or (Christmas, part one)
How do you want to die?
One
The small room smelled of urine and industrial antiseptics. The walls were painted a light blue, not there was was much light to see the colors by. A wavering line danced up and down on the screen, tracing its irregular path. Steady beeping emanated from the machine, his life resting on the green peaks and valleys of the monitor. He tried to shift around in his bed, to get more comfortable, but moving was so hard now. So difficult. The soft mattress seemed to hamper his movements, and the greatest of effort was needed to overcome the heaviness in his limbs. Even opening his eyes was difficult, now. At least, he thought, the pain wasn’t so bad today. He glanced over to his side, where a figure in blue was writing on the counter…
–
“Julia? Is that you?” he called, surprised at the weakness of his own voice.
“No.” The figure answered, and sighed. “We talked about this yesterday. Julia died. Over two years ago.”
Julia was dead? They had talked yesterday? How long had he been here? It seemed that just yesterday, he and Julia were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. That had been a happy day, long before he had started to worry about his health. He played the memories back in his head, feeling the joy of the moment long gone. Julia, his beautiful wife, looking up at him as they danced. His children were there, hugging and congratulating and talking animatedly. All his friends, and her friends were there celebrating with them. But now Julia was dead? He tried to remember that happening, but every time he grasped at the memory it seemed to remain just out of reach. His memory was like that though, these days. Yes, he decided, the figure must be telling the truth. Julia would be here otherwise. The figure was familiar, though. He grasped again, but his memory refused to yield anything useful. Clouded eyes stared at the form across the room…
–
The figure walked over to his bed with a small, clear bag filled with fluid. Reaching up, it removed a tube from the now empty bag hanging over his bed and replaced it with the full one. It discarded the empty back in the trash, and briskly walked out of the room without another word. He was alone again.
Alone.
When was the last time he had seen his children? He couldn’t remember. Frustration at his inability to recall the details of his life gripped him. He wanted to see his children, to see see Julia again, to be out of this gray and depressing place. He glanced at the machine to his left again. The green lines continuously moved, mercilessly tracing out his existence. The days were longer, here. Or maybe the nights were longer. There were no windows in his room, and telling night from day was difficult without a clock in the room. The orderlies woke him for breakfast, of course, and lunch and dinner, but aside from that there was almost nothing to mark the passage of time. It was very boring. It hadn’t always been like this, he knew. He had served in the war. Stormed Omaha Beach in France in 1944. Received a Silver Star for his actions during days following the Allied invasion of Normandy. Raised three three sons and a daughter. Owned his own construction company. He had always been strong, physically and mentally. Until that one day…
–
The morning sun was about to break. As always, he had risen early, made a breakfast of eggs and toast, and gone outside to warm up his pickup truck. The old truck complained if it wasn’t given time to warm up on cold mornings, and today certainly qualified. “12 degrees. Ugh.” he thought as he grabbed the his keys off the hook by the door. He threw his heavy winter coat on over his flannel shirt, pulled on his boots, and walked out the door.
The patch of ice had been almost impossible to see in the early morning light. Julia had almost slipped on it herself when she found him lying unconscious in the thin layer of snow that covered the sidewalk. A tiny streak of crimson blood was running from his nose down his cheek onto the ground. She had always been a light sleeper, and when she didn’t hear him come back in after the starting the truck she began to wonder what happened…
–
It was all downhill from there. He spent over three weeks in the hospital recovering from his fall. He was never the same afterward. His strength seemed to slowly abandon him at an increasing speed. His hands shook. Where once he used to be able to hold a rotary saw or hammer all day, now it was difficult to go even fifteen minutes. He was forced to take a less active role in his company, which devastated him. He had to eventually stopped going to the construction sites themselves altogether and stay at the office. The slow betrayal of of his body by forces he couldn’t master culminated a few years after that when he fell again, getting out of bed. His leg broke this time, requiring an even longer hospital stay.
And then Julia died. It was sudden. She died peacefully in her sleep one night, taking with her his companion of fifty-two years, his mate, his love, his will to live.
He was in a nursing home within nine months of her passing. His children had insisted that they couldn’t take care of him full-time, and he was no longer able to take care of himself. The thought of going to a nursing home scared him. “A nursing home is where you send old people!” he had yelled angrily at his children. They tried to be nice, tried to soften the blow on him, but it didn’t work. Deep down, he knew that he was old. And that was scarier than anything he had ever faced.
–
And now, two strokes later, he was lying in his bed. Alone. The tubes and wires and things taped to him didn’t make very good companions. He didn’t have to be alone, he knew. There was a blue button on the rail of his bed that would summon someone, someone to come roll him into a different position or give him a drink of water. But the nurses couldn’t say and talk. They had told him that. They had other patients to see. They never stayed as long as he would have liked. The loneliness was too much to bear, sometimes. A single tear rolled down along the deep lines on his face. He glanced at the monitor to his left again. He was alive right now. The green lines were moving. He knew they wouldn’t always be moving. At some point, they would stop. The lines would stop and the beeping of machine would turn into a long tone that would keep going. People would come running then, but there would be nothing more to do. He would be gone.
He was scared. It was coming.
Soon.
Two
The snow falling from the night sky melted almost instantly as it hit the windshield of the cruiser. The soothing whoosh of the heater fan was interrupted occasionally by the crackle of the radio as the two officers inside the car bantered lazily.
“Aren’t you due to retire?” asked the younger of the older.
“Why, so you can drive? We’ll have to get you a phone book so you can see over the dash.” the older man retorted.
Officer Leo Hayes rolled his eyes with mock exasperation. “Yeah, whatever, James. Just make sure you have me on speed dial so I can come rescue you when you fall and break your hip one of these days.”
“Not gonna happen. I’ll outlive you, you just wait.”
Leo chuckled, then turned serious as a Ford with a broken headlight passed them. The two glanced at each other. “Small fish.” Leo said. “And besides, do you really feel like freezing your butt off for a stupid light bulb?”
“Who said anything about me getting out of the car?” Inquired James. The other groaned theatrically. “And besides” he continued, “I personally feel like going fishing.” He reached down for the cruiser’s lightbar switch.
The radio crackled to life before he could touch it. “21:54. 10-30 in progress, the Walgreens on eighth and Miller. Two twenty-seven, respond. Backup en-route.”
“That’s us.” They glanced up at each other again. “Guess our fish will have to wait.” James said. He flipped the switch, and the car’s siren and lights jumped to life. “And only five minutes before my shift ended,” Leo thought bitterly as they sped away into the night, “some robber has to go and ruin my evening.”…
–
Sergent James White had been around a while by almost anyone’s standards. He had grown up on an Illinois farm, and had gone to college to be a teacher. Halfway through, he fell in love with a lovely young lady named Madeline. They got married straight out of college, and she had become pregnant with their daughter within a year. He found a good job teaching at a local college, but it hadn’t been as fulfilling as he had wanted it to. One night over dinner, a friend of his on the police force had mentioned that they were looking for help, and on a whim he had gone down to the station to apply. He hadn’t really expected to hear back from them, but three years later he was a rookie cop on the force. He had been with them ever since, for almost thirty years.
He was thinking of his wife tonight as they wove their way through traffic. Madeline had never been completely comfortable with his job as a police officer. She had supported him completely from the start, but she voiced her reservations for his safety on a regular basis. He had always assured her that nothing was going to happen to him; after all, even when officers were injured on the job, it was rarely fatal.
–
“Focus on the task, Jim.” he told himself. “Focus on the task at hand.” He took a corner a bit too fast, spilling his partner’s coffee on the dash. Hayes didn’t notice. He was too busy fishing his bulletproof vest out of the back seat. Pulling it on in the car was an awkward affair. Information continued to come across the radio. “Twenty-four year old female customer is reporting that two suspects entered the store and demanded money. Sounds like they forced an employee to go to the back room and open the safe. The caller reported that they were armed with handguns.”
James groaned. “Those safes won’t open, they’re on a time lock. They freakin’ post that right on the door.” Leo shrugged, pulling the nylon straps on the sides of his vest tight. “Who ever said criminals were smart enough to read signs?” James sighed. Leo was right. The ones who hit convenience stores weren’t too smart – they were usually looking for quick cash to feed an addiction. And if they were withdrawn, it would make a tense situation even worse. James picked up the radio’s microphone. “Dispatch, twenty-two seven. Where is the caller calling us from?” He released the button and waited for the answer. “The caller reported that she locked herself and her child in the bathroom, and she’s calling from there.”
Fantastic. A kid upped the stakes even more. The last thing he wanted was some dead child’s face splashed across the news tonight if things turned ugly.
And he had the feeling that things were going to turn ugly.
–
The police cruiser screeched to a stop in front of the tiny store, and the two men were stumbling out of the vehicle before it was even fully stopped. Leo glanced up at his partner as he was checking the clip on his service sidearm. “Don’t you want a vest?” James shook his head as he drew his own weapon. “Na, it hinders movement too much. Might need to move fast.” He grabbed the top of his .45 and drew the slide back slightly, checking that a round was chambered before taking off toward the store’s front door. Leo started to object, but the older officer cut him off. “No time, let’s go.”
The store itself was eerily quiet as they entered it. Overhead, the lights burned brightly, illuminating the entire store with a fluorescent glow that seemed harsh and cold. Shouting could be heard from the back of the store as the policemen moved briskly down aisles of potato chips and greeting cards. Leo spotted the door to the bathroom. It had sustained several large dents and the door handle was lying on the ground in pieces. A quick check inside revealed no one. The shouts were more distinct now; a man and two women were easily identifiable. James and Leo crept forward slowly toward the back of the store and through the open door marked “Employees only”.
The shouts were just around the corner. Hiding behind a pile of cardboard boxes, James took a brief peek around the corner. “Not good, Hayes.” he whispered. Leo took a quick glance for himself. The manager’s office was barely large enough to hold two people and the computer that were crammed into it. Inside, a female employee was crouched down, tearfully punching the buttons and twisting the dial on the front of the safe. One of the robbers was pointing his gun at her, yelling at her to get the safe open. The other held a twenty-something woman and her young daughter hostage, his wild eyes flicking from his companion, to his hostages, and back again. James glanced quickly around the corner that led to the office, then ducked back.
They were only about ten feet away from the woman and her daughter. “If they see us, there’s a chance that Crazy Eyes there will shoot her and the kid.” James shook his head. “His buddy is getting pretty worked up. He might do that anyways.” “Yeah, but shooting at civilians makes me nervous. Backup will be here in a few minutes.” The screaming down the hall suddenly went up in volume, the lead robber threatening to shoot them all if the safe wasn’t opened soon. Leo rolled his eyes. “Damn it.” he breathed. “On three?” The two men locked eyes, raised their guns, and counted silently to three…
–
James made no sound as the bullet entered his body; he couldn’t. He had used all his breath just moments before yelling at the two men to get down on the ground. It had all happened so fast, he hadn’t seen who had shot him. He didn’t even realize that he had been shot. He only remembered trying to put himself between the gunmen and the child, and then suddenly he was lying on his side on the concrete. He heard four gunshots in quick succession above him. Something warm and sticky was on his chest. With difficulty, he tilted his head down to see his uniform covered with blood. “That’s odd”, he thought. “How did that get there?” Maybe the blood had come from one of the suspects. But then, why couldn’t he get up? He had the sudden realization that the blood must be his. There was no pain, which was funny. He heard Leo shouting his name in the distance. Hands rolled him over, and he was squinting up into the face of his partner. The woman was nearby, holding her crying child. Leo was yelling into his radio. He shouted something to the woman, who ran out of the room. James was dying. He could feel it. He felt sad for Maddie, sad for his daughter. This was all happening so fast. He hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye. They would miss him. He would miss them. He smiled up at Leo.
“You know,” he whispered. “none of us are getting out of here alive…”
Exit, stage left.
Sparks