50

I tried to hold it all in my head. Until I'm blue.

It's like those times we held our breaths underwater. Until we were blue inside.

I held it in my head, like a leaking water balloon, I reached home an hour later, that's the best I can do. No, that's not it. I went into the stores, into white light and pushing noises. The eleven o clock shoppers. I joined the queue and bought stuff I don't need. I bought a bagful of wafer biscuits I knew I won't eat. But it had to be done. Ritual is a ritual. When 63 died, bleeding his entire bed, I had spent the afternoon in the bar. Like everything worthy in life, self indulgence is a 12 step program.

At home in front of the computer, I unloaded and there was nothing. My head the size of a sunken balloon. All I could remember was the mixed emotions of relief followed by instant horror when he finally spoke.

I swore that was him speaking.

His first word after a 280 days of coma was his death rattle.    

Now I can remember that first time we met. He could walk then and he was in the isolation room. They said he's a bit crazy but don't we all? He refused to let the nurses shower him, so they get me, a dude. He's not crazy, towering and shaggy headed, but not crazy. In fact he's quite polite.

A while ago at his bedside where everything was ripped opened and him rattling for a good ten second, I could remember nothing. All I could comprehend is this thick muck of silence in my head.

On the train home I put on my ipod and tried to drown this fog of silence off. I can't. I'm defenseless even against myself. All I had were The Cure and Smashing Pumpkins.

For the longest time, I don't believe that this woman was his wife. She appeared only at the last two weeks. Spending 270 odd days with him, I had my doubts with her sudden appearance. But seeing her crying, calling and slapping his cold clammy torso, I believe she love him.

When the rest of the family came, the wailing imploded. Even that could not drown out the murky silence in my head. So I stood there and let both of the wailing and the absurd tranquility bathe me like how the sun and the moonlight do. I must have tell myself that I had in fact enjoy this. The hollow rotten bastard that seek pleasure through people's misery. I think deep down I have to keep telling myself I do what I do, so that I won't leave this job, or worse: join them and burst into tears.