Lonerism

Like Life

Like Life

Beep beep beep.

I remembered the sound. It was the last thing I heard, before I died. I was thirteen years old.

They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. When I died, the only thing that I saw was the boy in the hospital bed beside me. His legs were crossed and his eyes were closed, and then the beeping stopped.

The next thing I heard was crying. And then beeping, over and over. In my head, it sounded so far away, a million and one miles away, but it was right beside me the whole time, reaching into the farthest hallways of my mind and echoing all over, to where I'd retreated.

Beep beep beep.

I was dead for three minutes and fifty-five seconds. Before that, I'd always hoped there was somewhere you go when you died, something like life, or like heaven. My mum had once told me, "God is waiting. You go when you're ready." When I woke up again, my limp body lying on the hospital bed, that was the only thing on my mind.

I felt nothing. I went nowhere. I just died. It was like I'd slipped into the pocket of a black hole, and I'd be stuck there forever. A part of me wished I'd stayed, when I woke back in the same fragile body, in the same decaying mind. At least I'd be free.

A warm hand was clasping onto mine for dear life. It was the first thing I felt, when I came back. My eyes fluttered open, and the bed beside mine was empty. Sitting beside me was my mother. Tear trails lined her face like the road to the afterlife, her blond hair looking grey under the white of the hospital room.

I hadn't realised until that moment, but my mother had aged so much in the last few years, and it was all because of me. When my eyes opened again, and my fingers latched tighter against hers, I watched her whole face perk up and come back to life again.

"Honey," she mumbled, barely believing I was alive. Beep. "He's awake. He's back." Beep. She said the words like she almost didn't believe them, like I'd moved on and left her behind and she'd already accepted that I was gone. Beep.

She'd accepted I was gone a long time ago.

"I'll get the doctor." I watched my father stand and leave the room. When he came back, he was followed by a stern looking man, dressed in white and blue and carrying a gentle smile on his face. Bad news, I thought.

"You're very, very lucky," the doctor told me.

"Is he gonna be okay now, Doctor?" my mum asked, looking hopeful.

"I'm afraid not. With a few days rest, he'll stabilise again. But brain tumours can be very tricky to treat, as I'm sure you've been told, especially ones as severe as Evan's. I'm afraid it's just not possible to reach and remove without irreparable brain damage."

"So, what, it's over?" She was crying again, sobbing into her hands. "What are we supposed to do, just sit and watch him die?!"

"We could try again. I mean, there is a chance," he paused, taking a brief look at me, then back to my blubbering mum. "Maybe we could discuss this away from Evan."

They left the room after that. They were probably overjoyed that I was still alive at all. After years of being told it was inoperable, incurable, and terminal, they seemed happy I even had a chance. My mum had been fighting for me the whole time, never once giving up, no matter how many times they told her - it's useless, let him go, don't you think it's worse to let him live in pain?

"He'll go when he needs to," she'd always say. She said the same thing when I was being potty-trained. Then they found the tumour.

I'd spent most of my childhood in hospital beds like this, surrounded by white walls like these, and doctors like him. I'd grown used to seeing people cry, to seeing the sadness hiding behind their faces whenever they looked at me. They saw a small, sickly little boy, who's skin was pale and who's mind was slowly fading, and they'd turn away. I figured early on that no one likes looking at dying children, it's too horrifying, I guess. Looking at the wasted years, seeing something so youthful look so dead at the same time. It was just wrong, and they didn't like feeling so powerless to stop it.