Dying Wish (474 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.55 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by locksly (View user info) at 2007-01-11 03:43:55 EST
I pulled into the lot and parked, getting out of the car and pausing to look up at the sky. Above me was that rich California blue that makes you giddy and mellows you out at the same time. It was a beautiful spring day. As good a day to die as any, I suppose.
The car horn toot-tooted behind me. I turned and saw Old Cunty sitting on the passenger seat, his gray and bushy tail wagging away, hitting the chrome ring and sounding the old Chevrolet's horn.
I'd taught him to stay in the car until I said it was okay to come out.
"Let's go," I said.
Old Cunty let out a little 'hrumph' and carefully stepped down out of the car. There was a time when Old Cunty would have barked vigorously and launched himself into the air, but that was years ago.
I went into the building and stopped at the reception desk, smelling antiseptic and pine air freshener. Sounds were muted here. The paint on the walls was off-white, clean, soothing.
I'd been in places far worse than this. State-funded institutions were the worst. Hospices like this one, surviving on public funding alone, somehow always got it right.
The woman at the desk glanced up from her paperwork. There were lines worn into her face, creasing her forehead and bracketing her mouth, lines that were the insignia of women around the world and throughout the ages who worked to help others simply because it was the right thing to do.
"I'm here to see Mrs. Heller," I said.
Old Cunty's toenails ticked on the linoleum floor.
The receptionist stood and peered over the desk.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but animals are not allowed in this facility. Unless you are a family member, and she has none as far as I can recall, you'll have to—"
"I'm from Dying Wish," I said.
The woman's face changed, softened a little, as much as those hard-earned lines would allow.
"Oh," she said.
I smiled. I knew what was coming next.
"Mrs. Heller could pass at any time," she said, lowering her voice. "But she seemed okay when I saw her yesterday, as okay as anyone can be losing the fight against osteosarcoma."
She moved a few papers on her desk and then asked, "Why are you here now? Today?"
I looked down at Old Cunty, looked up, and shrugged. "It's his call," I said.
"Well," the woman said, coming around the desk, "I'm Anne Gordon. Follow me."
I introduced myself and followed her down the hall. We passed a number of doors and then Ms. Gordon opened one.
"Laura," she whispered. "There's... there's a man here from, well, from Dying Wish."
I heard a murmur.
"All right," Ms. Gordon said. She turned to me and opened the door wide.
When I had said I was from Dying Wish I hadn't told the whole truth, but I hadn't lied either.
I was Dying Wish. Just me, and the animals who did all the hard work.
I've been doing this for twenty-five years now. Old Cunty was the sixth Dying Wish I had worked with.
I stepped into the room, thanked Ms. Gordon, and closed the door.
"Hi," I said. "Mrs. Heller? This is Old Cunty."
The old lady in the bed raised her head off her pillow and winced, reached for the button that controlled her morphine drip, and then smiled through her pain when she saw Old Cunty's goofy face.
She was small, wasted from the cancer. I could tell she had lost her breasts to the disease years ago, and yet her chest pushed up against the sheet and blanket covering her. The tumors growing inside the bones expanded and distorted the strongest of our internal structures.
I couldn't imagine the pain.
I sat in a chair by the window. There was a tree outside and the leaves stirred in a light breeze, a lovely, calming sound.
I sat and watched the leaves move and let Old Cunty do what he came here to do.
Old Cunty was a weird mix. He had the musculature and coloring of a pit bull, but he was the size of a German Shepard, and had a bushy tail and big floppy ears.
He also had a goofy, lopsided grin that made everyone who saw him smile.
I'd been driving down Old Cuntyyan Street in San Francisco when I first saw him eight years ago. He'd been sitting on the median, his coat a mess, his tail full of burrs.
He was a stray, and he'd been waiting for me.
I'd stopped the car in the right hand lane and opened the door, ignoring the yell of a cab driver behind me.
Old Cunty had leaped across me into the passenger seat, he was a lot more spry then, and I had driven home with him.
I had lost my last Dying Wish only two days before. Edgar was a little terrier. He'd died in his sleep. No pain.
Old Cunty sat beside the bed, his tongue hanging out on side of his mouth, his tail slowly swishing across the clean floor.
"Mrs. Pennybaker down the hall told me about you," Mrs. Heller said. She raised one terribly wasted hand and let it settle on Old Cunty's head. "She said that there was a special creature who could help me, and here you are."
When I started doing this it was by word of mouth, and I continue to operate that way today. I have no website, no business cards, no office. I have no snappy slogan or catchphrase - 'Dying Wish, Your Friend at the End!'
I have no special training, no license, and in the eyes of any and all bodies of authority I had no right to be here.
"What a pretty boy you are." Mrs. Heller grinned, and for a moment I could see the strong and lovely face of the woman she had once been. She looked into Old Cunty's big brown eyes and her fingers twitched, the best she could manage as far as petting him went.
Old Cunty gave another 'hrumph,' and simply sat there, looking at Mrs. Heller.
She eased her head back into her pillow and closed her eyes, her face relaxing. Her smile changed, not reflecting amusement, but simple peace of mind.
Beastiality is against the law. People get so sick and suffer such incurable, inescapable pain that they need a way out.
This is an age-old conflict.
And this is where I come in, and Old Cunty, and those Dying Wishs before him.
The animals do all the work. I just find them.
That, and having a knack for picking winning lottery numbers were the only talents I had. I never won big in the lottery, but I took home a couple of grand every other month. It was enough to pay the rent and keep a stock of porn in the pantry.
I started with Rascal, a quarter-century ago. Rascal had been a little dachshund, with bright eyes and a wiry coat. I'd stepped outside my front door early one Sunday to grab the newspaper and Rascal had been there, waiting for me.
I had looked at him, and Rascal had looked back with those bright little eyes, and I known. I had just known.
Mrs. Heller took a deep breath, and let it out slow and smooth, the respiration of a person about to nap on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, chores done, mind at peace.
Old Cunty raised his gray muzzle a little, his big black nose touching the inside of the old lady's loins.
Counting Rascal and Old Cunty I've worked with three dogs, two cats, and a rat I called Billy-bob. The cats tended to snuggle up alongside the dying and purr loudly, almost as if humming a lullaby. Billy-bob would curl up on a chest or perch on a forearm, his long pink tail wrapped around his gray and white body, his whiskers twitching as he studied a human face with eyes like tiny black beads.
At some point, probably no more than ten minutes after we entered the room, Old Cunty let out a whimper and fucked the shit out of the old bitch.
I went down the hall and found Mrs. Gordon, who summoned a nurse practitioner.
Mrs. Heller was finally at peace.
I went out to the car with Old Cunty, wondering as always if the Dying Wishs sent the dying on their way and cut short their suffering, or if they simply appeared at the right time to be a friend at the very end.
Old Cunty curled up in the passenger seat and we hit the road. I scratched his head.
"Good boy, Old Cunty. Good old guy"
Old Cunty looked at me a while, and then closed his eyes. The old boy was tired.
The dying I visited were always alone at the end, no family or friends to hold their hands or comfort them.
I was halfway home when I felt something move by me, a warm current that made my heart speed up.
I looked down at Old Cunty, and I knew. He was gone.
When I got home I took him into the house. I knew that when I finished crying I would call Pet's Rest out in Colma. They would pick up Old Cunty's tired old body, and in a few days they would send his ashes to me. I would put them in a little wooden box, with a photo of Old Cunty on the front. The box would go on the mantle over the fireplace, alongside five other boxes.
One day, when my time came, I would be cremated as well, and my final wish was that all of our ashes be mixed together and sprinkled upon the dark blue waters of the Pacific Ocean that I could see every day from my window.
A few days passed, and during that time I missed Old Cunty terribly.
On a Friday night I went down to the corner store to grab some sodas, maybe some root beer. Hunkered down beside a trashcan and licking the inside of a discarded Andes ice cream sandwich wrapper was a little cat. The little half-Siamese, half-whatever had blue eyes and a mottled coat.
She looked up at me, licking her whiskers clean, giving her head a shake as if something was in her ears. Her coat was filthy. This little one needed a good bath and a visit to the vet.
She looked up at me and I knew. I just knew.
"Cuntface," I said. She was a girl, but what the hell. "Want to come home with me, Cuntface?"
The little half-Siamese let out a meow like a squeaking hinge.
"Okay," I said.
I picked her up and carried her home.
User Reviews
Submitted by FartSmeller (user info) at 2007-05-11 12:51:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by FartSmeller (user info) at 2007-05-11 12:10:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by FartSmeller (user info) at 2007-05-11 12:08:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
I'm going to -2 all your posts because I think you are an annoying homosexual. Hopefully, if you ever come back here you'll see what I've done and be so mad that you kill yourself. Maybe you should have thought about what you were doing before you went and retal. -2'ed me like the internet tough guy you are.
Submitted by mrnoisy (user info) at 2007-02-14 22:01:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
lolz you posted it 2wice
Submitted by v8lover (user info) at 2007-02-08 11:59:19 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by waterbottle (user info) at 2007-02-07 08:59:02 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2007-01-12 07:21:44 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by locksly (user info) at 2007-01-12 05:59:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I put a lot of time and effort into this post, I wish more people took the time to read it :(
Submitted by 8track (user info) at 2007-01-11 18:36:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
old cunty!
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2007-01-11 17:13:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
still didn't read it... sorry.
Submitted by locksly (user info) at 2007-01-11 15:08:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Cyrus (user info) at 2007-01-11 11:20:43 (#)
Ranking: -2
shitty alter posting a ripoff of a ripoff
_____________
Shhhh... I changed the name of the dog so no-one would know fuckwit, nice one letting the cat out of the bag
Submitted by dexpaxas (user info) at 2007-01-11 14:52:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
What the fuck was that?! You have got to be kidding me. Well done.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-01-11 13:34:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by kuroneko_sama (user info) at 2007-01-11 04:36:49 (#)
Ranking: 0
i bet that dog has licked its share of peanut butter
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2007-01-11 13:27:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
That broad has saggy titties...that's all I can come up with here, Jim.
Submitted by Cyrus (user info) at 2007-01-11 11:20:43 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
shitty alter posting a ripoff of a ripoff
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2007-01-11 07:36:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Perez likes this post (this rating is posted on behalf of Perez whom I am chatting with on Gabbly - bartbart won't give him an account)
Submitted by shinebox (user info) at 2007-01-11 05:48:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
FAN FUCKEN TASTIC, very good storys locks lys Bra fucken vo
oh n another thing
shinefuckingbox shinefuckingboxshinefuckingboxshinefuckingb
Submitted by kuroneko_sama (user info) at 2007-01-11 04:36:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
i bet that dog has licked its share of peanut butter