Tethered
She stared at the ceiling with apathy, wondering what it truly meant to live a fulfilling life. The growing burning sensation in her eyes signaled the imminent arrival of tears.
It had been her choice. Hers alone. For years, she had yearned for this precise moment. She had refused to accept experimental treatments that promised a few more months when she was notified of her terminal illness.
Warm, salty tears streamed down her face, leaving a small, pitiful trail on her pale, lifeless skin.
Everything that once was had slowly faded away with each passing day.
“Has my life been a good story?” she wondered amidst stifled sobs.
Day after day, her agony had consumed her.
“Has it been a story worth telling?” she questioned as her soul crumbled slowly.
“Has it even been a real story?” she pondered. It had been a short story. Also, a very long one. An endless tale, full of twists and turns, now nearing an abrupt ending after countless deaths and resurrections.
The summary of her life resembled that solitary and suffocating sob trapped in her throat.
With great effort, she lifted an arm and, using the little energy she had left, furiously wiped away the tears on her cheek with her forearm. She couldn’t afford to crumble now. Not when this was what she had wished for all along. All that remained was to take refuge in anger.
Anger was the essence of who she was and what she felt. Anger at that sob, at the tears, at the doubts, at her weakness, at her indescribable reality coming to an end. Anger because she would leave him behind.
Deep down, she wanted to believe that he would be okay. That he would understand all of this and move forward to find his own path, making her proud even if she couldn’t be there.
But she also felt anger toward him for accepting it all so easily. For forgiving her so easily. For always wearing a smile on his face. For hiding his own pain, even though she could see how it tore him apart inside. The anger she felt was for his broken heart.
“So...” her inner voice asked once again, “has your life been a good story after all?”
Why couldn’t she just stop thinking? Always thinking. Thinking about thinking...
Her eyes started to grow heavy. As sleep finally overcame her, she slowly sank into a hellish nightmare, while silent tears continued to stream down her cheeks, shattering the barriers of her clarity.
Her broken body lay on the hospital bed, stubbornly clinging to the last hours of her life. The beat of her heart was but a whisper, embers of a dying fire. Her soul repeated a name over and over, as if the mere repetition tethered her to the bed. To his arrival. To Him.
In her delirious dreams, she soared towards the sun, and just as she was about to touch it, like Icarus, she plummeted into the sea, drowning in flames and agony.
