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It is the kind of preconceived notion that tells you hot showers are the best thing in the world every time you have a cold shower. Death makes life look pretty; life looks good when you're dying.
Tonight it's one of those chilly nights with the moon very high, very bright. I'm sitting next to her, watching the small crystal elephant diffract the moonlight in different directions into different colors. Colors that define our memories together.
I remember when we would race, I'd let her win because I loved her.
I remember her tearing my homework apart because I lost her doll.
I remember her stealing my chocolate bar from the refrigerator.
I also remember her crying all night because dad had beaten me up when I broke our window.
She wakes up with a start, her temple throbbing, third night in a row. It was almost like she didn't like me being here. I hated seeing her like this. I hated doing this to her. But I don't want to leave her either, because what am I without her? Without the smile she gave me every time I was down, the smile that said "Life's nothing short of beautiful."
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"Muffins?" she asked.
I smiled.
"Muffins don't take pain away, honey."
She came here every day since I was diagnosed, even though hospitals annoyed her.
"You know when you're alive, you keep thinking life's a monotonous son of a bitch. Same dream every day, same misery over and over again. I'm kinda glad it's almost over for me."
She kept looking at me, all too used to the words.
"You'd be surprised to know just how many people don't want to live what they're living. We're all miserable, Deb. We're all sobs. Once or the other, we've all wanted to die, we've all wished it was over."
"Here's the funny thing, though. When you're on your deathbed, you'll feel fucking everything but relief. You want one more shot, one more life to deal with. But it's alright for me. No, it really is. Because me, I'm done. You live, you learn, you die. I've learnt enough and I'm a very happy son of a bitch."
You live, you learn, you die.
I looked at her again and my whole world fell apart like it always does every time I see her crying.
"I just wish I'd have another chance to stand next to you while it rains, though. Remember the last time we did that, Deb? We got drenched to the bone and mom wouldn't stop shouting at us. Good times, weren't they? I love rain, Deb. I love you. It just feels like it drains your pain away, your etches, your marks from past sins, all your guilt, all your shame. And … and goddamn, the way your heart pounds against your chest, the way you just want to scream out loud from the emptiness inside. Sometimes you realize things you never realized before and sometimes, you just want to sit there all day long wishing it rained forever and harder."
Then there was silence. The calm before the storm. And it was deafening, it was deadly like the storm itself, it was swallowing the both of us till we were nothing but mere specks of dust.
"You're pulling the plug if it gets worse."
She placed her hand on mine.
"No, Deb, you're doing it. I'm not going to live like that."
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That was five long weeks ago. Now there's me torn, between me and my corpse. The corpse that floats bare on the lake's dead still waters, robbed of everything. The only surrounding noise was the beep of the life support. Electricity; bustling electrons brushing past each other with their pact of trapping me somewhere between life and death, somewhere between being and not being. I wish they'd just leave me be.
Today, as if in stark contrast to the previous night, is one of those very sunny days. The clouds drifted apart to let the sunlight break through. Somehow sad, yet beautiful, promising of a new day.
She came in -- looking as though her insides were at war, as though they were ripping themselves apart to ease the pain, to survive -- and she pulled the plug
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