Publication date: June 9th 2015
Genres: Adult, Urban Fantasy
From the Prologue...
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I’d come to believe that we are privy
to an overabundance of petrifying sounds in our lives. Noises that breeze
through our ears enter our brain and cause chills to run down
our spine. We attempt to shake off the feelings that these sounds illicit, but
the sheer terror of them do nothing but brand our skin with gooseflesh and
nervousness. I thought I’d heard most of them already. That I’d taken in the
echoes that strike fear through most individuals. However, I was mistaken.
I undoubtedly found myself absorbing the most chilling of them all. It was
unexpected and I still have trouble convincing myself that what’d happened was
tangible. No, it wasn’t the shrill scream of someone in grave danger. Or
the fictitious screech of a science fiction creature with hefty teeth and an
appetite for human flesh and blood. The one thing that I heard was something
that stopped me dead in my tracks. It put my life at a stand-still, in only a fraction
of a second. I developed tunnel vision when I grasped onto the spine-chilling
noise, my entire body seized up as if I’d been taken over by another life form.
The ability to control what I was thinking was gone, out the window it flew
like a winged creature that’d been set free. What was it? It was
the sound of fear in my own voice. There was an unstable quake when I’d
open my lips to speak and nothing came out. The Words I’d tried to construct
wouldn’t form themselves and I felt as if I’d lost the capacity to communicate.
I’d never had a reason to be afraid of it…until now.
“That can’t be right. Maybe you
need to check it again.” The wavering of my speech told me I was somewhere
between disbelief and denial. Neither of which was welcome near me.
“We went over the results with a fine
tooth comb, Miss. Patterson. Science doesn’t lie in this case.” The expression
on the doctor’s face was dripping with subtle bleakness.
“Well, there must be some other
explanation. Maybe you mixed the results up somewhere along the line.” I felt a
tinge of hope color my weak words.
“Listen, I know this is hard. But I
assure you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the tests.” The salt and
pepper haired man sat down behind his desk.
“Okay, fine. I’m assuming there’s some
sort of treatment I should start soon?”
I didn’t much care for the grim look
that fell over his face like a mask of doom. “I wish I could say yes. But
unfortunately there isn’t anything we can do. The surgery is too risky. You
could undergo Chemotherapy and Radiation treatment, but if I’m being honest, I
don’t feel as though either would do much good.”
“So I don’t
have any options. This is just…it?”
He slowly nodded. “At best, in a case
such as this, I would say you have a year.”
“A year to do what exactly? Sit
in my house and rot?” I felt my anger bubbling to the surface like an over
baked pan of lasagna.
“I understand your indignation, I
really do. I think maybe if there’re some things you’ve wanted to do,
it’s time to start doing them.”
How could such few words have a
blatant finality to them? How could I come down with a common cold and then
find out my life had been reduced to a handful of months?
“I can prescribe some medication to
get you through the general symptoms, but above that…” He trailed off. He was
being somewhat compassionate I suppose. I wouldn’t want to tell someone they
were dying either, what a crap job.
I’d thought medical professionals were
supposed to heal you? They would diagnose the issue and bam you were
handed a bottle of antibiotics and better within a week. But unless he had a
freaking miracle stashed beneath that prescription pad, I was toast.
“If you’d like someone to talk to, I
can recommend someone.” He began to extend some sort of business card across
the desk toward me.
I abruptly raised myself from the
chair that felt as if it were squeezing the life from me. “Thanks, but no
thanks. I’d rather not waste the time I have left lying on a sofa and spilling
my problems to a stranger.”
It was difficult holding my anger at
bay. Counting to ten while I exited the medical facility helped but the urge to
hit something was a fierce impulse to fight off. Did I cry? For some reason, I
didn’t at that moment. I can’t say why either. I wanted to, but the
tears wouldn’t come. They stayed hidden in their little duct homes while I
walked around seeing red.
Cancer of the Liver is what they
called it. Yeah, he’d given me some mumbo jumbo scientific name for it, but all
I heard was the ‘C’ word. The word that no one wants to hear in their lives.
The word that rips hope away from the person being diagnosed, and replaces it
with desperation and depression. With a disease like that, you’d think I was a
raging alcoholic who did nothing but fill her days by holding down a bar stool
while finding the bottom of a bottle. But I wasn’t. I didn’t touch the
stuff. So how was it I became strapped with a terminal disease such as that?
Why was this happening to me of all people?
I know life isn’t some kind of
tranquil state that we float through without a care in the world. I would be
utterly stupefied if I honestly believed that. No, life is a series of
unfortunate circumstances that lead us to make decisions we don’t really want
to make. What to have for breakfast, what to wear, and even what to say to the
person occupying the seat next to us on the city bus. We don’t really put much
thought into it all, but what are we really doing here? Why were we put
on this planet for only a miniscule amount of time? Is there some grand plan
that we aren’t seeing, like a big picture that has our entire life mapped out
already?
Up until the dreaded news, I’d thought
life was something to take for granted. That I could wake up every day and be
guaranteed tomorrow. It’s hard to believe that everything can be changed in the
course of a few ounces of blood and a doctor’s visit. I continued to shake my
head wondering what really happened, was I dreaming of all of this? I wish
I was. Things would be easier that way. But such as life, nothing is
easy. We’re screwed no matter which way we go, and end up paying the
consequences for it every day of our lives.
I made a decision. I wasn’t going to
sit around and watch myself waste away like a banana rotting slowly on a
counter. Nope, I was going to live my life like I just didn’t give a crap
anymore…well, not in a negative way. I was going to throw caution to the wind,
balls to the wall, take no prisoners and do the things I’ve always wanted to
do. You could call it my bucket list, or my death list, whatever you feel
comfortable with is alright by me.
My life is timed; I have an expiration
date stamped on my rear like a yogurt container in the dairy section. After my
time is up, that’s it. I don’t get a free pass. I’m okay with it now. I have to
be. If I weren’t, I’d be that banana…I am not a
banana.
But in the end I’ll get to laugh and
smile at the things I’ve accomplished with my time on this earth. I can’t wish
my fate away, I can’t find a genie in a bottle on a desolate stretch of beach
to grant me more time. I’m accepting it like you’d accept a second place trophy
in a one-legged man’s butt kicking contest.
At least I was given a year. To
some it might seem like a small amount of time, and truly it is. But when you’re given only
that long to live, it can in a way, seem like an eternity. I’ll do the things
I’ve wanted to do because in the end…no one can save London Patterson.
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