Blink

by Paul Teodo & Tom Myers

His hot wet cheek was only soothed by the cool wooden floor. His leg splayed awkwardly under his bony torso. Movement was not within him, other than the labored blink from his one seeing eye. His chest, involuntarily heaving, arrhythmic. His fluttering heart diminished, each beat seemingly more distant from the last.

 A fluid gurgle welled in his chest.

“What are we going to do with him?” It was not a question.

“He’s not a piece of furniture.” They had given him a separate room.

“You know what I mean.” 

“Do I?” His voice low, challenging.

“Don’t start. I’ve been here all along for you. And him.” No back-off in her.

“Jamie, this is going to be a marathon. Not a sprint.”

“You don’t know what we’re in for,” she said.

Silence.

He blinked again. His cheek no longer soothed by the wooden floor beneath it.  A wisp of intrusive dust drifted towards him, settling on his lashes. A laborious blink, his only remedy, then another, the particle unmoving.

“I can handle it.”

“It’s a marathon! You just said it!” Her voice rose. ”We can’t handle this.”

Marathon.

They ran in the city’s first, their first, in ’77.  With a few thousand others. He was 50, his son 30. The only race he bested him. They were middle pack finishers. But like his son said, hugging him joyously, they were finishers.

Bloody feet, raw inner thighs and nipples, purple toenails, and fiery, crippling leg-cramps, all painful remnants of their tortuous conquest.

“I don’t care. He’s my father.” His voice desperate. 

“Andrew,” his wife’s voice lowered, “I’m carrying our child. We can’t do this.”

Andrew. The boy’s mother campaigned for that name. The battle was short and one-sided. Mom knew best. 

“Oh no,” Mom said.  “Never Andy.” 

Andrew was strong, forthright, commanding. Andy wistful, light hearted, and childish.

So Andrew it was.

His breath slowed, his son’s words, He’s my father, burrowing deep into his faltering heart.

“What about your job?”  she asked.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

“You can’t take care of yourself, let alone your father. We have 2 bedrooms. One bathroom. We can find a place for him.”

“No! We’re not putting him in a place!”

A strangled cough struggled to escape his failing lungs

His only defense, a blink.

“We’ll need that room for the baby,” she said.

Baby. Andrew. A father.

 Ah yes. Our Andrew. A father.

“Where then, will we put him?”

“He’s not going to be put!”

Silence.

A spider scuttled across the floor, its sinister legs propelling its frightening torso.

 His eye still blurred from the dust.

“I…don’t know,” Andrew said.

“See,” she said, proud of her practicality. “You don’t even know where he belongs! He cannot stay with us.”

He closed his eye.

He did not blink.

Thick drool slowly oozed from his mouth, puddling on the hardwood floor.

His final labored breath.

She was right. She was always right.

Andrew was strong.

He would be a good father.

A gentle breeze from under the door released the dust from his lashes.

His last breath, fulfilled.

He finished. Like Andrew had said.

He no longer needed to blink.