The Last Supper

The Last Supper

Last night we dined in memorial elegance. It was delightful.
From the table candlelight cast a dancing shadow, skeletal, above us on the wall. Remembrance floated in, drifting up like the wafts of aromatic steam rising from the silver platters set before us. It touched us with dreamy reminiscence where we were numb with the pain of parting.
I smiled seductive still, and cupped a glass of ruby wine in my trembling birds-claw hands. A tremulous slip and the spreading stain blotted the pristine linen like blood on white hospital sheets.
Yesterday’s dinner was a dream and like a dream I watch myself receding. It is time to go and I am ready.

We agreed yesterday that today would be the day, but the decision we made together a long time ago. We knew from the beginning and it was impossible to imagine that it would come any other way. I wasn’t born to suffer; I’m too feeble and not heroic enough to face a future full of pain. I am weak and growing weaker every day. It is time to go.

If the Son of God was born to suffer then I know that I was not; not I, small inconsequential and tormented me. If God is as they say, all suffering, then He will know and understand that this burden He has sent me is too heavy for me to bear. How I long now to be free as I cannot bear it any further. He will of anyone understand my longing to bring this all to an end.
I will not let my love bear my cross any longer, to watch him feel my pain is to suffer more and it is time to free him.

The judicious will assemble and evaluate my passing; who are they that I must bid permission to end my suffering. It’s not their faces that are etched with pain, it’s not their bodies that are crippled and it’s not their hearts that are breaking. This is my life and my choice it is to leave it. Only I ask that they appraise my love with perception and do not enclose him; he has been here with me incarcerated for far too long, his sentence has been already been long served.
We talk of what will happen after; when I am gone, and he tells me not to worry;
“It’s alright “he says “I’ll get remission.” Lucky him I won't.

It is the morning and there is music playing. It is a soft and gentle dawn. We spent the night together but already we’re a million miles apart. Like fetal geminis we lay curled together in the bed, but my bones press against his sleeping flesh and the discomfort stirs him. I crave release yet I want to stay this way forever.

Slowly now the life is seeping from my chemically crippled cells. Everything is as planned.
As we bathe in the sunlight from the open window, I smell the acid sweat of my reaction.
It is time. It has come.
Finally it has here.
Give me time to hear one more song; our song, and then I will be gone.

It is now.

I sigh and its echo rattles in my almost empty lungs.

He holds my hand and kisses me.
He loves me once more in his special way.
And then I will be gone.

Word Count : 586
NB: Written from a newspaper clipping about euthanasia.