Vicious Cycles

Apel's eyes flutter shut, and his mouth parts, pale pink lips cracked like earth slowly, slowly unsticking themselves.

He feels the three fingers she's pressing gently to the left side of his jaw as she ever-so-carefully dabs the right with a moist cloth.

He breathes out as her ring finger leaves a feathery-light trail up his cheek. His breath probably smells, but he doesn't care. His tongue hasn't tasted food in weeks. It's so unused that he begins to think that it's permanently stuck to his palette.

He can't believe that she's touching his disgusting, pasty skin. Even if it's only her job.

She stops, and in a hushed voice whispers something about going for a walk around the grounds. He doesn't respond, but he knows they'll go anyway. All he can concentrate on is the puffs of air he feels on his face when she talks to him.

He wishes that she would stay and stroke his face until dawn.

He feels almost normal when she's by his side.

Apel knows that he is dying. In fact, if he had not been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, he would never have met his angel. Cruel irony.

But alas, such is life. How he ached to have her hold him in her arms, stroking him, maybe humming a lullaby in his ear. How his fingers twitched with the struggle of knowing that they could not move but wanting with every fiber in their being to touch her. Just reach out and touch her skirt as she walked down the hallway, if anything.

Does she feel disgust when she changes his IV? Does she wish that she was at home in the company of a handsome, strapping young cowboy ready to sweep her off her feet with suavity and charm instead of being forced to care for a dying man?

Love is not all it is made out to be. Two people are not always perfect.

Apel clung to this hope for the longest time, when he could still talk but chose not to. Now, when simply opening his mouth was a struggle, all he wanted to do was to be heard.

Sometimes, when Apel was too fed up to tell himself to stay calm, he had the greatest, most irrepressible desire to cry his heart out. But the crinkling of the eyes, the scrunching of the nose, the beautiful distortion of the mouth were simple motions that he had been stripped of. The human instinct to release pain, sadness, anger, frustration was no longer his.

Now, the nurse comes back in.

Her name is Daisy.

He has all sorts of nicknames swirling in his head, just on the tip of his tongue, ready to be released into the air and ride the wind.

Daisy-doo.

Sunshine Daisy.

Angel Daisy.

Dizzy Daisy. Dizzying Daisy.

My darling Daisy.

"I LOVE YOU, DAISY!"

He was dying to say it.

Anguish ripped through his body, tearing him limb from limb. She was walking towards him, killing him with every step.

He was flooded with her clean, nurse smell. Her bouncy light brown hair. Her smiling eyes. Her hand covering his hand. Her lips moving, asking if he was alright.

He sporadically turned his head to one side, control slightly out of reach. She leaned in closer, concern etched in her features.

All of his humility, for her.

What must she think of a man, old beyond his years, with ugly skin and ugly movements so contrary to her cowboy.

His head jerked back to its original side, and in doing so, their lips brushed, her face a fraction too close.

She gave a little "ooh!" and smiled politely, pretending it never happened.

But Apel was ecstatic with joy. He could do anything now. He could jump out of his wheelchair, chew a medium rare steak feel it go down his throat. He could take her face in his hands and kiss her.

He opened his mouth again. His lip cracked. A stream of air came out of his mouth. He had forgotten how to make noise.

Apel wasn't sure what would kill him first; the disease, or the intense, painful frustration pulsating through his entire body. The kind of frustration that has you punching your pillow, letting out a scream of pure aggravation, smashing the keyboard with random letters and then heatedly pressing the Enter button a thousand times. Apel could have done them all, and more.

He tried visualization. Remembered a doctor in the past mention something about how that helped. So he imagined a music note, traveling from the pit of his stomach and up his esophagus, and then to his voice box, and then--

Still air.

WHY ME, GOD? WHY ME?!

And then, he screamed.

Mouth gaping like a fish out of water, Apel let out a soft, shrilly scream that broke in the middle and changed key.

Nurse Daisy rushed over to him.

"Mr. Gordon, are you alright? Does it hurt somewhere? Tell me, please." Her eyes betrayed her pleading care, and Apel was touched.

"I love you." He says.

"Mr. Gordon, tell me where it hurts. You're feet?"

"I love you." He repeats. "I...I love you. I love you."

"Mr. Gordon, I'm sorry but I can't understand what you're saying. How about, if the body part I name hurts, you nod your head, okay?"

"I love you." He whispers.

But Apel's tongue isn't moving. His tongue can’t move. He’s just letting out a string of tones.

He was dying to say it.

And he would.