Last Sunrise | The Empty World Sequence

The Hospice

Today was her Last Sunrise. Steven's mother did not have long to live. When he had first heard Amanda speak her wish, he had offered to ask the nurse about moving the bed closer to the window. Amanda had laughed weakly and squeezed his hand through her pain. Steven now understood it was a phrase from a book – some type of existential vampire romance novel Joey had lent her – that described that one last thing you wished to do. Today they were going to the movies.

Steven felt the limo slow. He flipped his headphones to his neck, thumbed down the volume on the Discman and looked through the tinted glass to the brownstones and the trees that grew from tiny plots of earth in the concrete landscape. The hospice was along a street of residential and commercial buildings, not far from St. Vincent's. Steven glanced to the front and gave a nod to the chauffeur. When the door was opened, Steven stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Steven climbed the few steps into the building and entered the lobby. He walked over the carpeted runner, went directly to the counter and lifted the pen to sign in, just glancing at the attendant, who admitted him with a slight tip of her head toward the main corridor. Steven went to the men's room in the hall. It was large; designed to be fully wheelchair accessible. He stood over a sink and glanced at himself in the mirror. His hair was getting too long for his liking; he needed to decide on a new style and go in for a cut.

Steven pulled a travel size bottle of mouthwash from the pocket of his white windbreaker then rinsed, gargled and spit in the sink. He returned the bottle to his pocket and then scrubbed up, washing nearly to his elbows. Steven operated the door with his sleeve and went back into the corridor.

As he approached Amanda's room, Steven heard Jim Morrison's voice wafting from the room across the hall, above the Queen still faintly playing from the headphones about his neck. He turned to the left, toward the music, and called out as he walked through the open doorway, "The Crystal Ship. You like The Doors, too, Joey?"

Steven saw, as soon as he stepped inside, that Joey was not alone. He had seen visitors come and go from Joey's room in previous visits, but never this one. The kid was standing with his back to Joey, facing the wall, so that even as Steven noticed him, he saw him clearly in profile. The young man's fingertips wiped tears from his eyes.

Steven made some awkward wordless sound and gestured into the hallway, meaning to go. The loud rapping of plastic on laminate drew his attention to the bed. Joey was there, drinking cup held over the surface of the roll-away table; he looked about the same as the last time Steven had seen him. Today he was wearing a paper mask loosely tied over his nose and mouth, presumably to filter the air. The plastic oxygen mask was hanging unused on the far bed-rail.

"He probably means you don't have to leave," the young man said. He straightened and tossed his head, back still to Joey. "He's got pneumonia, again! He's not supposed to talk, much less strain himself to yell at people!" His tone had sharpened, but the volume of his voice remained quiet.

Steven relaxed, slightly, and saw Joey glare at the boy. The fevered flesh about his eyes and the lesions on his cheek and temple had the effect of making his appear intensely green, in contrast, and almost supernatural. Joey dropped the cup quietly to the table, used his other hand to press stop on the small, red radio/cassette boom box and then sank heavily into his bed. Whatever had happened, before Steven's arrival, had weakened him, or else it was just the continuing effects of opportunistic disease.

Freddie Mercury's tinny, headphone-reproduced voice was suddenly clearly audible: There's no time for us...

Steven fumbled with the Discman in his jacket and pressed stop. "I'm taking Mom to the movies today."

"Daniel," Joey rasped, "Steven."

The boy, Daniel, turned about to look at Joey and then turned again. Steven extended his hand automatically, and was then startled; thinking that he had not realized, before, the boy was such a striking example of a human being. When Daniel took his hand to shake it, Steven felt a painful discharge of static electricity.