Words lay unspoken on the
brink of his lips,
which he nervously flicked
his tongue over.
They were dry
and his mouth felt dry, and
his eyes seemed to have soaked
up all the moisture from them.
He yearned for them to be gone,
to go echoing through the bleak air,
medicinal, sterile, and dry.
It was green and white and tasted
like sickness.
But, he could not speak them.
his father lay before him,
a fallen giant whose bellows lungs
were kept moving only
through the oxygen mask,
whose booming voice had
been reduced to a womanly whisper.
He’d come to apologize,
but figured they’d most
likely fight one another,
even when one of them lay on their
deathbed.
He’d prepared for it.
But, what took him
instead was altogether unexpected,
and took the breath from his body
so soundly for a moment
that he thought he might need
an oxygen mask and hospital bed himself.
Because his father murmuring,
“You know I love you son, right?”
was the last thing he’d ever steeled himself
for, because well...
he hadn’t known.
He briefly wondered what drugs the doctors
had put his father on.
And now he sat, taken aback
and fervently clutching the fake wooden
chair arms, lifelines in a world that had
gone topsy-turvy. His words yearned to leap
from his hesitation, down
to the peacefully smiling giant,
who’d been brought to his knees
with illness.
His father slept now, seemed
content to die, especially so
when he’d been such a fighter for his
whole life.
It wasn’t until the monitor, who’s piercing
noises had grown vague long ago,
became erratic and panicked
that he realized he could free
those harbored words,
and as the noises came to a stop,
and his father’s face softened,
he let them loose in a whisper:
“I love you too.”
So, I want to edit this up, possibly even rewrite it in prose.
I think I wrote this as a sort of follow-up to my latest short story, "A Questionable Drink". I really wanted to have a scene where the father and son were able to have this type of resolution, but it just wouldn't fit in the plot correctly. So... I substituted.
Anyways- thanks for reading!
-Coral-
