In the last moments of a man, stories like to play up the finality of the situation. How a dying man can still think about poignant words before parting with his last breath. Pheidippides, Mercutio—stories share the common sentiment of the dying, that it is somehow a last moment, a final punctuation at the end of your sentence, a dramatic exit from this world.
It's not.
.:.
"Stay with me. Stay wit—do you he—don't cl—look a—"
The words fade in and out, bits and pieces scattered, the ideas lost in the wind blowing from the open window of the vehicle. He sputters out liquid, and though he has excellent memory, he doesn't remember gargling this much in his life. It tastes like metal, smells like incoming rain. At this point, he's forgotten that there is a bullet lodged somewhere in his body. He's too busy wrestling with chokes of fluids, saliva, mucous, heavily streaked with crimson. He's too busy trying to stay alive to think that he is dying.
He feels a hand on the side of his face, and he fights so hard to keep his eyes open, to keep them on the brunette, who is squeezing his slippery, red hand in her other. He fights. He tries...
.:.
It's the iron when you taste it, the overdrive, adrenaline, pain, a mixing pot of brain chemicals that keeps you addled for the final fade-out. No Shakespearean words, or final farewells. Just a lot of blood leaking out of the hole through your lung, a lot of mucous and that fuzzy feeling of being alive, slipping through your fingers.