I think getting hit by a suburban and a cement truck in the same day should tell you something about the kind of day I’ve had. A family carryover, you could say; the best worst luck. I mean, I’m not dead. … Sort of.
Getting hit like that does a number on the body, but if the trajectories line up just so … it’s not quite “lights out,” as they say. Just puts everything on hold — like brakes at a yellow light, but I’m not driving. That’s where I’m at right now, I think. It’s hard to know for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say I’m in a coma.
It makes sense, when I have the sense to think about it. Normally, I’m somewhere in the black. I guess you’d call it the mind’s expanse, or something else pretentious (my liberal art friends would like that; have they visited?). But I’m aware and I’m also not…? Not that it matters all that much; this is just an audience of one.
But I wish I could talk. I’m aware, more than I think the monitors can tell (I’ve watched television; I know how they treat the coma patients). More than any of my friends can, either. I can see through the slits of my eyelids, even though they don’t quite move the way I’d like to. I’ve seen you, looking at me. … If you’ve held my hand, I’d tell you that I felt it.
… If I could talk.
I had a pet die when I was a kid — the kind of impressionable loss that a seven year-old doesn’t quite yet have the mental capacity to handle. Or I didn’t, anyway. But my dad told me, at the time, that Sunny died when I wasn’t around because he didn’t want me to see him go — didn’t want to see me sad.
I should’ve been consoled, I guess, but all I took from that was that death had a certain amount of autonomy. If I was just stubborn enough, maybe I could wait it out, or at least have some say in making my exit.
That’s probably why I’m still here. It’s been a little while, at least. I can’t see much, or even for that long, but I know your outfit’s changed. I’ve seen your face change. From tears to something determined, hopeful, and now … I feel like the gaps between my seeing and not are growing longer, but I’m not sure.
It seems unfair to focus on just you; others visit, too. I’ve seen friends and coworkers in the periphery (what little I have) because you take the prime seat unless it’s family visiting. Though you’ve given up (practical; you always knew a lost cause), they never have. It’s the kind of luck we have. Family vacations, life events, dates … anything and everything, from momentous to mundane, could go catastrophically wrong — but we’d be okay. At its most extreme, if it went wrong just a moment too soon or a moment too late, someone would’ve died. But that never happened.
I guess they think I hit that sweet spot. I guess they’re banking on “never.”
… I hate to think of Sunny dying alone. Of curling up under the stairs because he, in his dog-brain, thought it was for the best.
I’m not dying alone. Selfish, yeah, but the next time they’re here, all of them, that’s when I’ll do it. Take my foot off the proverbial brakes and go on down that road, wherever it leads, because I’m not doing anyone any favors here anymore. I can’t see them. If I want to make this call, I better do it soon. Hell, they might unplug me if I’m not careful. No more waiting.
I choose —
— Emily Conway, BFR Staff
BERKELEY FICTION REVIEW 