 Horror/Scary: November 22, 2006 Issue [#1393] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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This newsletter is dedicated to my mother, may God rest her soul.
Rosemarie Wilcox
(Born, June 20th, 1931—Died, November 19th, 2006)
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OH, THE HORROR...
My mother is dying.
But I love her too much and will not let her go.
I have decided to stop Death, wrestle with it if I have to—ensnare it before it can claim its prize. I will stalk it like a weaponless hunter tracking a man-eating tiger. I am determined and will not be denied. I tell you this now, so that if this newsletter reaches you intact, you may better understand the reason of this path I have chosen to follow.
I sit here now at her bedside, ever-watchful, patient, listening to her labored breathing and the faint hiss of oxygen that passes through the clear plastic tube to her nose. Her mouth hangs open, her brow furrowed as though in pain. Her once vibrant face is now ashen, drawn, as if life were a juice that has been sucked out of her.
Sadly I watch her, gently holding her hand, and talk of my childhood while my heart knocks in my chest and echoes through me as though I were an empty house. I do not know if she can hear me. It doesn’t matter. I promise her she will get better.
Warily I look about the room; it feels warm and sweat sheaths me, hot on my face, cold along my spine. It smells funny here, antiseptics mixed with dying breath. It tears me up inside to see her this way. I cannot speak. I cannot swallow. Some sorrow-filled gluey mass obstructs my throat. Desperately, I try to choke down the phantom wad of strangling emotion.
Wallowing in melancholy and self-pity, my thoughts lead to a ragged burnt-out place where bright dreams go to die and dark dreams are born.
I wait and watch.
I am so tired, but I must not sleep. The sharpest teeth always take their nip when we are looking the other way.
Out the window, dawn approaches and the red sun rises like an executioner’s blade slicing up from the dark horizon. Dirty clouds scud in from the south and the pale-lemon morning light makes the room appear gray, grim, drab, and unwelcoming. My mind is a pool of black water in moonlight, stranger than ever before: darker, full of thunder and the smell of death.
And still I wait.
The minutes wear me down with each heavy ‘click-thud’ of the wall clock, grind me beneath its circular wheel of lost moments until I am crushed and reduced to dust.
A nurse enters. She has a large, looming face, a smoky, silken voice and black Egyptian eyes. She administers more morphine, pokes and prods at my mother -misses the vein and pokes and prods some more. My head swoons at the mistreatment. It’s funny how human cruelty still has the power to devastate me, to loosen the locking pins in my knees.
When the nurse leaves, there is a sound like the sputter and crackle of short-circuiting wires, the moan and low whisper of faraway voices. Though the windows are closed, a wind blows through the room like the dance of a dust devil. Panic grips me and I quickly move to my mother’s side ready to do battle.
Her eyes are wide open, green as emeralds fired by sunlight. She seems more animated, as if her body were a vessel in which a new entity has taken up residence. My heart tells me this is the miraculous cure I had been praying for—there is still hope.
Then a long sigh escapes her lips, as though she has just finished a grueling day of hard work, and then her head settles heavily into her pillow, and it is done. She is gone.
Since then, these past few days, I wake with a loss so terrible that I would prefer not ever to wake again, and yet I must not let my children see my weakness. I put on a liar's face and donn fake strength. I must play the part.
Time begins to move forward again. Life goes on as if nothing has happened, except for me. There is a hole in my heart.
Goodbye, Momma. Goodbye, my friend. You were always there for me, and I will love you forever.
In mourning,
billwilcox
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Horror @ Writing.Com
If you are reading this newsletter, you like horror as much as I. Enjoy these pieces, and please...rate and review them.
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Feeding The Worms
sharifahusin shudders:
Whoa...Scary..reminds me of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and yet, uplifting..
writeone  screams:
Oh my gosh! Thanks so much for our Halloween treat! You are the greatest! I agree with writing with your senses. Thanks for the advice
schipperke flippantly says:
I sniffed the screen while peering deep into your horrific words; then I felt a headache coming on while the sounds of my office mates chewing with their mouthes open filled the air. My coffee tasted cold and flat, but your newsletter warmed me up!
There. All the senses. 
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