Waiting For Test Results, Barnes Hospital, St. Louis

Let me tell you how it is: your palms

don't so much sweat as drop off. Your arms

follow. This spreads like Novocain into your chest,

ignoring your head which is numb already, believe me,

from being beaten against whichever walls

have presented themselves. Your chest

is consumed and you can feel the lack of feeling

pulled over your stomach by gravity, leaving a puddle

around your heart – untouched –

because, though you may not have needed your head to live

this long, you will require heart to continue. It stops

somewhere in your torso and something else happens

to your legs; they grow dumb and will respond only

to voice, so that when needed they come only after much shouting.

An envelope or a file, or some such, will be handed to you

soon. Your hands – those dead, traitorous things – will take it. Common sense

would tell you to run, leave the yellow doom on the stiff chair

for some other bastard to dread.

There is sky that some part of you could wake up to;

there is a breeze that you will not feel again for some time,

but common sense does not yell loud enough

for those legs you call yours to hear.

First published in Lifelines

A Compromise

He looked it over from the north. He looked it over from the south. Then, of course, the east and the west. He sighed heavily. From every viewpoint, it was the same. He didn’t know what to do. He just knew he had to do something.

Resting his chin on his folded hands, he looked to the stars for inspiration. Corny, for sure, but where else could someone in his position look? He thought back to the early years. Inspiration was easy to find then. When he first started, the whole thing seemed like a game, with countless options and unlimited possibilities. What was the old adage? "The confidence of ignorance"? Or was it "innocence"? No matter. The whole thing had changed, and not for the better. Now it was a job, a chore even, with nothing but lost opportunities and wasted potential. The whole thing, quite frankly, disgusted him.

Most of all, they disgusted him. He hated to pass the buck, but they were the troublemakers. He had given them everything, literally everything they had. And how they’d pissed it away! Hadn’t he been patient? Yes. Did he pester them? No. Did he give them a second chance? Yes, over and over again. Had he been a harsh taskmaster? Well. . .perhaps they had misunderstood him, interpreted his "tough love" as punishment. If he had been too exacting, it was only out of compassion. Did they think he’d just let them run wild without consequence? Surely they saw his reasoning. They would at least give him credit for caring.

Wrong. Compassion was one thing they did not inherit from him. When they weren’t torturing each other, they were torturing him. They condemned him for everything and credited him with nothing. He’d heard their constant criticism and open curses. That was bad enough. When they ignored him and deliberately defied him, well, that was the worst. Imagine giving someone you love all of yourself, only to earn their indifference. Yes, he’d admit it now. They often drove him to tears.

Everyone has their absolute limit, and his back was pressed against his. It was hard and cold, like the choice that sat clearly before him, the choice that would instantly solve his problem. Yet, he loved them too much to make it. They were, after all, his flesh and blood. He couldn’t do that to them. They had a right to their own lives. He told himself he still believed that. It took some convincing, but he did.

He leaned back to massage the tension from his neck. As he rubbed his aching muscles, it came to him. A compromise. It was as horrible as the choice, but a viable option nevertheless, and the only option he had. Something had to be done. Such screaming and wailing! He couldn’t stand it anymore. He was, in spite of his feelings, sick of them and all they entailed. So this would be his course of action. They’d be happier and so would he. Yes. Really. Yes.

He stood, backed up a few feet and looked at it all again. North, south, east and west. Quite a piece of work, altogether. He considered them, all of them, one last time. Would they miss him? Hardly. They’d be fine. And if they weren’t, it wouldn’t be his problem. They would be on their own.

He breathed deeply, stepped to his left and turned one-hundred and eighty degrees. The lights and sounds of their world faded behind him as he stared into the vacuum ahead. Space, wide and dark and completely open. A faint wind whistled past his ears. He swallowed hard, raised his hands above his head and opened his mouth to speak.

"Okay," God said. "Once more, from the top. . ."