I stared into the scared and lonely eyes of the dying man, today. He stared back into mine. He had summoned me here because he wanted to let me know he was dying. He wanted to show me why he was dying. I guess in a way, I had already known that fact all along. He hadn't been feeling real well for quite some time. Ironically, he took a drag off the very thing that was killing him and he held the infectious smoke in his lungs until the drug could penetrate the flow of blood to his head. This was how the addiction to cigarettes had gripped him for most of his life. He exhaled, finally and if it were not for the glass partition that separated our faces, the smoke would have been blown rudely into my face. I was not offended by this gesture, because he was trying to make a point and for some silly reason, I felt compelled to listen to him for once.
He told me he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Most likely terminal. That turned out to be quite the understatement. There was a growth between his heart and lung that had been picked up on x-rays while checking him for pneumonia a few months ago. Further studies of this growth inevitably resulted in the phone call from the hospital and an arranged ride to the hospital via ambulance. The growth was malignant and growing at a rapid rate. Both Radiation and Chemotherapy would have to be administered in drastic measures to attempt any chance of victory. The amount of both treatments would take their toll on his body and he would have to remain hospitalized and under close observation until they succeeded or not. I guess he wanted to let me know that the next time he saw his house again would either be to live quite differently from then on or eventually come home to die in his hospice, if given the chance. Unfortunately, because I was asked to face this man today, the result was the latter.
I'm no doctor. I don't understand all that technical stuff. I only know what I am told and taught and there are just some sciences and industries that I don't know much about and I'll never claim to. I guess when it's all explained to you, even in medical jargon, it begins to make some sense. But if you know something is bad for you, why would you continue to do it? He raised his left hand to his mouth and took another drag as if to somehow answer me. I noticed both the index and middle fingers of his hand were tobacco stained to dark amber. This time he turned his head to exhale more politely, as if it really mattered.
I realized what he was saying. He had lost the battle. He had lost the war. He was dying whether or not he smoked anymore anyway. After he blew all the smoke from his lungs, except the residual carcinogens that comfortably attached themselves to the existing cancer inside, he turned back and stared into my eyes. He pointed to the pack of smokes on the counter-top in front of him behind the glass partition. Beside them was a large volume of pictures of his family. He had gathered them together before he had asked me to come here. He intended on smoking the whole pack he told me and look at the pictures reflecting on the wonderful life he had led, somehow punishing himself for being so foolish with his life. He had pictures of his family. He had pictures of himself when he was a child and with his mom and dad. He had high school pictures. He had pictures of his wedding. He had pictures of his baby girl when she was born. He had pictures of his family on vacation. He made it clear right then that he did not have any new pictures taken of him with his family since his sickness. In a way, he surmised that he had actually died on the day the last picture of him was taken. He jumped right to that one and it was a beauty. A perfect family portrait of his wife, his young daughter, and himself standing in their back yard with just about the most perfect sunset in the background. Ironically, there is a shadowed silhouette of a cigarette clenched between the first two fingers of his hand in the photograph. He makes sure he points that out to me. He's embittered by his condition and the addiction that caused him to become this way. Now he feels trapped. I have empathy for him, but it seems fruitless. He's dying no matter how I feel about it.
It's his family I thought about then. His daughter who he'll never see graduate, nor walk down the aisle with on her wedding day. His wife who will someday inevitably re-marry. He told me he wondered what the man would look like. He wondered if she would marry someone like himself so that it would help remind her of him. As a tear fell from the corner of his eye, I realized I was getting upset myself. He told me he had a conversation with her about it before. She said she didn't want to have the conversation, but he tried to have it anyway. She said she'd never, ever forget him and no one could remind her of him and no one had to. We both brought handkerchiefs to our faces and wiped our eyes as he told me that she had also said that maybe some things that people do in life would remind her of him, but that she'd have no problem remembering him for the rest of her life and wouldn't need to be reminded. Then she had burst into tears and ran from the room.
I tried not to get upset, but it was so sad. To watch him take another drag off the cigarette suddenly infuriated me. If I could have, I think I would have slapped him across the face and that revelation about myself startled me. He was suffering enough. I realized this. I could tell that when he inhaled from the cigarette now, that his breaths were much shorter. He planned on dying as soon as possible. He wanted to get this part of his life over so he could get on with the next. He's not a spiritual man. He's afraid of dying. Aren't we all? Maybe a warped few in this world believe that dying is the ultimate experience, but if one were to give me the choice, I'd say they could go first and tell me all about it.
Suddenly I was uncomfortable looking into the eyes of this dying man. I could sense that he was uncomfortable looking at me, too. There was an awkward silence and the cups of his lower eyelids filled up with tears again. They were desperate tears of anguish. I had to take my hanky out again. How long had I been there already, I thought to myself. It felt like forever to me right then. Hoping that it would somehow answer my question, I looked down at my watch to see what time it was. Would you believe that one minute later, I had already forgotten what time it had read?
I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be in my happy home. I wanted to be away from this man and his nightmares. As far away as I could get. It was just too depressing. I didn't want to cry. Not for him, not for me, not for anybody. Not right then. We all die for crying out loud. My father would say, "If it ain't one thing in life that would kill you, it'd be another." Perhaps not the most eloquently said, and maybe not the greatest words of wisdom, but out of the blue, they seem like ancient words of wisdom. I tried to make an expression to the man to communicate what I was feeling. It went unnoticed or ignored.
He started flipping through the pictures again. His daughter's first birthday. A fresh batch of tears stream down his sodden cheeks. He looked up again into my eyes as if silently begging for my help, knowing that there is nothing anyone can do for him now. Comfort him is all, I guess. I guess that was what I was trying to do. As if I could be this vent for him to get this off his chest so he could get on with his life or death, whatever. I mean no disrespect. I'm just saying if that was the only way I could help this poor man, then I felt somewhat obligated to do so, no matter how badly I wanted to run away from this man screaming insanely right then.
He took a much smaller drag off the cigarette and stamped it out into the ashtray on the opposite side of the shelf from the pictures and the pack. He then reached for the pack and extracted another cigarette and promptly lit it. He tried to inhale deeply, but the smoke expanded in his constricted lungs and he began to cough uncontrollably. He was trying to be defiant and now paying a small price for it. He was paying an extreme price for it in the long run. For right then, that very instant, it was just a small price. It took him over five minutes to stop hacking and get back to a point where he was articulate again. His eyes were bloodshot and dark; his purple, strained face was streaked with drying, sticky tears. He was completely bald under the baseball cap he wore depicting his favorite football team. A well-known side effect of Chemo. No eyebrows, no facial hair. No hair anywhere. Silky, smooth, and frail, dying skin that he said felt weird when you touched it.
The cigarette burned away between his fingers and occasionally he'd take a small drag from it and you could hear the liquid swamp that was drowning him inside his lungs. He gurgled when he breathed and the sound was becoming more rapid. We sat and talked about the pictures he'd hold up to the glass and then tell me all about it. That part of the conversation wasn't too bad, really. He had many happy years in his life and I thought that was a good thing that he realized it and admitted it. All in between the pictures, he'd light a new cigarette off the butt of the old one. Some of the pictures had deeper feelings and he'd sob a little, but in the long run, I'd say the pictures and what he was doing with them at that time was therapeutic for him. The cigarettes made a curious combination to his therapy, I thought. Why I had to be there, I guess I was still in denial about.
Then after what felt like forever went by, he asked me out of the blue if he was still around tomorrow, if I'd come and see him again. I promised him I would, hating every word of it. His only pack of cigarettes would be depleted, he then said and dared to ask me to stop along the way and pick him up another pack. Filterless if they had them. I knew they would. I said yes, hating myself because I knew I would for him. I was in contempt with myself. He asked me to promise him by vowing.
"I promise that if you're still on this good, green earth tomorrow, that I will not only come here again to see you, but I will also move mountains to find a way and get you a fresh pack of filterless cigarettes," I said looking straight into his face. He smiled at my vow. Maybe it was a sneer. I felt ashamed of myself no matter what it was.
We do what makes people feel comfortable in this world, I guess. Our loved ones, our friends, our families, and ourselves anyway. No matter what the price is sometimes, am I right? I guess not always. Maybe just close, though.
I was tired then and told him so. I told him I wanted to go. He understood. He was probably as tired of me by then as I was of him. I came close to the glass partition and he came close on his side. We didn't say a word to each other, but we looked into each others eyes and communicated in a way many people that know each other really well can do. We said many things in that single moment to each other with just the expression on our faces and the look in our eyes. The biggest thing was hoping to see this man again tomorrow while in another way, hoping not to. Then there was a brief look of anguish again before I turned around, snapped off the bathroom mirror light, and went to bed.
The end.
J.L. Campbell

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...