Deathwish

Before I knew it, I was breathing heavy and sharp, sitting next to death on a lumpy brown couch watching decade old sitcoms and drinking cheap whisky. He greeted me like an old friend striking me on the back and as he looked over at me, I could feel the icy rush of hot blood pulsing down the length of my left forearm into the very tips of my fingers. We both knew there was nothing worth a damn on the TV and the volume of the room fell mute. In silence, I dreamed of answers to questions I’d long since forgotten but he had so very little to say that my curiosity got the better of me and I leaned in a bit closer. Where from what place I imagined decay, I smelled the pungent scent of moisture in the air after a heavy rain and it confused me as much as his latest visit this week. He cocked a troubled eyebrow upward, as if to ask what I expected but I wouldn’t know how to answer that question either, even if I could speak. So I stared then, lost somewhere in translation, as he stood up and pulled the fleshy knot loose from beneath my lungs and laid me back to rest for as long as I could on that lumpy old couch. I opened my tired eyes and looked once again around the empty room. I guess he must have found somewhere else he’d rather be and I really couldn’t blame him because if I could, I’d go there too but as my commercial break ended and I dawdled there in solitude trying to remember all those pointless questions a childhood imagination once had for my shifty friend, I tilted the bottle up and finished off the last remaining drops of cheap whisky wishing and waiting for tomorrow