Beeps: A short story

Beeps

The worst part of dying is the fact that no matter what you did with your life, you'll regret it.

The feeling is like a flame burning inside of you, watching, waiting for it's moment to strike. At first it's a dull roar. You've wasted your life, you think. That's all you can think about for year-long days. Memories come creeping back at you, memories you had thought you had long forgotten, but you're just now having the time to recall. And that's what everyone's wrong about. People who haven't been here, they don't understand. "He doesn't have much time left," they'll say. I have nothing but time. I count the beeps.

Sometimes, at night, the beeps help me go to sleep. Most nights though, the beeps keep me awake. I listen to them. I time them. My life is on the line if they miss a single beat. That what keeps me up at night. The sickening sensation of everything I know dangling on a single thread. My thoughts get jumbled with the beeps- their rhythmic pattern intruding into the deepest crevices of my soul.

My thoughts are almost never about death anymore. I find myself thinking a lot about life. In ways, life is like the beeps. Coming and going, time consumed by the constant struggle to move up in line just to be handed another task. There's a window in my room, and I can see a street. Every day the street is full of people. The old lady who walks into that bakery every Saturday and always walks out with something different each time. There's two businessmen who sit on the same bench at 8:00 in the morning each day, in the exact same spots as the day before. I watch the people every day, moving like clockwork. Like the beeps.

Sometimes, the people come to see me in my room. I hate when they come to visit me. They all bear the same plastic grin. They don't want to make me feel bad. I want to yell at them, but my body won't let me. I want to yell at them, I know I'm hurting. I want them to genuinely talk to me, I don't want to be told everything will be fine every day. It's not fine, I want to yell, I'm dying. All I can do is cough, and they go out of their way to look happier around me, as if my pain can be cured if they smile wide enough.

I can hear them through the doors. The sobs, the what-ifs, the prayers to god. The slightly scuffled footfalls of them moving closer. A hug. I hate hearing them cry. I want to comfort them, tell them it's fine, but it's not. It will never be fine. I can't lie to them- they deserve better. I want to blame it all on myself. I know it's wrong, I know it couldn't be helped- but I can't help it. I feel like it's my fault, like I've somehow let them down, that if I never got sick they would all be happy again. It kills me that they're not happy.

My life has become a battle with pain. The pain in my chest won't leave me, the pain in my throat burns hot, the ache in my back and my solid-stuck legs almost isn't worth living for. My body is dysfunctional. My organs are giving up. My heart can't support my sickly bones but my mind won't stop racing. What am I still doing here, I can't help but wonder. I'm hardly ever awake anymore. I fade in and out of drug-induced sleep, the question always in the back of my mind. What am I doing?

When I'm not listening or thinking or hurting, I lay still. The room is always dark. I can still hear the footsteps of doctors and nurses outside- heading to other patients' rooms. Sometimes they'll open my door, and a stream of white, medicine-smelling light will burst into the room. I think they know I'm not asleep. Maybe they take pity on the teenage boy who has nothing else to live for, whose life has spiraled into hell, who practically lives in the emergency room, the boy whose heart is kept going by a machine. Whatever it is, they close the door without a word, leaving me alone with my almost-silence, perfectly quiet save for my machines.

I hate being here. I wish I could go home, but I can't. I'm dying. I listen to the beeping and humming of my machines, finely tuned like my own personal orchestra- each music note a breath, each movement of a bow a heartbeat. My eyes have long since hazed, as if the life's been drained out of them. I wish I could go home. Thoughts pounds at my skull. This place is killing me. Let me die. I don't want to be like this anymore. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. No matter how many times I repeat it, no matter how many times I close my eyes and open them again, nothing changes. Nothing will ever change. I'm stuck. The beeps- My beeps, get faster. My heart is pounding like hell now, faster, faster. I can't see straight. Make it stop, it hurts, make it stop, that's all I can think as I spiral into blackness. And then it stops. For the first time in a long time, I slip into nothing, my beeps having stopped, the humming ended with a loud bang. I let go, smiling.