The Void (15 page)

I have to move!

I don't want to die, not here, not now, with my wife, wailing and
miserable, crying out for salvation. I want to live, to see her just
one more time!

Just one more
goddamn
time!

The world owes me that!

"Max! Oh, God!"

"Mom!"

"I love you, Max! I love you!"

Fuck, move,
move,
move!

Please move...

Please, God, help me move!

I have to move!

She devolves into pure madness, screaming, sobbing; more scuffling;
they are restraining her.

Leave my wife alone!

"Don't touch me!"

The world dims, no sound...

Oh, God, no sound...

Am I dying? Is this death?

The pain dims, fading to nothing.

No sound, no pain, no feeling...

No sight, no touch; nothing...

Only the void...

"Here he is!"

A nurse appears from behind me as I tend to Jenny, and in her arms,
swaddled in pristine white fabric, is my son. It has been weeks since
he was born, strapped to a miniature gurney with machinery keeping
him breathing, keeping him alive.

And now he is here, being handed to me.

"Jenny," I decide, and point to her before the nurse has a
chance to put him in my arms. Jenny does not resist, outstretching
her arms, a look of absolute glee plastered across her smile; the
nurse rests his tiny head in the crook of her arm, and Jenny swallows
him.

"Oh, Max," she whispers, tears instantly there.

"He's amazing," as I bend to them.

His eyes are closed tightly, but he's awake, his fists punching the
air, his legs squirming beneath the blankets, trying to break free,
trying to feel the air.

"Yes, he is," she echoes.

"Little baby Brian," I manage.

And I kiss them both.

"Jesus Christ!"

Brian pierces the gray with furious shouting.

"Max!"

"His finger moved!"

"What?" Jenny wails.

"I saw dad's finger
move!
"

"His finger did not move," the doctor asserts.

Did my finger move?

The sound fades again, the pain resurfaces, and then fades again,
and then back... Am I coming in and out of consciousness? Am I
slipping away, slowly, and, oddly, gently, bodily failing with the
chaos of panic and desperation swirling around me...

"I'm telling you, I saw his finger move!"

"You did?" Jenny asks, frantic.

"I did! I saw it move!"

"Brian?" Jenny whimpers.

But then sound is gone, again, the pain still oscillating between
searing and absent. The sound fades briefly in- "-elp him! His
fin-" and then gone again, and then back- "-op it, you're be-"
and then gone again, in and out, in and out...

And then the oscillation ends.

No more sound.

No more pain.

No more sadness.

No more regret.

Nothing.

Nothing at all...

Empty.

All there is left, all that I now know, all that remains for me,
almost surely forever now, is only the void, thick and gray,
outstretched for eternity...

...only the glorious void...