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tamingthemuseTitle: Thoughts Of A Dying Man
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of incest, homosexual acts, infidelity, a few curse words
Summary: It is a strange thing, to be laying before your family dying; even stranger, wishing that they would leave you alone.
Each breath is a chore now. Just the act of breathing is a chore as I lay here in this hospital bed waiting for the inevitable end.
Although my eyes are closed, I can hear my family around me. They cry softly during this deathwatch, all prior arguments and estrangements forgotten as they wait for me to take the final journey. I wonder if they know how much I despise their wailing and their presence. All that I want, all that I need right now is to be alone to take those final steps and let go of this life.
My wife—my wife, my love, I wish that you would just walk out of here and go on with your life. My presence never stopped your infidelities before. You always had your boy toys to keep you company throughout our marriage. You were the perfect hostess for me, the perfect wife to all the neighbors if it wasn’t for the way you spread your legs for anything in a Speedo.
You gave me children, three perfect little children to carry on the name and the family greed. I should feel blessed. All I feel is sick at my stomach for the disease that I’ve inflicted on the world.
Alex is the picture of myself at his age, although I didn’t have his penchant for men. I think that gene comes from you, my dear wife. He’s shared some of your affairs, did you know that? I never told you about the time that I found you with the pool boy in the afternoon and Alex on his knees in front of him in the poolhouse that night. I watched the whole thing that night; how my son liked to gobble cock like it was caviar and how he loved to take it up the ass. I can still remember the vacant look in his eye as the boy rode him from behind, a thin string of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. At least the boy was kind enough to give him a reach-around. I don’t know that Alex is that kind or caring with his partners. Probably not.
Jason, my other son, holds my hand to his forehead and begs for my forgiveness. I wouldn’t give it if I could speak. He shamed me more than I can ever tell anyone when he got caught with his sister at boarding school. I thought that I had taught him discretion and pride; how wrong I was. How horribly wrong.
It wasn’t the fact that he was fucking his sister. In a lot of cases, that can be overlooked. It was that he got caught in a compromising position, in flagrante delicto—that is what I couldn’t begin to forgive.
They never made it a secret that they were only for each other. Even when they were children, you could tell that there was something insular and private between them, a buffer between them and the outside world. He watched out for her, she watched out for him and all was good. In their eyes, at least.
When he started taking drugs—when they started taking drugs—my hopes for them died. I had aspirations that they would be the base of the family triumvirate, tempering Alex’s need for power. I wish that I hadn’t been so wrong.
Maybe things would have turned out differently had we sent them to different schools. They would have had to rely on others for their needs, not solely on each other. It may have turned out for the better, if only for them and not for me.
Julie stands at the end of the bed with that look in her eye. The look that she gets when someone else has her brother’s attention beside herself. She’s a jealous little bitch, my only daughter. Egotistical and needy to the extreme, she wants all the attention all the time. She’s pissed off at me because I’m in the bed, not her—she’s the only one that would be willing to change places with me and not necessarily for the right reasons.
The nurse comes in and asks them all to step out for a moment so they can bathe me and change my bed. Thank God, a moment of peace. Although I can hear their weak protests, they all leave just a little too quickly, glad to be away from my bedside. The bedside of a dying man. Me.
As soon as the door shuts behind them, I open my eyes and look up at the nurse. “Are they all gone?”
“For a few minutes. Why, Mr. James?”
“I want to die in peace. I want to die alone.”
She smiled at me and shook her head. “No you don’t.”
“Yes I do. I don’t want those leeches around me when I decide to go.”
She moved around the bed, doing her job while I wonder how much time that I really have before the sycophants return.
She’s done pretty quickly and she leaves, closing the door softly behind her. I set about to do what I’ve been here to do for some time—die.
I let go. I let go of all the things that hold me to this world, this life that I’ve grown to hate with everything in me. I let go of my cheating wife, my sybaritic son, and my incestuous twins. I let go of everything.
I am done.
With a sigh that turns into a last breath, I let go and feel myself drifting up and out, away from the chains that hold me to the world. There really is a white light and a tunnel and people to greet you. I never believed them before now, even through all those years of church to make the right impression.
I look back, just a quick glance to check and see that I’m really done with all the bullshit. My body lays there, still and quiet, and I’m glad that it’s over. I’m so glad I’m done.
I’m free now.
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of incest, homosexual acts, infidelity, a few curse words
Summary: It is a strange thing, to be laying before your family dying; even stranger, wishing that they would leave you alone.
Each breath is a chore now. Just the act of breathing is a chore as I lay here in this hospital bed waiting for the inevitable end.
Although my eyes are closed, I can hear my family around me. They cry softly during this deathwatch, all prior arguments and estrangements forgotten as they wait for me to take the final journey. I wonder if they know how much I despise their wailing and their presence. All that I want, all that I need right now is to be alone to take those final steps and let go of this life.
My wife—my wife, my love, I wish that you would just walk out of here and go on with your life. My presence never stopped your infidelities before. You always had your boy toys to keep you company throughout our marriage. You were the perfect hostess for me, the perfect wife to all the neighbors if it wasn’t for the way you spread your legs for anything in a Speedo.
You gave me children, three perfect little children to carry on the name and the family greed. I should feel blessed. All I feel is sick at my stomach for the disease that I’ve inflicted on the world.
Alex is the picture of myself at his age, although I didn’t have his penchant for men. I think that gene comes from you, my dear wife. He’s shared some of your affairs, did you know that? I never told you about the time that I found you with the pool boy in the afternoon and Alex on his knees in front of him in the poolhouse that night. I watched the whole thing that night; how my son liked to gobble cock like it was caviar and how he loved to take it up the ass. I can still remember the vacant look in his eye as the boy rode him from behind, a thin string of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. At least the boy was kind enough to give him a reach-around. I don’t know that Alex is that kind or caring with his partners. Probably not.
Jason, my other son, holds my hand to his forehead and begs for my forgiveness. I wouldn’t give it if I could speak. He shamed me more than I can ever tell anyone when he got caught with his sister at boarding school. I thought that I had taught him discretion and pride; how wrong I was. How horribly wrong.
It wasn’t the fact that he was fucking his sister. In a lot of cases, that can be overlooked. It was that he got caught in a compromising position, in flagrante delicto—that is what I couldn’t begin to forgive.
They never made it a secret that they were only for each other. Even when they were children, you could tell that there was something insular and private between them, a buffer between them and the outside world. He watched out for her, she watched out for him and all was good. In their eyes, at least.
When he started taking drugs—when they started taking drugs—my hopes for them died. I had aspirations that they would be the base of the family triumvirate, tempering Alex’s need for power. I wish that I hadn’t been so wrong.
Maybe things would have turned out differently had we sent them to different schools. They would have had to rely on others for their needs, not solely on each other. It may have turned out for the better, if only for them and not for me.
Julie stands at the end of the bed with that look in her eye. The look that she gets when someone else has her brother’s attention beside herself. She’s a jealous little bitch, my only daughter. Egotistical and needy to the extreme, she wants all the attention all the time. She’s pissed off at me because I’m in the bed, not her—she’s the only one that would be willing to change places with me and not necessarily for the right reasons.
The nurse comes in and asks them all to step out for a moment so they can bathe me and change my bed. Thank God, a moment of peace. Although I can hear their weak protests, they all leave just a little too quickly, glad to be away from my bedside. The bedside of a dying man. Me.
As soon as the door shuts behind them, I open my eyes and look up at the nurse. “Are they all gone?”
“For a few minutes. Why, Mr. James?”
“I want to die in peace. I want to die alone.”
She smiled at me and shook her head. “No you don’t.”
“Yes I do. I don’t want those leeches around me when I decide to go.”
She moved around the bed, doing her job while I wonder how much time that I really have before the sycophants return.
She’s done pretty quickly and she leaves, closing the door softly behind her. I set about to do what I’ve been here to do for some time—die.
I let go. I let go of all the things that hold me to this world, this life that I’ve grown to hate with everything in me. I let go of my cheating wife, my sybaritic son, and my incestuous twins. I let go of everything.
I am done.
With a sigh that turns into a last breath, I let go and feel myself drifting up and out, away from the chains that hold me to the world. There really is a white light and a tunnel and people to greet you. I never believed them before now, even through all those years of church to make the right impression.
I look back, just a quick glance to check and see that I’m really done with all the bullshit. My body lays there, still and quiet, and I’m glad that it’s over. I’m so glad I’m done.
I’m free now.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 02:53 pm (UTC)2. You retain, as ever, that knack for the horrible, for being able to take an ordinary life and life event and lay it out in all its glory, telling the things we never tell. I don't think there's anyone else here on the comm who does that in any way that approaches you. My hat's off to you.
Well done.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 11:20 pm (UTC)Your comments always make me feel...believe that I can do anything. I'm thrilled to get them every week, truly.
You are, by far, the best person that I know.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 05:12 am (UTC)