Cheating Gods of Death (Sequel to L: Find A GirLfriend)

Bill Nye and Stephen Hawking

It was a Thursday this time, and the first week of December

I had woken up to Mom calling me out of bed.

I had seen my sister, now eleven, twelve in February. I'm seventeen as of last September.

Cereal for breakfast again, and then I left to go to school. Mom drives Erica there herself, because it's a little out of the way for me. I pick her up, and drive home after school. Today, she drove me. She wouldn't say why.

Mom is a psychiatrist who works until six, but the office really isn't far off, so she's back to make dinner and talk about her "clients". We ARE single-income, but due to her position, her paycheck keeps us with more than enough. It's admittedly nice to have first world problems such as running out of wet wipes rather than food stamps. Everything worked out.

Really, it did. Mom told me about jerking off, wet dreams, sex from a guy's point of view, and everything a father would usually have to explain. It's her job, and her brutally honest nature. She told me exactly what was going to happen before I could think hair would grow on my palms. I never wanted a dad.

But, as I said before, there was no funeral.

Mom got us out of school early, around third period. When all three of us were in the car, she began to talk as she drove towards a freeway.

"It appears as if..."

She paused, finding the words.

"Hm, your dad has woken up."

I have sounded as if I knew he hadn't kicked the bucket, but this was a shock.

All I remembered was his black-and-white-and-pants contrast, his endless hours at a desk going through unmarked but somehow incredibly unique files like toilet paper, and the coffee machine no one used. It was almost solely his. Mom would hand it to him and his eyes would light up like... a lone candle in the dead of night. From a mile or two away. Only a small amount, but something.

"Really? Didn't he die?"

Erica had to pollute the airways with the musings of an eleven year old girl who wasn't thinking. To explain, I don't hate my sister, just dumb people. I hate myself when I do.

"Yes, they kept him in a coma. It was in his will, it hemorrhaged money, but it might be worth it."

We drove in silence until we crossed the state border into North Carolina.

"Mom, where are we going?"

"Carolinas Medical Center, in Charlotte. They have innovative treatments for cancer and such, and he was moved there last year to be part of a clinical trial regarding vegetables like him. It worked, and he's... nearly paralyzed from the ears down, minus lungs and other actual organs."

Mom always sounded kinda like the old Bill Nye shows when she was on the ball about explaining something. It helped, and made it seem less grave and pitiful, but IT WAS EXPLAINING OUR HELLACIOIUSLY DISABLED FATHER. I was close to falling into hysterics.

She began to play her music (alternative, electronic alternative, and some tasteful not-Mozart classical music), as she continued to explain.

"He will probably continue to improve, he technically woke up last week, that was when brain waves started up. He opened his eyes and started to look around this morning. When you meet him, try, just try, to talk to him as if he was normal. Ask him things, and then dismiss it politely like I taught you."

She takes pride in teaching us nearly perfect etiquette.

"He's still there, and he's going to be crawling out of his skin. It's been five years, you've grown, and cases have piled up. Okay? And no, you can't fully prepare."