I'm sitting here, listening to the doctor speak. More like, hearing. Medical jargon I can't understand being spat out in his condescending upper-class voice. Like she knows it all and I know nothing.

I lose myself in this context and just wait for her to finish. Physical and mental nausea, like the whole world's spinning. Or am I spinning? Is there a difference?

Don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter.

"… I'll leave you to your own. Don't disturb her. She needs his rest."

The doctor gets up and leaves.

Ethanol, disinfectant, saline. Artificial smells. The room drowns in artificial smells. Toilet on the right. Blinding fluorescent lights showering the room with radiation.

There's my mother, in front of me. Needle points tear at her skin in every direction. Machines wired to her body. Her skin shades of yellow and streaks of red, wrinkles folding her face. Naked in the bed, lying there.

Beside her, a bouquet of flowers. White and red roses, decaying.

I don't know what to do. I only stare.

"Cream."

A rough textured voice, gargled and distorted. Low in pitch.

I realise it's my mother. Her eyes open, red and pink.

She can speak. She does have a voice and she can speak.

"Cream," she says again. A blank face. Straight.

"Mother," I say. Some sort of sour taste in my mouth.

"Pleas turn off the lights. They… they hurt my eyes very much."

Her words sound hollow and distant. Sounding like… defeat.

All the lights cut off, except for the dim emergency light hanging above her.

"Thank you… that's much better."

"What do you want?" I ask her. Bluntly. "Those calls are expensive you know, and you can't afford them."

"I don't care."

"…So?"

"I wanted some sort of acknowledgement."

"Of?"

"That someone could love me enough to visit me."

"Mother, you know I love you. I'm your daughter!"

Forced comfort. A purely involuntary reflex instilled as part of the biological mother-daughter relationship.

"You do not seem like you love me."

Those words are unintentionally cold. Numbing.

"Sympathy and pity are two different things. Love and guilt are two different things."

"…"

"What level are we on again?"

"Level 8A, Palliative Care, Room 28."

"What is the name of the hospital?"

"Mater's Private."

"What do you call home?"

"Somewhere where you feel safe, loved, and belonged."

"I want to go home."

I don't know why that surprises me.

"But home is the hospital. You belong in the hospital."

"I don't feel safe and loved. I want to go home."

"There is no other place you can go to right now. There is no home."

"Then no one truly loves me. You don't love me."

"But I do!"

"Then why've you always ignored me?"

"I've forgotten what you're talking about."

"Not forgotten. It was never on your mind to begin with."

"I-"

"You never acknowledged me. You never gave anything back. I worked day and night out on the fields to pay for your expenses. I starved myself. I deprived myself. For you."

"Mother, I have a family now, okay? I have a husband and three kids. They need me."

"I need you as well. I have no family. All my sisters and brothers and momma are dead. You're all I got left."

"Quit being so selfish!"

"Quit being so ungrateful!"

"Parents are supposed to give to their children. They're supposed to love them unconditionally! They have to be selfless!"

"And what kind of parent-child relationship has their parents thrown into a cell at the first sign of illness. Which child lets their parents swim in their own sweat? Which child lets their parents' insides be completely deformed and cut out? Which child creates their parent's own hell? Without even a visit?"

"…"

"Those roses? They weren't even from you. They were from your wife. Four years ago. Four years of pancreatic cancer. Four years of hospital."

She sighs.

"I want to go home."

"Can't you say anything of use to me?!"

My voice bellows, slowly thinning out as she silences. I bury my face in my hands, flooding them with my tears. I do not know what do, say, or think to remove me from this situation. This mess.

"If the world doesn't love me… then why am I still alive? Why am I being kept alive?"

There is no answer.

"Why am I still suffering?"

There is no answer?

"Why won't the suffering stop?"

There is no answer.

"How do I stop the suffering?"

And then I know the answer. I know the answer and she knows the answer and we both know the answer.

"It's called death."

The last word rings heavy in my ears. Bitter, Strong, like mixed vodka. The problem with actions was that they gave words meaning. Power.

"I don't want to see you go."

"But you still want to see me suffer."

"I want things to be okay."

"This is the only way. You don't even have to love me, anymore. You could free me of hate, loneliness, fear, and pain."

and

I could touch the sky
And reach the stars
Forever sleep
In the astral blanket lain before me

Stop feeling
Stop being
Stop hurting

I could
Forever sleep
And all of this
Would go away
It's not hard
Just pull the plug

"And wait for the beep."

I could repay my debt. I could stop his suffering.

One plug.

"I wish this wasn't this way. I wish I…"

Those words won't come out.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry mother, I'm so sorry…"

Those sorry's won't even equate to anything.

Only wasting them.

I've wasted his existence.

And I can't do anything about it.

As I hang over her, with the machine wires in my grasp, I can't stop crying.

I don't know why I'm crying. I am thinking it is suffering but the suffering has always been his. She has nurtured me that far.

She closes his eyes. I place the dying bouquet over his chest. A last smile from her.

"It'll all be okay."

.

.

.

..

.

.

.

…Beep…