Roses in the Urinal
Michelle Marie McNiff
Sophie Logan
I m not ready to die. Please God, I need more time.
Alone in the dark, I pray to the divine authority, rattling off a tearful plea, as if I were on death row, waiting for clemency minutes before execution. A death row pardon mailed to the Universe, in the middle of the night.
From a cushy life in the suburbs to iron bars after failing to yield flashing hazard signs, drag racing in a domestic labyrinth. My body, the temple, is battered, overtired, and severely neglected. My heart needs some patch-work, and the very essence of my soul is flickering like a candle fighting for survival in the wind.
Gasping for air, I prop my back against the headboard on the bed, clasp my shins, and cradle a pounding heart pressed into my knees.
Drenched in sweat, I cross my legs and twist my spine in a yoga position, stretching the wingspan of my lungs, whistling like a night train rattling through a country town.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Just Breathe! I silently chant, trying to stay calm in dire respiratory straits.
Please God, I'm not ready to die. I don't want to die.
Begging for more time is not a first for me. And I am certainly not the only mendicant pleading not to leave this world, begging to be spared at the threshold of death's door. Regrets swirl in my head as rain drums violently against the windowpane.
I remember an old Italian saying, breve orazione penetra. God listens to short prayers.
He answered many of my prayer requests in the past; he lifted the dark thoughts of committing suicide when I was a depressed teenager. And years later, I survived Thyroid cancer, surpassing statistics published in medical journals. My doctor, far from god-like, stood at my bedside, clutching an antiquated medical bible. He rubbed his bald, dubious head after witnessing a miracle- the will to survive had triumphed, a mystery not explained in science.
In the past, I had battled asthma attacks; but tonight, this episode is life-threatening. Code Red. Stubborn until the end- my epitaph, digging my heals to avoid a man or woman in a white lab coat barking orders and prodding me in the emergency room.
Just breathe. Instead, I pant as though I am giving birth. Life is sadistically ironic. The breaths of life and death both yearn for a breathing pattern. I learned Lamaze to lessen the anxiety of giving birth, pushing my children through a birth canal with a long, painful exhale. As I face my mortality, I inhale deeply, gasping for oxygen, alone in the middle of the night. Death surely is an unavoidable event. I sob at the vision of family and friends gathering at my funeral, watching a montage of photos and videos. The memories of a lifetime strung together like a scrapbook, photo album. Sometimes I want to escape peacefully like my mom and dad. Both slipped away from the pain and misery of human ailments. Poof, gone to a better place, far easier to just let go, then desperately cling on a barbed wired fence for dear life. Breathe in. Breathe out. I can't breathe.
The past haunts me in the guest room, away from my husband and children slumbering in their bedrooms. I kick off a red leather patent shoe under an old oak tree, swaying carefree on a swing as my mother paints a pink rose in the center of a canvas, held by a rickety wooden easel. The smell of the oil paints floats in the air, reminding me that she is near. The screen flickers to a somber scene, rain pelts the dome of a black umbrella held by our family priest. He prays over a mahogany casket. I stand next to my father under his elbow as I cry out for my mother. Next, the sky opens a brilliant blue, summer vista. Church bells peal as I run down marble steps with Carl, my husband. A small crowd tosses rose petals and white rice in the air. We take cover, slipping inside a white antique Bentley, Just Married etched on the back window. Carl and I belt the lyrics to an Eddie Money song, "I got two tickets to paradise!" off-key, riding in a convertible corvette on the seven-mile bridge to Key West. A bright light blinds me. I cradle a newborn baby in a pink blanket, my daughter. A boy laughs in the background. Next, I am standing beside my son; he is blindfolded, wobbling barefoot in the backyard. He holds a giant bat in his small hands. Pow! Pow! Pow! The Tonka truck pinata cracks open, and a gush of candy bursts to the ground on the dead leaves of fall.
The screen fades to black.
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