Warren knows she's sick. If he doesn't take her in will she get worse. If he takes her in...will she ever come home?
End of the Day
By Thomas Chase
Morning rays from the sun shone through the bedroom curtains and speared Warren in the face. He groaned audibly and covered his head with the pillow. He tossed and turned and pounded his heels and then gave up, realizing he wasn’t going to fall back to sleep. He threw the pillow to the floor and sat up, feeling as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. There was an annoying itch in his mind like burning thistles with what the morning signified.
It wasn’t so much that he needed to take her in, but the terrible possibility that he would have to leave her. He slowly and methodically forced his weary body out of bed and headed for the kitchen. He kept busy with breakfast in an attempt to distract his thinking; to no avail.
Yesterday he could tell she wasn’t doing well and he reluctantly made the call. With a shaky voice he described her symptoms and was told to his dismay that he should bring her in immediately. The chance that such a thing could happen was always in the back of his mind, and yet he thought like most and it would never happen to her. The only way to have avoided such a thing would be to never allow her to venture from the confines of the house, which he knew was absurd. So she became infected and his only choice was to take her in. He felt guilty that it was his fault and kept telling himself that most—at some time or another—caught it; a ghastly truism of manifest destiny.
“Rotten virus,” he muttered and rubbed his clammy hands together.
He stood at the kitchen sink and told himself repeatedly that it could always be worse. But for the life of him, he didn’t see how. His stomach protested with a loud grumble, apparently not believing the conviction either.
“Enough stalling,” he said resolutely.
He put the breakfast dishes away and went to the bathroom and wet a washcloth. He entered her room with his head hanging and stood for long minutes staring wordlessly at her blank face. He shook visibly and came out of his trance and shuffled over and wiped her face with the warm washcloth.
“This won’t be that bad,” he whispered, the washcloth becoming a knot in his nervous hands. “A lot go through this. It’s normal. You’ll be home in no time.”
He tossed the washcloth on the desk and went to the closet and fetched the blanket. It was the one he used every night to cover her, which he thought appropriate for the trip. He experienced a momentary pang of guilt wondering if he employed the blanket to make the trip safer for her, or to ease his own pain. It didn’t matter, as the results were the same and she would travel safer.
His eyes darted around the room, knowing what an arduous task it would be to enter her space again if there were complications and she couldn’t return home anytime soon—or at all. The last notion didn’t compute in his muddled mind, and he reasoned with deluded denial that such a travesty would never befall her. He held the blanket in his hands and admired her smooth face, her dreadful silence spearing his heart.
“Okay this is it,” he whispered and took a ragged breath, his lungs wheezing. “It’s time.
While gently whispering to her that it would be fine, he meticulously wrapped her in the blanket. After checking twice that all the corners were tucked in, he picked her up and cradled her in his protective arms and exited her room. The walk through the living room transformed into a foggy ordeal. His eyes watered with the realization that he was really going to follow through with this task. Suddenly his legs felt like rubber and his hands turned damp and he concentrated not to drop her—as if such a thing was possible.
“I can do it. I can do it.” Warren repeated the litany until he was across the wide expanse of the kitchen. He held her on a weak knee and grudgingly opened the door to the outside world. “Well,” he wheezed, “I have to do this now, my precious. I can’t go through all this again and stay sane.”
He held her tightly and ever so gently as he trudged to his car. He knew there was no turning back now; he had crossed the point of no return. The wind whispered harshly as it rustled through the tree branches looming over him, as if warning him that this was a day of foreboding. The usual comforting morning bird songs sounded surreal with high-pitched squawks as if they complained that he dare remove her from the protection of home.
He hunched his shoulders and hugged her to his chest and carefully opened the passenger door, ignoring nature’s outbursts. He placed her on the seat, but couldn’t go around to the driver’s side until he checked three times to ensure the seat belt was securely fastened. He got behind the wheel and carefully put the car in reverse. Before he moved, however, he reached out a shaking hand and pulled on the belt to insure it was secure. Each time he ran over a bump, pothole, railroad crossing, or sharp corner, he reached over and patted her reassuringly.
The closer to his destination the worse his nerves were stretched. When a low-life, inconsiderate driver from the deepest pit of hell pulled out in front of him and he had to slam on the brakes he came close to losing it completely. He held her with one hand and the driver of the heinous infraction was punished with vocal reprimands and a middle finger waving threateningly. He was a little surprised that he was so ardent to perform such actions, but rationalized them because it was a threat to her safety—such audacity.
He reached his destination and felt as if eons had passed. He pulled into the parking lot and his heart pounded with such force that he imagined it reverberated off the windows. It took two attempts to turn off the ignition, as each time he turned it off he panicked and turned it back on. After winning the ignition battle, he slowly made his way around to the passenger door. He placed his hands on the roof and concentrated to capture a decent breath. The trip had completely exhausted him. No, it was more than that. It bordered on total weariness of the soul. His energy—his life force—had abandoned him sometime during the trip.
Letting out a long sigh, he opened the door and carefully unhooked the seat belt and cradled her in his arms. Anger and fear shot up his spine and he kicked the car door shut. He walked heavy-footed into the building that in the past always held such awe, but now it held his fate.
He placed her carefully on the counter and patted her face and said with a dry throat, “Be gentle with her, Richard. She holds in her memory the last five years of my life.”
“Like she was my own,” Richard said reverently and laid a hand on the monitor.
Warren walked out of Computer Rescue World, shoulders slumped and his lungs wheezing. He kept telling himself she was in the best possible care and rescue was the operative word. He believed that good things happened, and by the end of the day he would be notified of her full recovery.
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You held me spellbound with your emotional description of what was going through the mind of the narrator. Even with the dense formatting I was able to almost read every word as I raced to the big surprise at the end. Believe it or not, I thought he was taking his dog to the vet!
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