The October Amaryllis

Chapter 1 - May 17th, 2020 - 8:30 A.M.

It's funny how you can practically perish and then live the next day as if nothing had ever happened. That was what it was like for me anyway. I walked out of that hospital as if nothing had ever happened to me, as if I just went there to pay a visit to someone.

“Hey, Mom?” I asked while she was making toast. Even after all these years, the toaster still scared the shit out of me the moment the bread popped out. We have one of those loud-as-hell toasters that are about as loud as a cannon. It sounds like the 1812 Overture when it goes off. When I was around ten, they took us to see a bunch of Tchaikovsky's music performed live, and that was one of the pieces they played. I fell asleep, so you can imagine my shock at hearing the cannons go off! I did quite like that Sugar Plum Fairy tune, though.

"What is it, Clive?" she replied.

"Do we still have Lucky Charms?" I asked, looking at my arms; my friends all told me that I had burns on my arms that were shaped like ferns but looking over meticulously, I couldn't find any. It's a shame, really; all the exciting things happen when you're not there to witness them. It's almost as if life is purposefully trying to piss you off in that way. If the universe was a person, I would strangle it to death and then revive it just so I could strangle it all over again.

"Maybe, you should ask your fa-" she said before stopping mid-sentence. She still had a habit of mentioning my dad, who died from stomach cancer last year. We didn't know he had it until it was far too late; that's what made it so scary.

When he told us he had terminal cancer, I remember my first thought was, "No, no, this can't be true!" My mother kept trying to convince him that he was misdiagnosed, but we all knew the truth deep down.

As the months passed by, he would spend more and more time lying in bed crying. I visited him a few times in an attempt to cheer him up, but we both knew that there was no changing fate. We once watched Groundhog Day together, and I remember him whispering, "There is no tomorrow for me..." Hearing that damn near broke my heart.

In his final days, he looked like a twig and hardly had the appetite to eat anything. I asked him why he didn't use the Washington Death with Dignity Act in the last month of his life, and he told me that he didn't want to cut short the time he could have had with us, hearing that nearly made me cry right there. I admit that if I was in his position, I would have just taken it; one of my strongest weaknesses is that I always take the easiest way out. Perhaps that is why I ended up taking the route that I did... I create my own problems and then blame everyone else for them.

"I'm sorry, I still see him in my dreams sometimes," I said, looking down at the tiled floor and counting all of the tiny chips and cracks in it to distract myself from all the pain. The dreams I get of him are bittersweet to me; a part of me loves that I can see him again, but another hates that they're nothing more than illusions.

My favorite dream of him has to be the one where he's looking at Gen-Z memes on my phone. He would always ask me, "Clive, why is this funny?" The truth is, I don't even know why I find those memes hilarious. My sense of humor is so immature it's not even a zygote yet.

My favorite part of the dreams was that he never looked sick in them. His face would quite literally glow as if he was some sort of angel. This is how I'll always remember him.

Anyways, back to my Lucky Charms fiasco.

"It's okay; they should be somewhere in the pantry," she said, putting the toast on our plates as I left to go find the cereal. I felt at that moment a strange sensation as though I was missing something; it's like that feeling of anxiety where you know that something is a bit off but don't know exactly what it is. For example, this one time, the time on my oven kept changing for absolutely no reason, and I didn't even notice it until the next day. It wasn't broken or anything and daylight savings time was months away.