To Be So Sick
He falls asleep with the newspaper in his hands. Or passes out from the drugs, who is to say? His hands barely keep the paper from drifting to the floor. I take the paper and fold it, set it down on the top of the dresser. I lower the hospital bed into its sleeping position and arrange his pillows for a nap. Sitting next to him by the bed I take a long look at my best friend. He is barely recognizable as someone that I know. He is just a skeleton of the impish man I almost married years ago. His skin is stretched taught over his skull and cheekbones. His face resembles a prehisotic bird with its feathers plucked. His nose has become a beak protuding between his eyes. My friend’s feet are atrophied because he no longer uses them. He looks so peaceful when his eyes are closed. He looks like death has already claimed him. The body has taken on an ashen, grey tint. Morbid in its various shades of livliness. The skin has wounds from being poked and prodded by needles and rubber covered fingers. Touch him and bruise follows. He has long ago taken to wearing his hair as short as possible, it sticks out of the top of his head like the bristles of a much used toothbrush. His beard continues to grow. He has so long ago tired of shaving it. I wonder where the energy comes from, to be so sick and still have the strength to grow a beard.