Take Me With You

It's been 7 years since Carrie died.

You know, you always think it will be the little things that kill you: the slip in the bathtub, the fall down the stairs. Most of us half-expect to be murdered, if we wander out on a bad street too late. We wait for predators to spring at us, when we duck down an alley, hoping to avoid a crowd of rowdy teens. We feel that infinite pause when our cars skid on the ice a little. The oncoming semi, and our sudden calm. Most of us want to die in our sleep, or in a blaze of glory.

Carrie didn't get to see it coming.

'Least, that's what I've always believed.

It's been 7 years now. I don't trust the cops; they were far too willing to wrap this up, and go home. "Suicide", they tell me, while I sit in my pitiful hospice bed. Suicide? Not Carrie. No. They came in on my request, to tell me once again that that's all they've found. It was two this time, a big Negro, and a squat white guy. Mr. Big-Nig delivered the update, while Squit-Squat stood and twiddled his motherlovin' thumbs. It's nice that they keep coming here, every two years or so, to feed me the same horse-hockey. Eegah.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Shaw," the little white minion muttered.

"Call me Rob," I say, sitting up in the bed. "If you're gunna feed me this shit, at least get on familiar terms with me."

They both look uncomfortable. Exchange little glances, ones that seem to say, "This fucker is crazy"; "I know. I hate this guy.. always making trouble…"

I can just hear the unspoken, It was a long time ago, Mr. Shaw; you gotta move on. It's there, almost as present as a wall poster. A motivational one, the kind with beautiful pictures marred by insipid instructions for bettering oneself. Yeah. That about sums this up.

"Okay now, guys," a nurse says, from the hall. "It’s time to leave Mr. Ned; he needs his evening pills now." It’s Nurse Ratche. I like to call her Ratface, due to her nature as a nosy little fuck that you have to be clever to cage. Nurse Ratface never enters my room. Ever since mooning her, and threatening to jack off in her general direction, she has decided to leave me be, for the most part. Well, in solitary situations with me, anyway. It's not like my pipes work that way anymore; I just wanted her to stop wandering in to my room while I'm trying to daydream away my eternity here. I've been in the hospice for a little over 2 months now. Cancer, they say; lots of it.

Ned. My name is so not Ned. She will never get over calling the patients random names. I think she gets away with it, due to the high population of Alzheimer's zombies that fill the wing. She must be mistaking me with them.

The cops leave. Mr. Whitey has a shit-awful swagger to him; it doesn't really fit in with his subservient presentation of himself. Nurse Ratface comes in – with backup. She's brought Jesse, little intern. Jesse aids my escape from the clutches of my Special Bed. I am settled smoothly in to a wheelchair; he soothes my wild hair down a little. He knows that I still like to be presentable. Age doesn't diminish the want for dignity; if anything, it heightens it. As we lose control over our ability to care for ourselves, we of the older sort look back on our stronger times with an unsettling longing. I'm glad that at least one shithead in here gets that.

Ratty looks on with wary approval. We head out of the room, down the hall, and in to the cafeteria. Everyone who can ambulate has beat me by a good 10 minutes. Most have their pill-time brownies in hand. Sugar-free, for everyone, lest someone be diabetic. I would have thought there'd be specialized meals for all the patients, but, no. I am settled at the head of the third table. Jesse strides off, en route to get my collection of evening meds. The others at my table are in varying stages of being closer to death than me. I'm the one with cancer, but yet, some of these people are really fucked up. Doris has a tumor on her head. It's visible – very visible. It’s seeping from a crack in her skull, leeching at her brain. Brian is a Scottish fucker who drank his house's weight in alcohol; he's got a failing liver that threatens to take him with it, anytime. He'll never get a transplant, at 40, because he drinks regardless. He's got 2 weeks, supposedly. Good shape, considering. Willy – Wilhelm, but no one in their right mind calls him that – is one of those diabetic fuckers who never reformed their sugar-smacking ways. I don't actually know what he's dying from, but, the bugger has a facial expression like a smiling Buddha taking a shit. It's damn distracting. Heather is 18, she's dying of cancer, too. She's got it in the spine. It's reaching it's little hands in to her organs, and aiming for her brain.

Carrie died 7 years ago. I'll probably die before the year's through. When I'm gone, who will remember me now? Certainly not my seat-mates. They've got time limits as drastic as mine. Do we cease to exist when we die, or when no one can identify you in a picture any longer?

What would Carrie have said of me, aged and bitter, as the cancer ravages what's left of my sanity? Would she hold my hand, and tell me something about needing to accept fate? That seems un-Carrie like. Maybe she would have taken me to a park. We'd stay there 'til nightfall, screaming at the clouds. We'd sit on a hill, overlooking water. Together, we'd just scream: scream for loss, scream for regret. We'd get it out, instead of taking it with us when we perish.

Maybe.