A Quiet End - A short, short story

 

A Quiet End

 

Author’s note: I thought that I would hit you with a short, short story this time on the blog. I wrote it a number of years ago, and it has been through numerous edits. I warn you; it is somewhat grim and brooding, which as you all well know, fits perfectly with my personality. I welcome your positive or negative feedback. Criticism is welcome.

A Quiet End

A Short Story by Matt Cantillon

 

                The old woman sat smoking a cigarette in her TV room. She was surrounded by hundreds of books, dozens of medicine bottles, empty soda cans and full ashtrays. She hurt. Her knees and ankles, her gut, her arthritic hands all throbbed in an unsettling and painful dissonance. For the hundredth time that day she silently wished that she were dead.

                The room in which she sat was a small den at the back of her condominium. It contained a love seat and rocking chair, two TV trays and several bookshelves crammed with books. Also, of course, there was the TV and the cable paraphernalia. The wallpaper and furniture reeked of the thousands of cigarettes that had been smoked in that small space. There was a sliding glass door to the outside, which was covered by insulated, room darkening drapes. It seemed as though no natural light was permitted in the room.  Even with the overhead light and two lamps blazing, the room felt dark and melancholy, as if it had been infused with a thousand sorrows.

                Her name was Mary. She was no longer able to read, which had been her main source of entertainment. At that moment, she had no wish to turn on the television and watch whatever drivel was being dished up by the hundred-odd channels available to her. She could barely speak, having suffered two strokes during the prior year. She strongly resented the fact that although her mind still functioned with razor-sharp precision, most of her thoughts remained locked inside her head, unable to be articulated. As she smoked silently, she wondered what ill force it was that had brought her to this time and place.

She was lonely, old, and hurting. As a young woman, she had been a prodigy, and the apple of her father’s eye. In high school, she had won numerous math and science awards, in college she had lettered in two sports, majored in organic chemistry, had been courted by all the ‘best’ young men, and had graduated summa cum laude. She had then completed two advanced degrees in chemistry and had again been granted her degrees with honors. She had been hired right out of graduate school by a major chemical company, and even held a patent for a revolutionary plastic material, which she and a co-worker had discovered and perfected.

She had then met and married a handsome young man, a successful advertising executive and decorated war hero. She and her husband had had one child and adopted two more. But somehow the wheels had come off her life many years ago. In the years preceding her husband’s death she had begun to exhibit symptoms of mental illness. Finally, during a fierce argument with her husband, she snatched up her toddler daughter and hung her out the 8^th floor window of their apartment, shouting, “How would you like it if I dropped your precious daughter!”. Her husband was forced to issue an ultimatum: either get some help, or he would take the kids and leave her. She was soon hospitalized and diagnosed as manic-depressive.  A few months after her treatment and return home, her husband died of cirrhosis of the liver, and to many it had looked as though his death had been self-inflicted.

A widow at the age of 36, her family shunted her and her three kids off to live with relatives in a small Kentucky town on the Ohio river. At a minimum this was a massive culture shock for her and the kids, having come to this small town from New York City.  Her family was ill equipped and also disinclined to deal with a mentally ill widow with three children. The widow’s oldest and only natural-born child, having been constantly told after his father’s death that he had to “be the man of the family” in the parlance of the times, tried as best he could to keep things together. He became the object of much abuse by his mother, but at some level he understood that this was not really his mother abusing him, but rather a combination of alcohol, prescription drugs and mental illness. Despite what he had to deal with, he grew into a reasonably high functioning adult, married, and moved away.

Her middle child was diagnosed as a psychotic while serving in the military, having run away from home to join.  He was in and out of VA facilities and finally disappeared in the late eighties.  

Mary had spent the last 30 years of her life raging at her lack of good fortune, ignoring the fact that her own drinking and drug abuse, as well as her mental illness, combined with a near-pathological shyness had contributed significantly to her questionable fortunes.

Now, friendless, and alone, she sat smoking in the back of the condominium she owned free and clear. She thought of her children, especially the psychotic middle child. She had driven him away. She wondered if maybe she had been in any way a cause of his mental condition, if such a thing was possible. He had run away from home during senior year in high school and had joined the Marines. The only reason she knew what had happened to him was because the Marines had compelled him to write home.  After some years serving in various places, he was medically discharged, diagnosed as manic depressive and on full disability. She hadn’t heard from him in several years.

She had just seen her eldest son and his new wife a week or so ago. They had driven up from New Mexico, where they currently lived. He had his own business, creating computer software to do accounting, and his wife was an artist, a potter, and a psychotherapist.  The wife had brought a piece of her own work as a Christmas gift.  The old woman had enjoyed the visit, despite her embarrassment at her physical condition.  The couple had brought their little dog, which had scared all the cats. The cats were at her home courtesy of her daughter.

Her mind wandered to her daughter. “She would never get it right. Now her daughter was living here with her son. She had MS. She had Type I Diabetes. What on earth could I have done to deserve children like this? “

 “Well at least the oldest, seemed happy and somewhat normal.”, she mused.

She lit another cigarette, coughing sharply from the first puff.   She picked up the asthma inhaler that her doctor had given her for the emphysema, looking at the smoking cigarette in one hand and the inhaler in the other, aware of the irony of the moment, but choosing to ignore it. She took two puffs of the inhaler, coughed painfully, and then took a long pull on the cigarette. She was indeed a committed smoker. Family legend had it that she had had very serious surgery several years prior, and upon regaining consciousness, had begged first for a cigarette, even though she found herself in an oxygen tent!

                The gas burner lit on the gas furnace in the next room. The heating and cooling man had come earlier that day because the furnace was not putting out sufficient heat upstairs. He had diagnosed the problem as a cracked firebox, and advised them to not use the furnace, and to replace it at once, because it was emitting carbon monoxide.  He had seemed genuinely upset but said that he could not come back until the next day to begin the process of replacing the system. The woman took a deep breath as the blower on the furnace kicked in and began sending air through the ductwork.  She had wished that she were dead so many times in the last 38 years.  Following her husband’s death, she had embarked on a life that was, at best, going through the motions, and at worst, an abdication of her humanity. She had lived a life whose emblems were resentment and naked fury, and had for the most part, left her children to raise themselves. The most common interaction with them, especially her eldest, had been fierce, unrelenting abuse. She had taken out most of her frustration on her oldest son, who was her only natural born child. Yet he now seemed to be OK, and not angry at her in the least.

Her body failed her in increments. It was as if she was getting her wish, but in small bits and pieces. There had been the removal of most of the stomach and intestines. There had been the gall bladder problems, kidney problems, and now the emphysema and the strokes. Watch out for what you pray for, and how you pray for it, she thought.  In contemplating her wish to die, she had rationalized that as long as she did not tacitly commit an act that could be construed as suicide, she would be OK.  Suicide, in her odd way of rationalizing, was somehow an act beyond redemption.

She thought of a short story she had read once where a fellow had sold his soul for immortality. He had tried all sorts of ways to die and was indeed indestructible. So, he had decided to kill someone, so he could experience being executed by the state. But instead, he had been sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.

Life was unpredictable that way. It didn’t matter how closely you followed the rules; you’d still get screwed. She had been 36 years old when her husband had died. She had never had anything whatsoever to do with a man since then. She had endured her children’s’ growth as best she could. All she had asked for was to be taken from this life, and she couldn’t even have that without having it taken away in painful bits and pieces.

But now she figured she might just get her wish. “A little monoxide poisoning and this fragile old lady might just succumb.”, she thought.  She knew her chances would be best if she went upstairs to her bedroom. She knew monoxide was lighter than air and would collect upstairs. She also knew her daughter would not be home until late, and her grandson Nathan would not return until after work at about 2:00 AM. She had plenty of time. She crushed out the cigarette in the ash tray. She took her cane and haltingly rose.

She placed her cigarettes in the pocket of her housecoat, and gently tottered toward the steps. Up the steps she went, one at a time, one foot at a time until she reached the top. It was cold upstairs. She went into her room and closed the door. There were two heat outlets in her small room. She sat down heavily on the bed and lit another cigarette. “I am 73 years old”, she thought to herself. “Enough is enough. Take me now, will you for Christ’s sake?” She had rubber banded all her important papers together and placed them in the top drawer of her dresser.

She pulled aside the covers, and painfully slid into the bed. Sleep came quickly.