Empty trash can, trash bag and empty box of Vans in hand. Keys in pocket, and phone. Quickly jaunting outside, again facing the cold. Reaching garbage dumpster approximately four hundred feet away, and return – only briefly step on overly compacted snow. Re-enter dormitory, re-enter room. Remove shoes. Empty trash can, and the feeling that I can wait to deal with it later.
Sitting at desk, with new Purple seat cushion supporting my boney, recently scraped on a bathtub faucet, ass. Take off sweater. Take off collared shirt. Outside clothes are too dirty for indoors. Open application, and play stupid, vapid, childish, lovely train game which I had found last night. Mess around with tiny engine, and almost collide with a larger engine. Receive two texts, one after another. I stop the locomotive. I pick up my phone.
Messages, from Mom, are as follows:
“I made an appointment to put Indigo down @4 today”
“I think we might do lunch with Gigi instead of dinner on Saturday”
Stark juxtaposition stupifies. Hand shakes. Phone is put down. Impossibilities become realised as likelihoods. She had been suffering for months. Weight dropping. Constant vomiting. Unable to breathe. Unable to sleep because unable to breathe. Look at inbuilt-computer clock. 2:37 post meridian. Stand. Pace twice. Find shirt, sweater. Re-clothe.
Keys in pocket, and wallet, and phone. Put on shoes, matching my pants: brown. Feel my face. Hate the stubble. Quickly shave with hot water, no cream as per usual. Leave room. Journey to car, braving icy cold. Awestruck that I am actually doing this almost autonomically. Car is reached, and I feel empty as I fill space within Rhea.
Engine rumbles to life. Look for sunglasses. Find old pair. No motivation to return inside to where typical pair resides. Parking brake. Reverse. Listen to NPR. Ninety point seven, KWMU. Forward. Right turn. Left turn. Stoplight, and turn right. Drive for twenty minutes. Feel wracked with guilt. Remind self to call grandpa. It is his birthday. Move into left-most lane. Left turn. Right turn. Left turn. Left turn onto curb: typical spot covered with snow and ice making parking untenable. Turn off engine. Exit her developed warmth.
I am home. Enter through front door, annoying electronic lock unlocked. Hear the thrumming of children. Find my mother, friend in kitchen. They talk. I say hello. Mom explains Indigo has not been eating, keeping down water, but vomits everything up. Further adds she has barely moved all day. Mentions she did not expect me to come home. I am home to say goodbye.
She lies on the couch. Laboured breathing; rib cage always visible regardless of expanded or contracted lungs. Soul-crushing. I sit besides her. I pet, stroke, give as much love as I can. Children run all around, but she is calm. She is content to try, fail to sleep. She passes gas often. She smells like a dog, one of the children who shares my first name says. My brother says she is a dog. Pictures taken of her in lap, asking for more pets. I know I will soon be unable to provide.
Mom leaves to pick up other brother from school. Indigo does little more than shed hair. Oddly tranquil. Nothing else exists other than me, her, and the slightly stained grey couch we’re upon. I look at the television, a Disney show. No true attention paid. I tell her that it’s going to be okay. She continues breathing. I wish she would just shuffle there. Easier, simpler for the toddler-sibling to understand. Mental anguish at having the thought, and at having to watch this suffering.
Child footsteps enter into the house. Distinct. Indigo rises from the couch. I do not. She goes to other brother, and he falls to the floor and cries and cries and cries. Soon-to-be-stepfather comes home, attempting to soothe but barely holding it together himself. Curtain of grief has begun to fall, even though the end of the play has yet to occur. Toddler-sibling asks why other brother is crying. Mom says he is sad. Further question with response because Indigo is sick, caveat that she will go to doctor and not come home. Tears become more liberal. Five minutes to four.
I cannot do anything except hold back sobs. I kiss Indigo on the top of her little skull, smashed-with-a-frying-pan face looking tired. This is merciful, right? Brother picks her up. Mom starts car. All three leave. My dam breaks. Toddler-sibling asks why I am crying. We all cry, but she asks me. She has never seen me cry.
Two will return home. I have to return to school for work. I wish I could stay. I know I will not be able to cry after I leave. I say I’m sorry. There is nothing to be sorry about. I said it regardless.
Jackson Martin a fan of things, stuff, and events, is the entity responsible for this creation. The responsible party retains all due bragging rights and credit for being “bomb” and “leet,” solely to annoy said party’s friends and associates. As well, this individual, being a double-major in Political Science and Philosophy, reminds all that, while those who look upon their works may despair, that there is much hope in a dark night for its end is bright.
Arrow Rock Literary Journal 
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