MonkyingAround's Songfic Contest

Round 3

Song For Someone-U2

Neither of us were conventional beings. We were both torn and battered by bullying, made to feel that we should even hate ourselves, but we're perfect for each other. She wasn't afraid of who I was when we first met and I knew that she wasn't because she'd been through times similar to what I had. The feelings were mutual about our lives being better when we had really gotten to know each other, and even eventually married, but it's scary how quickly that can change.

One day we were out walking in the park and licking 99s while we talked about our future together, and the next she was in the hospital being treated for a brain tumor. Low-grade Astrocytoma, a grade two brain tumor. We were told that it was fairly common in her age group and it had just started growing, the little amount of tumor cells present indicating only a two week life at most, which also made it easier to remove surgically.

Days later in a follow-up brain scan, glioblastoma, also known as GBM or Grave IV astrocytoma, was found on her brain stem, a place they hadn't been looking until now. GBM doesn't typically grow in the brain stem nor does it appear commonly in women of her age, mid 20s. In response to this new discovery, so many blood and genetics tests on top of many other types were conducted and apparently she has a defective gene that led to the growth.

"Will, I need to talk to you," Nat said weakly. With every passing day she got weaker and weaker. Glioblastoma is impossible to have surgically removed in full, only pieces of it, and the rest is treated with a combination of chemo and radiation therapy. You can only imagine how much of a toll its taking on her body.

"What do you want to talk about?" I ask Natalie as I pulled a chair from the other en doc the room and dragged it to the table nearest the bed to be by her side. Seeing how her face felt, I knew that these next words that were going to come out of her mouth were not going to be positive.

"I'm so glad we live in California," I heard her mutter, intentionally to herself but loud enough for anyone close by to hear.

"Asides from the outrageously warm weather and the beaches, which Florida has as well, what's so special about California?" I couldn't help myself but ask.

"It's one of five," she stated, starting to get all ominous on me like she always does, but I quickly realized that she wasn't trying to be and was actually just throwing facts and statistics in my direction.

"One of five for what?" I followed up but soon stumbled across the answer myself. My mouth fell open. "Whatever it is you're thinking, get it out right now because you know I would never want you to do that to yourself and would do everything in my power to keep you from doing so."

"Just hear me out on this, please," she began to plea. I nodded slightly, my head starting to hang in despair. It already felt like I was losing her.

"What makes you think assisted suicide is the answer?" I inquired, now wanting to understand as opposed to trying to get her to terminate these thoughts in her head.

"I want to be in control of my own destiny," my wife said simply, somehow able to be concise. Of course, when I want her to be concise she rambles on but when I want her to dig into every thought on the topic she uses few words.

"This isn't controlling your destiny, it's ending your life prematurely," I combatted, strongly disagreeing with her statement. "There's still a light of your life, don't put it out yourself," I added, always having loved comparing lives to lights. May not seem very poetic but I've found the metaphor to be justified.

"I'm the flame and you're the candlestick, I'd rather put the kindle out myself and cause little damage to you than let the flicker put itself out and burn you, damage you," she replied, her tone now rather stern.

"Losing you is going to hurt like hell but I assure you that it would be worse losing you to your own mind than losing you to the tumor, which still isn't a guarantee," I retorted. She's driving it into her head that premature death would be inevitable when that's not true.

"Let me give you some more statistics, if you put 100,000 Europeans and Americans in a room that hadn't already been diagnosed with GBM and did that every year, two to three of them would be diagnosed with it," Natalie started, I know having a feeling that many more were to follow. "The median survival rate is 15 months and less than four percent live five years past diagnosis. I have a pretty good idea of my current life span. Now, how long has it been since I was diagnosed?"

"Over 14 months," I answered reluctantly. "But maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones," I commented, now starting to get teary-eyed. My wife was seriously considering having her own life taken from her, having someone help her in taking it herself. I would have to be a sociopathic bastard not to get emotional over it. She's the light in the near distance on my darkest night, I can't let it go out.

"I share the same fate with my mother, and I tell you she didn't have a pleasant one," she was being reduced to tears with every word, the thought of what happened to her mother beginning to haunt her consciousness. "I remember clearly that in her final days she told me that she wished she had ended it herself instead of going through the pain and the torment of the cancer and its harmful treatment. I'm not going to make the same mistake she did."

"Please, just stop," I started to plead myself. I couldn't come to terms with the fact that my own wife wanted to end her life herself.

"I'm only doing this because I know it's the right choice," she attempted to persuade me, but I wasn't having any of it. I know that as a husband I'm supposed to be supportive of her decisions and open to her thoughts, but I'm just not feeling up to the role today. "Seeing my mother withering away, going through all the pain that she did killed me inside. I don't want to go through what she did and I don't want you to go through what I did."

The days went on while I pondered over her thoughts in my head, her condition getting worse and worse. The worse she got, the more I understood and began to agree with her. Maybe it would be the right choice after all.

I stared down at a blank piece of parchment paper while wielding a pen in my hand, trying to think of what it is that I want to say.

This is a song for someone, I don't know who, but it's for someone.

Don't let your light go out, no matter how tough the time. You'll come out stronger in the end or die trying.

If there's a glimpse of a flicker in the dead of the night, don't let it go out.

I was disturbed from my thoughts by a nurse urging me to go into another room.

July 22 at 1:26 PM. She did it.

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Hope this wasn't overly depressing. Not sure about how the ending flows but I'm really proud of it. I wanted to do something different and I had this idea so I went for it.

I was originally going to do something along these lines but to 'California' instead. This song came on right after though and I loved it do much more than my original choice so I recycled the original idea and ended up with this. I hope you liked this.