flash fiction, University, Writing

The Wait. A short tale.

She waited as he wasted away.

She watched and pined. He watched as well; sometimes TV, sometimes her.

She fed him hand-to-mouth. Eventually he refused to eat. As he grew thinner, the drip in his arm pulsed like a marathon runner, sucking exhausted breaths as it neared the finish line.

He smiled painfully. She did, too.

She cried when he slept–never when he was awake. Her tears fell gently on the back of his hand, where they ran off the edge in random segues before fading away with nary a whisper.

She knew when the day arrived. There was no announcement, no symbolic continuous beep on the machine, like on TV. She just knew. So did he.

They held hands.

She waited as he went away.

 

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Cheers

Steve 🙂

34 thoughts on “The Wait. A short tale.”

  4. I tried to be there when both my parents passed, but this moment you write about seems very rare I find. Most people are either away when death happens or find out about it later. Makes me wonder.

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    1. You’re right, it’s a rare opportunity to be present when a cancer sufferer, or anyone who’s dying, passes. But when a person spends the last few days with their loved one they get an opportunity to truly say goodbye. That’s something most of us may never get. I hope you liked the piece, anyway. 🙂

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      1. I did. I’m finding that I prefer to be on WordPress.com than have my own domain on a webhost as you can connect with other blogs. It creates a means for me to keep writing as well.

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