Man Of Few Words

Chapter 93

Saturday

I've been checking out the website of this place, this hospice. Absolutely everyone in every single photo is smiling deliriously. None more so than the one in each photo who's dying. You can which one's dying because they're always by far the oldest and the happiest, and they're usually lying stricken in a bed. They evidently love lying stricken in a bed.

I don't.

And I don't think I'm an exception. Now, to be fair, staff and visitors (even other people's visitors) do smile at you quite a lot here. But they're not toothy photogenic grins. They're soft, sad smiles of support, encouragement and sympathy. It's actually quite rare to cross paths with other patients as most of us stay in our rooms almost all the time, but on the occasions it does happen we force ourselves to smile politely. But those smiles are always very, very brief. Fleeting, if you will. Then the expression of someone focusing on keeping it together for another minute at a time comes back. The glazed over stare of someone lost in thoughts of their own mortality; thoughts that won't end until everything does.

If you catch sight of someone through the open door of their room, then that face is all you ever see. They might be watching TV, or listening to the radio, or reading a book or article, or they might have visitors. But the expression is always the same. They're totally lost, but part of their mind is holding firm and telling them,

"Just one step at a time. One foot in front of the other. Focus on what's in front of you."

The rest of your mind protests,

"Why? We're not going anywhere? We're never getting out of this? What's the point of taking one step at a time? Why focus on anything?"

Well, if you don't, then... then what?

I think that's what makes some people lose their minds completely towards the end. It's not the drugs or the disease getting into their brains. It's that they just give up fending off the futility and bewilderment.

Saturday (continued)

Mat's just been to visit for an hour, and he brought Hugo. Clara, it seems, I will never see again. Ah well, I had plenty of chances and I didn't take them.

I smiled as soon as I saw Hugo. I didn't need to force it. But I did need to force back the tears welling up behind the smile.

"I will not cry in front of this child."

The thought didn't leave me for the whole hour.

I'm not sure why it recurred so persistently, and I also can't honestly say my eyes remained 100% watertight the whole time. I guess I just didn't want to upset him. He didn't get upset, so I suppose I succeeded. He was sad though. I'm okay with that. It's healthy to feel sad. He's a good kid. I wish he'd had a better uncle.

"Mummy says you're not going to get better."

"That's right," I whispered. I could only whisper.

"Are you going to go to heaven?"

I nodded. This was not the time for an existential debate with a six-year-old.

"Do you feel sad?"

"I do."

"You're smiling."

"Sometimes people smile even when they feel sad."

"Why?"

The lump in my throat was now prohibitively huge, and I was wearing a smile as forced as any on the hospice website. I take back anything I might have implied about those photos. They're totally and horribly realistic.