MoonViews

So here I lay in a hospital bed, dying at the ripe old age of 83, and I swear I’ll toss this damned bedpan at the next nurse who refers to me as 83 years young when she’s helping me piss. Young, my arse. I won’t be alive this time next week, sweetie, so save the disgusting platitudes for pediatrics. No male there takes 30 minutes to pee a cuppa.

Cancer from the neck to the knees, I’ve got. Could have surprised me; hell, it did. I go to the doctor last week – the expensive bastard – for what I considered a sore throat, and damned if he doesn’t tell me my ticket is about to be punched. Lunch is over. If you like fishing, you’d better catch a few soon. He offered to do chemo, radio, but I said hell no. I went home to do my dying and woke up in this sterile environment yesterday.

Children. All the hell I went through for them and this is their thank you. What happened to respecting last wishes? That’s okay; I’ve got a cane here to throw at them when they come to visit this afternoon. If they come. I signed all their legal papers yesterday, so the question is valid. No particular need to see me today.

So this is dying, is it? Heard about it all my life, and now I’m here at death’s door waiting for some fool to open it. “Knock knock!” “Who’s there?” “Madam!” “Madam Who?” “My damn foot’s caught in the door!” Hee hee hee! Got to have a sense of humor at a time like this, I suppose. What else am I going to do? Can’t get laid. Too old for football tryouts. I suppose I have time to start collecting stamps: might get two or three before Reaper shows up, grim or giggling. Who really cares what his demeanor is? Sumbitch. Just come on and let’s get this over with.

The hospital chaplain paid a visit this morning just before the nurse wiped the scrambled egg off my chin. I had tried to convince her to give an old coot one last glimpse at some cleavage before he croaked, but the hag struck an attitude and became less attentive to where the fork landed. Posthumous sexual harassment suit on the way, no doubt.

Father Sun was nice enough, I suppose. Looked an awful lot like the Vietnamese I was forced to shoot by politicians with the morals of gnats back when I was a boy who didn’t know better. What a wasted year that was, killing innocents in a futile effort to prove to the USSR that our phallus was bigger than theirs. Sometimes I think women should rule the world: have you ever seen two of them fighting over who had the biggest boobs? Then, again, I’ve never met someone so hard on women as other women, so maybe their rule would usher in the Apocalypse.

When I was a young man, I told Father Sun, I thought old folk got religion because they were afraid of dying. Not so, I’ve discovered now that I am one of them. What old man in his right mind would fear death? It is time. It is right. It is good. One last breath, and ‘click’ the unused Depends can go to the Salvation Army.

I told Father Sun that I’ve thought a lot about Heaven and Hell; and, you know what? I don’t care either way. My money’s on oblivion. Just as I wasn’t fearful when dinosaurs roamed the earth, because I did not exist, neither will I know regret or remorse once dirt fills my grave. It’s hard to fear something you’ll be unaware of, you know. Father Sun said God sent us proof of an afterlife, but I said He didn’t send it to me for first-hand knowledge, and that in my experience rumors of Man are best ignored. Any incident of history that we investigate invariably turns out to be completely unrelated to first reports.

“Not ‘unrelated,’” he said. “’Unlike.’ And there is a world of difference. If the reports matched exactly, I would not believe it myself.”

Smart fellow, Father Sun. I hope I did not kill any of his relatives in Vietnam. If I did, I hope I’m forgiven… wait. Never mind that. The need for forgiveness is a moot point, isn’t it?