minutes and then I’m pulling the plug.”
I look to him with a harrowing look in my eyes as my stomach floods with despair.
“No.” He sees the writing on my face and moves to correct himself. “That was a poor choice of words.”
“I thought you meant…”
“His parents just phoned the front desk. They’ll be here soon.” He glances down at the watch on his wrist and initiates a deep, nervous sigh. “You know I could lose my job, right?”
“I could come back tomorrow.”
“No.” He waves me off with a forced smile. “They’re terrible people.” The elevator comes to a sudden halt and the hydraulic doors slam open. His palm lands upon my back and he guides me out of the steel enclosure and down a hallway. “Three knocks and you come out immediately.” We reach the end of the hallway, where two rooms are placed adjacent to each other on opposite sides of a corner. “Don’t make me drag you out of there.”
“Thank you, Trent.” I place my palm on his shoulder before pushing my way through the wooden door, and closing it gently behind me.
Nathan lies in the bed, with a ventilator pumping air into his lungs. The room is cool and chilly and I wrap my arms around my body to warm myself, but it doesn’t seem to help much at all.
A decorative blue gown is draped over his thin body, peeking out above a plain white blanket. His dark hair is pushed back, but rebellious strands hang across his forehead. He’s clean-shaven like he always seems to be, but this isn’t the way I remember him.
He used to smile. A tall kid with a laugh that could light up a classroom, even though he was far from being a member of the popular crowd. Now, all there is, is silence. His hair was dyed, sometimes a different color each day of the week. Now, he sports the hair he was born with. The same hair that was always too simple for him. He was a colorful kid with a colorful wardrobe, and now the closet adjacent to his bed houses only one pair of jeans, a tee, and a hoodie.
The noise of the various machines is enough to drive me crazy. The ventilator huffs like well-oiled hydraulics. Green and red lines chase after each other on a set of monitors, with head-splitting beeps once each color passes an arbitrary finish line and begins anew.
The faded yellow curtains are drawn shut, wavering in the breeze of the air conditioning unit parked underneath a long window that spans the length of the room.
I stand at the foot of his bed, trying in vain to push away the thoughts of guilt. As a sane human being, I know there’s nothing more I could have done to prevent this. All evidence points to the narrative that he’d be dead without my intervention, but evidence is oftentimes muddled by human contamination, and never surrenders to matters of the heart.
Maybe he’d be better off dead, rather than lying in a hospital bed for eternity waiting for the impossible day in which he’ll wake up. If I wouldn’t have jumped into his car, Nathan wouldn’t be in this condition, and I wouldn’t have lost my child. If I could build a time machine and go back, I would. That’s not to say I’d change anything, because the truth is I don’t know if I’d have the strength to change a damn thing. I’d still be there at the end of the game, watching him as he stumbled into his car, and the choice to not intervene isn’t one I can see playing out, because back then I cared too much, which ultimately led to my demise. Now, I care too little and I honestly don’t know which one is worse.
I remove my hat and sunglasses, and place them on the sink. I work up the strength to swing to the side of the bed to take his hand in mine and hold him tight, to pray with him in silent solidarity, to let him know someone still cares, to let him know that somebody will never give up on him the way so many supposed adults in his life had.
In my wildest imagination, I’ve seen this scene play out a thousand times on the silver screen. All it takes is a
I look to him with a harrowing look in my eyes as my stomach floods with despair.
“No.” He sees the writing on my face and moves to correct himself. “That was a poor choice of words.”
“I thought you meant…”
“His parents just phoned the front desk. They’ll be here soon.” He glances down at the watch on his wrist and initiates a deep, nervous sigh. “You know I could lose my job, right?”
“I could come back tomorrow.”
“No.” He waves me off with a forced smile. “They’re terrible people.” The elevator comes to a sudden halt and the hydraulic doors slam open. His palm lands upon my back and he guides me out of the steel enclosure and down a hallway. “Three knocks and you come out immediately.” We reach the end of the hallway, where two rooms are placed adjacent to each other on opposite sides of a corner. “Don’t make me drag you out of there.”
“Thank you, Trent.” I place my palm on his shoulder before pushing my way through the wooden door, and closing it gently behind me.
Nathan lies in the bed, with a ventilator pumping air into his lungs. The room is cool and chilly and I wrap my arms around my body to warm myself, but it doesn’t seem to help much at all.
A decorative blue gown is draped over his thin body, peeking out above a plain white blanket. His dark hair is pushed back, but rebellious strands hang across his forehead. He’s clean-shaven like he always seems to be, but this isn’t the way I remember him.
He used to smile. A tall kid with a laugh that could light up a classroom, even though he was far from being a member of the popular crowd. Now, all there is, is silence. His hair was dyed, sometimes a different color each day of the week. Now, he sports the hair he was born with. The same hair that was always too simple for him. He was a colorful kid with a colorful wardrobe, and now the closet adjacent to his bed houses only one pair of jeans, a tee, and a hoodie.
The noise of the various machines is enough to drive me crazy. The ventilator huffs like well-oiled hydraulics. Green and red lines chase after each other on a set of monitors, with head-splitting beeps once each color passes an arbitrary finish line and begins anew.
The faded yellow curtains are drawn shut, wavering in the breeze of the air conditioning unit parked underneath a long window that spans the length of the room.
I stand at the foot of his bed, trying in vain to push away the thoughts of guilt. As a sane human being, I know there’s nothing more I could have done to prevent this. All evidence points to the narrative that he’d be dead without my intervention, but evidence is oftentimes muddled by human contamination, and never surrenders to matters of the heart.
Maybe he’d be better off dead, rather than lying in a hospital bed for eternity waiting for the impossible day in which he’ll wake up. If I wouldn’t have jumped into his car, Nathan wouldn’t be in this condition, and I wouldn’t have lost my child. If I could build a time machine and go back, I would. That’s not to say I’d change anything, because the truth is I don’t know if I’d have the strength to change a damn thing. I’d still be there at the end of the game, watching him as he stumbled into his car, and the choice to not intervene isn’t one I can see playing out, because back then I cared too much, which ultimately led to my demise. Now, I care too little and I honestly don’t know which one is worse.
I remove my hat and sunglasses, and place them on the sink. I work up the strength to swing to the side of the bed to take his hand in mine and hold him tight, to pray with him in silent solidarity, to let him know someone still cares, to let him know that somebody will never give up on him the way so many supposed adults in his life had.
In my wildest imagination, I’ve seen this scene play out a thousand times on the silver screen. All it takes is a
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