Here in my bed, I
await Death.
I am a sick old man.
I have lived a long and prosperous life, as good as I could be, and
as bad as I could be. I helped the poor when I was barely scraping by
myself, learning the law to help the suffering and make sure the
innocent was not persecuted. And when I passed the bar, I joined a
big law firm.
I defended the
innocent in my early days, and I always lost. So I started defending
the guilty. After that, I rarely lost a case. Soon, I was the Vinero
family 's only lawyer. I ended up starting a big law firm with
another lawyer. I stole my partner's wife. He committed suicide and
I became sole owner of the firm. I raised two children. A boy and a
girl. My son has left the family, never to stay in touch. I have no
way of knowing if he is alive, dead or has a family of his own. My
daughter has lived with me after burying two husbands, one dying of
acute alcoholism, the other in an unnamed war half-way across the
globe.
She has been been
taking care of me since my wife died ten years ago after a terrible
fall down the stairs. My daughter is good to me. Even after I am
horrible to her. She still worships the ground I stand on----
Wait.
What is that
scratching on my window?
It is Death. I know
it. He is scratching on the glass with his long boney finger. I see
his red eyes staring at me from out the cold,dark night. I hear him
hissing---
My bedroom door
creaks open. I scream, “Back, you fiend! Back to the land of the
dead! You'll never take me with you!”
It is only my
daughter to bring me tea and my supper.
She is good to me.
I smile at her, so
very glad she is here with me. I tell her that. She laughs, tells me
I am a silly old man.
She sets the silver
tray in front of me. I welcome the tray containing my plate of
scrambled eggs and tea with much excitement.
I pat my daughter's
hand. She smiles at me, says she loves me. In mere moments, I feel
her hand growing colder-----ice cold. I look down and see it no
longer has warm peach skin upon it.
It is now a long
bone white hand.
I look up at my
daughter. She is still smiling, endearingly, those horrible red eyes
staring me down.........
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