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Until misery is all there is.
Whispering jumbled prayers, I pray to God, to Moses, to Buddha—I pray to anyone who will listen. I just need them to make this stop.
They don’t. And it doesn’t.
The searing heat engulfing my insides only intensifies. I grit my teeth so hard I fear they may chip off in my mouth. Shock forces me deep inside myself, making it hard to know what is real and what isn’t. It feels like someone is prying my mouth open, holding my jaw in place, pouring battery acid down my throat. It feels like a Molotov cocktail has been buried deep within my belly. A ticking time bomb planted and detonated.
But no. It’s just me in this room, alone with my poor decisions.
My mind tries to rationalize. This cannot be happening.
But it is very much happening.
As I writhe from side to side, I force myself to focus.
My eyes scan the bedroom. What can possibly save me now? My phone?I left it in the kitchen.Paramedics?There isn’t enough time.
Water. What I need is water. Something,anything,to soothe the burning. I drag myself up, bracing my palms against my thighs. If only I hadn’t been so stupid. If only I could get a handle on this.
Two steps are all it takes for me to realize what a pipe dream that is. Time slows to nothing. Internally, layers of flesh are being serrated and filleted. Slices of organs are being peeled away; shallow layers of my innards are slowly separating. Then, with a fiery explosion, what remains disintegrates into nothing. It’s all happening in slow motion and I can feel everything.
A pulsating sound pings between my ears. It starts out high-pitched and shrill, and then it dims, but it plays on repeat, so I know what’s coming. A cacophony of nails on a chalkboard.
If death has a sound, this is it.
I give up trying to focus on anything else. It’s pointless.
My legs buckle, and my body falls to the floor with a heavy thud. The rest of me is somewhere else, halfway to hell.
This is not how this night was supposed to go.
Slinking forward, serpent-like, I inch toward the bathroom. I get nowhere fast, so I shift direction, making it to the bed, where I force myself upward. The room spins like a Tilt-A-Whirl as I sway precariously from side to side. It reminds me of my firstborn learning to walk. It reminds me of carnival trips with my children, memories that will be forgotten instead of made.
Knowing sentimentality can only get me so far, I hobble onward, still holding onto the hope that I survive to see my children’s faces once again. Hoping I’ll get another chance to hear them laugh. Although I know I probably won’t. Right now, there is only one goal: to find water.
It won’t save me. But it might buy me some time.
The bathroom is the wrong call, I realize, as I grip the inside of the doorframe. I dig my fingernails into the wood, thinking I should have gone through with the remodel. What an unforgiving place to die.
I hadn’t thought the misery could get worse.
I was wrong.
The contractions deep in my gut continue to sweep over me, crashing like tall waves, each one worse than the one before. Eventually, I lose my handle on the doorframe and with it, my footing. I fall forward, endlessly forward, until my skull hits the edge of the sink and a hard crack ensues.
I’d hoped it would end there, but it doesn’t. Instead, I am witness to my suffering, as everything slows. This could just as easily be happening to someone else, and if it weren’t for the relentless tearing in my stomach, maybe I could pretend that it was.
The blood though, I can’t ignore. It trickles out of the corner of my mouth, vibrant against the white marble floor. Brick red and sweet, it coats my lips. I inhale the metallic scent; the warmth brings me comfort. Everything is so cold.
My mouth fills and as I spit blood onto the floor, I see that in the fall, I’ve bitten off a sliver of my tongue. It looks out of place lying there all pink and moist, covered in tiny bumps. My fingers reach out to touch it. It feels muscular and rough, like something I might have once fished out of the ocean. I cup it in the palm of my hand. For what reason, I don’t know. To save it? Just in case? What a silly thought. A last vestige of hope.
My cheek pressed against the cold tile. I think,so this is where it ends. There’s a rattling in my chest, the kind you hear stories about.
It tells me I don’t have long.
Still, my stomach and chest continue to heave, and my body clings desperately to life, a reminder that it refuses to give up long after the mind has. Clawing my way along the smooth marble, I move toward the toilet, but once there, I am too tired to even lift my head.
I allow my eyes to close, and I say a silent prayer that whatever comes next, comes quick. I pray that my children never see me like this, that they never know how I suffered in the end. Then, I wait for the bright white light, but what I get instead is a knock at the bedroom door. It’s soft at first and then more urgent. I hear a muffled voice, so familiar, followed by desperate pounding.
