The world grew dimmer, light
extinguishing in the periphery, darkness rapidly closing around him. He could
barely hear the fighting, muted, hushed, though moments ago it seemed cacophonous.
Everything dulled except the pain, the one thing he wished would diminish as
his body grew numb and cold. He struggled to keep his eyes open, never wanting
to tear his gaze away from his sobbing wife, but his body was no longer obeying
him as it systematically shut down. He struggled to get in a breath and held
it as if that would somehow buy him precious seconds, furtively grasping for a
life he didn’t want to leave behind. Besides the pain, all that registered in his
fading consciousness was dampness against his skin where her tears
fell. He panicked as his body chided his feeble attempts to override the
inevitable. He was a doctor. He’d worked among life and death his whole career.
It was simple biology; the body understood what it had the ability to heal and
what it did not. The body had no qualms about the outcome, it was the spirit
caught in the struggle. All he could think was he was too young, it was too
soon. He wanted to be an old man, live happily with his wife, see his children
blossom into adults with families of their own. He wanted to die peacefully in
his sleep, but knew that was never in the
cards. He'd never glance in the mirror and see a winkled, silver haired
figure staring back. He'd never walk his daughters down the aisle on their
wedding day, never play in the park with his grandchildren, never again awake
in bed to feel his wife in his arms. He was dying and there was no turning
back. A last, rattling gasp broke from his chest as the breath he was holding
onto so valiantly escaped him. He thought it would be more gradual, but the
world around him disappeared as if someone flicked off a television set. He
couldn’t feel anything, not the pain, not himself, nothing as darkness consumed
him.
