" The more the actor acts in a role, the better he becomes at it, the more he is apt to feel comfortable in it"
" Jimmy, Jimmy Cochnam"
Jimmy takes his glance from the young girl he had been watching. He looks over at the old nurse; at least fifty. He puts his body wight onto the wooden cane at his left. He stands. When Jimmy enters the clean, white, examining room, the nurse checks his vitals and tells him the doctor will be in shortly. He sits thinking about the young girl he had just encountered. She was tall, blonde, and had a perfect smile. He had seen her before, the newspaper, at school; she was the girls all-star player of the basketball team. She had never been in his art class, he would have remembered.
The door swung open and a tall, scrawny man in a lab coat walked in.
"Jimmy, I'm Doctor Haden; I'm sure you remember me."
" Yes, hello."
" I have bad news, your ASL is accelerating. You know, my mother died from this very condition when I was only thirteen years old. I was always a mama's boy and I saw what she went through. I won't lie, it was a horrible time. You have already experienced some of the worst side effects, it killed her in less than two years. I'm sorry Mr. Cochnam but I fear your condition will end your life quicker than that. You have been battling this for over a year, we have tried all we can, I don't think you have much time left."
"How much?"
"Less than three months."
Jimmy is struggling to his car. His 1983 Plymouth Voyager. It needed some repairs but now struggling to get into the drivers side he figured it could wait. It wouldn't be his much longer. He put his cane next to him in the passenger's side. He starts to put the car in reverse when out of his rear-view mirror spots the young blonde, the all-star, outside talking on her phone. He watches. He smiles.
