Face of Death

The Departure

The sun is up. The air is fresh. It's definitely a fine, as much as life is hard and terrible, today is easily one of those good times ... the rare moments. So, I'm on my way to work. I'm almost late, so I try as much as possible to rush. Suddenly, I feel a short painful strike on the left side on my chest. The pain spreads to the center of my chest. Now I can't breathe. My lungs are clogged, I'm choking on my blood... people gather to stare... now my sight is bad, I see a cloud ...a mist or fog perhaps. I hear fuzzy murmur. Then my eyes shut...

I wake up in this scary white room with another bed on the other edge. I'm in some kind of patient's net... ones we see in movies. Turning to my left, I meet my mother's eye.... Tears run down my cheeks and my legs start to shake. She holds my hand and whispers, "it's okay son". That statement brings with it, comfort. I ask her what's happening and I peep tears rush down her right cheek. My heart's pounding again and this time even harder. I replay the previous experience once again. And the agony of it all tears me apart. My eyes shut....

I hear indistinct conversations... vague mumbling. A man's voice. I don't really recognize whose voice it is though. Eventually, I start to recognize the voice. It is my dad's. I open my eyes and catch my dad's eye. I had never seen my pops smile like that before. I could easily tell he was really happy to see me.

"Son ... you are so handsome. My boy has finally grown a mustache...

I always tell you that you are my favorite. And I will never leave your side son". he spoke

I looked him in the eye and asked him what the hell had happened. He looked at me in the eye and said,

"Son, listen and listen well... I have sad news (sigh) ...

you ...y...o......u have been diagnosed with.... Uh, term...terminal severe cardiac failure. Your heart is torn and contains multiple punctures. You have experienced two heart attacks. They are saying you have limited time until you lose sense of taste, then sense of smell, then sense of speech. That would be the last ...umm..."

I just stared at him in shock. I couldn't believe whatever it is he was saying. I was in shock because he was different, somehow. He had a fresh haircut. But it was not the usual cut that he always gets. Bald, but this time it's a fade. He looks cool. So, I tell him,

"Your hair cut is dope..."

He looked at me surprised then asked

"Did you hear what I just said? "

I nodded softly then looked at the clock on the wall, just above the door. 'Tic toc, tic toc, tic toc. 'I know my time is almost up. Just a few hours to go. What surprises me is the fact that I actually felt relief and comfort in that thought. Multiple heart scans revealed my heart was totally torn... I was existing on overtime. I started to feel a sharp pain on my abdominal region and the pain was spreading around to my back. It was excruciating... the nurses came in and injected me some fluids. The pain was gone they took some samples... my livers had died. They had started decaying in my body. My heart started to pound again just like before and this time, even harder. Their machine started to bleep even louder. My lower limbs had gone numb. I couldn't feel my tongue. I couldn't feel my hands. This was the third heart attack, and somehow, I was sure it was the last. I couldn't breathe... my lungs were shutting down. The strain to gasp air was agonizing. My eyes shut...

Doctors surrounded me and I had not quite lost my sense of smell because I could smell a mixture of multiple fragrances. These fragrances started to overlap and it was no longer a sweet scent... it became something really terrible. I wish someone showed these doctors a good place to get quality perfumes. This was a really terrible time to be judgmental but I couldn't help it. I could hear indefinite chatter, the voices were overlapping. My organs shutting down. I could not feel my lips, eyes and all my limbs. My whole body was numb. I could no longer smell anything, actually, I was struggling to even breathe.

My lungs could not accumulate enough oxygen. I wanted to open my eyes but I could not. This was one of the most agonizing tortures anyone could possibly go through. I immediately realized that I was actually going to die. At this point the wheezing was painful.

As much as my body was dead, my brain was still functioning. I could see images in my brain. Images of my little sister, how she used to make my day. Images of her beautiful smile. All the experiences and conversations we had had were replaying over and over. My mom's face also popped up. At this moment I knew that my eyes were filled with tears but I could not feel anything, maybe they were running down my face, I don't know! My brothers' faces also replayed. I was literally watching a movie with the title 'people I loved and cared about' there was my dad's face too. The immediate moment I had with him in the hospital, this was actually the best. And it is because I had seen a smile curve on his firm face. I realized that I really loved him. But it was too late, I had no time to show him this discovery.

The images started appearing blurry in nature. I realized that the brain was also shutting down. I had never experienced anything like this. But hey! Everything has a first time, right? Everything in my brain turned from visual to audio. Now I was operating with voices... I couldn't quite recognize the voices anymore. My lung muscles were now coming to contact on the inside, they were empty. I felt an urge to inhale and that's exactly what I did. This was my last. As I exhaled, I knew that everything that was left in me, was all accumulated in this breath. I knew that I didn't have another like this one. This was my final breath.

......everything became quiet and calm.