Short Story Collection

A promise never-broken

Writing Challenge

Believer Book Club

04 - 16 Feb 2017

Facing Dilemmas - Turning off life support.

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Denial.

Yes or no.

All day long, that was the dilemma they had burdened me with.

Yes or no.

Were those my only options? How did it come to this?

I refused to believe the words when that dreaded phone call came—the one call we all hoped we never get.

I could still hear his deep voice—Goodbye love, see you soon—those sweet words lingered ever since he spoke them that fateful morning.

A promise, now broken.

Anger.

Life was cruel. Life was unjust. Why did this happen to us? My beloved David was so prematurely taken from me.

My eyes welled up with sorrow filled tears whenever I thought of him. Broken, and still on that clinical cot. I wondered how many, before him, have survived in that very cot. Does it have a track record of death?

He was a good man, righteous, and brave. He always did right by all that lived and breathed. Yet, here he lay, paying for the recklessness of lesser men. Another man's alcoholic addiction crashed into him.

I saw the drunken driver escorted out of the hospital, bound and guilty beyond a doubt. Still, he could walk and breath...

I was bitter and defeated by grief.

The white coats were well-rehearsed. They knew just the right amount of facial expression to be respectful. Then they would bow out of the room and I saw their smiles return—another show well done.

Beeping. Consistent clinical beeping.

The sound haunted me all day. It kept pace with the seconds ticking by... soon I had to give my answer.

Yes or no.

The all-knowing doctors concluded that you were gone. 

But I didn't understand because there you were. 

Still warm to the touch; slightly bruised and patched up but still intact as far as I could see.

Bargaining.

Oh, how I wished that you would open those beautiful blue eyes or just have graced me with a smile.

"David..." Your name fell from my lips in a powerless whisper. "Please, stay with me." 

It boggled my mind how they can thought this was the end...

Doctors kept coming and going but they never wavered in their tidings. David was empty, his consciousness...gone.

"There must be something you can do? We have insurance..." Was it money that they wanted? Or was there just really nothing left to do?

"We are sincerely sorry, Mrs Morgan, but your husband is brain dead. We need your decision, please," came the practised reply.

Depression.

Beep. Beep. BEEP!

I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't breathe in that room. Icy fingers gripped my heart, pulling me down into despair.