RASP
Fiction. Published in CHANGES: Award Winning Short Stories, Hammond House Publishing, 2022.
Third place, Hammond House International Literary Prize — Short story.
Between you, at the very last, there was nothing but breath and bone. You loved each other. You said it constantly: in waking, in falling asleep, as a thank you, as a request.
‘I would die for you,’ you said to her, and she laughed the joyous laugh of a child who knows she is sacred.
In the end, you had to live for her, and oh, that was much, much harder. As the life ebbed out of her, you felt it burning inside you, felt the thud of your heart and the splay of your muscles and the good, hollow burn of your hunger and the way even your waste streamed out so strong.
You cried at these things, at your horse-heavy piss and your deep, steady breath and the power you could put behind your sobs. She could only manage a sort of flat whimper, after a time. A tear or two would slide down her cheek and she would release a long, thin vowel that you could hardly hear over the washing machine or the hiss of the kettle. She was dying so softly it flayed you inside.
On the last night, they left you. There was nothing left to do, and so they pulled out the tubes and unplugged the beeping machines and waited in the hallway for you to perform the long business of humans everywhere; the business of attending death. You devastated yourself by noticing the tedium of it: the gaps between breaths, the tap of moths on the window, the way snot had dried in the corner of her nostril. You pulled your sleeve over the tip of your index finger, spat on it and dug in there, cleaning the crud. You told yourself you were doing it for her, but really, the grot of it disgusted you. Even the knowledge that her little body would release nothing else into the world after that night, even that could not overcome the disgust. You heaved with guilt and pain and horror.
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Full piece in CHANGES: Award Winning Short Stories, Hammond House Publishing.