Expiring In Three Months

Expiration Date

Closing his eyes and listening to the radio, Leo tried to hum the melody of The Beatle's In My Life. He slouched on his seat and relished the cold air being blown by the air conditioner grills to his face. The seatbelt slightly choking him, he immediately positioned himself up. "Damn it", he muttered. "This is gonna kill me in no time".

The door latch from the driver's side clicked and Martha dashed inside as after she swung the door open. Leo cradled his palms to catch the paper bag about the size of shoebox from his mother. The inside of the pack sounded like pebbles—or toy gun pellets, inside a small cardboard box. Although the color and texts on the box slightly grossed him out as he opened the brown paper. He immediately crumpled the hole of the paper bag, sealing whatever is inside of it.

(hi. publishing this now but i haven't proofread this yet. spare my typos. love you!)

"Metaphorically speaking, it's your box of chocolate", Martha winked before pulling the handbrake. She pressed the blinking hazard button. "Just don't think about it too much. Focus on your exams first.", the vibration started to crawl in Leo's body as his mother maneuvered the car away from the road gutter. "And eat healthy.", he heard. But Leo's eyes are plastered on the blank canvas of the horizon. He doesn't see the street, the cars, the buildings. The entire city is a smudged image in front of him.

"I don't want to go.", he said without hesitation. "It's useless anyway. Let's just spend time together... all the time.", smiling and gazing at his mother who has been taken aback by his suggestion. "I mean...", he cleared his throat and straightened up, adjusting the tight seatbelt strapping him to his seat. "...That's supposedly what we should do, right?"

Martha bit her upper lip having no clue what to think or say to his remarks. The tires screeched as she hit the brake, the hood almost hitting the black and white lines of the crossing. Her eyes caught the the old lady with a little girl on a wheelchair passing by, the older one carefully pushing the othet along the uneven and stripped path. She stopped for a while and pulled out a blue handkerchief from her pocket and laid it on the girl's head. There was a man with a black umbrella in his hand who was going to the opposite direction. He looked up the gloomy sky and mouthed his prediction about the rain. Martha read his lips through the windshield as tiny droplets of rain started hitting on the glass panel.

"Doctor Tim...", she started a reply in her mind. "He said there's a good chance.", she added while maintaining the light tone in her voice. He fingers were turning the nozzle and the wipers started swinging up and down, creating a visual pattern of melting curves on the glass. She eyed on the traffic post and saw the light turning green. She hit the gas.

"After the surgery, you'll probably be living a very normal life."

"A good chance does not always mean a big chance.", Leo leaned on the glass window, watching the show of colorful lights from the storefronts, lamp posts and the blotching silhouettes of humans and trees. "And we're not rich.", he sighed, avoiding to think of the bills his family will have to pay once the surgery happens—whether it's a success or not.

"Silly boy.", Martha's forehead creased while her hands turned the wheel towards the right corner taking the seventh street going to their village. "That's not your problem anymore."

"Inez's gonna get married. I can really foresee Peter's proposal very soon. But I'm here, delaying their happiness!", Leo turned to his mother and saw her shrugging and shaking her head in disagreement. "We could just use the money for the tickets somewhere, like Switzerland or Barcelona."

"Your sister's already 29. She knows what and when to do things. You've got nothing to do with their life choices."

"Come on, Ma. We haven't been anywhere outside the country together."

"Kids these days. Is that a big deal?"

"For me, Yes?", he bent towards the backseat and carefully placed the paper bag he was holding for a couple of minutes now on the leathered cushion. "Quality of life is what I'm talking about. Who knows what happens next after they open up my skull and—fuck!", Leo's face hit the backrest of his seat, his lower lip bursting in pain. He can taste his own blood now. "Ma!", he yelled, wiping his mouth with his hand.

Martha slowly faced his pessimistic seatmate, her foot holding the brake, her eyes burning in fury. Leo saw the the black cat running away from the hood of their car.

"I'm going to spend a fortune for you and you have no choice but to survive, you ungrateful brat!", the deafening blow hit Leo's eardrums. He leaned backwards, his body sticking on the closed door beside his seat. "Ma, I was just stating our situation realistically and We're not even su—"

"Either you die in your hospital bed or you die in my hands right now.", Leo squealed in pain as his mother's finger twisted his left ear. He cried and pleaded her to stop.

"Now shut up and we're going home. I don't wanna bury an idiot yet. I still have to see my grandchildren", Martha told him. It's a tough call for a mother like her to just let her children give in to what life is telling them as their limits. She does not want to think of reading a eulogy again for a family member. Johan, the man who hit her head with a football in high school who later became her prom date and ultimately the father of her children, left two years ago after an exhausting battle with the same matter Leo has inside his skull. She knows his son is a smart one, and his brain has more muscles. He can't crumble like his father.

Leo gently massaged his ear, feeling his skin and cartilage recovering slowly from his mother's grip. "Grandchildren! I'm not gonna give you any!", he muttered under his breath. "And I'm not impregnating a woman!"

"Then find a surrogate mother for christ's sake!"

"Tss.", Leo shook his head and leaned against the glass. Silence swallowed the two of them and he can't help but think of the pain he must be injecting to his family, especially to his mother who dreamed of a normal and traditional life for all of them: Her children graduating from college, lading on a job, getting married, driving their kids to school, visiting her on weekends and holidays. Not that he hates it—he wishes he could do them all, but life seems to feel like a roulette, and his arrow hits all the very unfortunate consequences. Take pills. Set appointments with his Doctors. Possibly letting them drill through his brain. He is in the brink of ultimate oblivion, and he knows that time is like ice that is bound to melt very soon.

"Ma...", Leo's voiced cracked after a long and quiet contemplation. "Have I told you that I like guys."

Martha did not even glance at him, not surprised by what Leo has just said.

"I guess...?", Leo heard from his driver. He saw a smirk from her lovely freckled face. "Why are you telling me this old news?"