and sat in the seat next to him, was it wrong to hate that she was the only one who asked him questions? It was wasn't it, it had always been like this between them. He'd come home from the shop and fix some dinner, she'd drive back from the firm and ask him how his day was about the new stock or a customer he thought was memorable. They'd talk about Tony and then go to bed to start all over again the next day. Nothing changed after he was given the news. Only now she told him that God would answer his prayers, he'd seen several of his Chemo buddies being told the same thing; after a week or so they hadn't come back. It cut him up inside when a little boy with the same blue eyes as his son said he didn't need god, he had his sister giving him the strength to keep fighting it. He was a coward; he didn't want to live on, giving up and leaving it all behind. Well it wasn't the first time.

Sometimes he didn't get it, why him? He didn't cry, didn't curse that god above that was possibly punishing for not believing in Him as his mother once stated. He did however wish that no one else would have to go through this. As a patient or a family member and if someone did share his misfortunes, that they'd live through it, he'd given up the fight; he'd lived a full and happy life. So day in and day out the sallow man in the hospital bed would lie and hum in agreement to the words of hope and encouragement. He'd ask his visitors jokingly how things where marching on the outside, jesting that the oncology ward resembled a prison. They'd laugh and say they'd sneak him a file in a birthday cake, or when his friends would stop by they'd tell him not to drop the soap. None of them told them he'd be alright, just smiled with watery eyes and told him they'd miss him. Jack, his longest standing friend came by at the final week, telling him how he didn't know what he was going to do. How would he survive after his only friend was gone? He took his friends hand in his; the man broke down as he threaded his fingers into his childhood friend's hand. "It's me that should be bawling like a brat, I'm the one leaving. I want you to bury me in a blue and black suit." He was the only one he let it slip to. His friend whipped his tears and looked at his brother in arms; a quivering smile gained strengths with the calm in the patient's eyes and stood on the unkempt stubble devotedly.

Nothing had shaken the ties between them, some things went beyond corporal. This tether would probably hold beyond that veil, if Jack lost the silver line he'd loose the last trace he ever had of the pale man that once pulled him out of a locker. The nurse came by and told him visiting hours where over, not once did it cross his mind as he kissed the once chocolate wave plagues head that it would be the last time he'd here those parting words "So long, Jackie" and that he'd only whisper "goodnight, Vic" one last time.