It wasn't so bad, the cancer, eating me from the inside out. Started with headaches, diagnoses, hopes and dreams dashed like fine china on the asphalt. My hands shaking, pillow wet in the morning, children gripping me, knowing without words that life was changing. Daddy is dying, mommy said. Like grandma. No, daddy isn't going to heaven. There is no heaven. Only the great void. Its nothing to be afraid of Sofie. Daddy loves you. More doctors and pills, and then pain and then...nothing. The desire to life squashed like a grape on the supermarket floor. Life itself spinning, a dreidel without a tabletop. Stars colliding, my world falling to pieces. Blurred lines, tears falling like snowflakes. Brittle bones crushing on the hospital floor. It's not so bad, this colorful abstract art. Go into the light. There is a sleeping child there, gripping a brown bear, beneath pink cotton sheets. Love coats the walls of this place. Maybe it is heaven after all. She groans and spits-up, squirms and pitches. It's another girl for you. She's a baby. She has your nose. Daddy is dead. But Lily is alive. She is shiny, like chrome. But she is in pain. See how her stomach turns. It's ok baby. I've got you.

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Galen over 13 years ago

And, by absurd, you mean the philosophical sense, not the colloquial, correct?

Galen over 13 years ago

By all means. :D

Aureliana over 13 years ago

This is a lot deeper than you seem to realise, after seeing the tag "absurd". Having dealt with cancer, warring and winning before being summoned back to the field of battle, I know that it truly can be this surreal and strange. I commend you; you captured it well.

bon Baron over 13 years ago

Thanks Aureliana. I was 16 when my mom died after a long battle with cancer. I tried to reach down and rip something out in 6 minutes, and that's what came. I appreciate your comments :)

bon Baron over 13 years ago

Yes, philosophical, like Camus. Great site, by the way. I am looking forward to peppering it with retarded stories :)

bon Baron (joined over 13 years ago)

I always knew I would be a writer, ever since I was 9 years old and I got my first A++ on a creative writing assignment. I suppose I should wonder if I do it for the promise of approbation. In any event, I never actually did become a writer. I became a lawyer. Now I am 40, and wondering whether I will ever fulfill my potential as a writer. I like the idea of the 6 minute story, because that seems to be all my brain can give at any one time to the deep, empty pocket that is my audience. If you leave me comments, and dare I wish, approbation, then perhaps I will expand my ouvre and fulfill my destiny.

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Story information

License

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

genres

fiction absurd prose

tags

life and death

Prompt

She could tell I was faking it.
Prompt suggested by jadetine

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