Ash

He checks his watch. Speaks flatly, at me, no generosity of spirit escaping his deadpan eyes. He makes a meal out of me.

"This'll take a minute." He mumbles, not looking up from his paperwork.

I confer an unearned graciousness upon him. I just assume he's considerate. I imagine him affording me kindnesses, a euphemism or vague generalities.

I am wrong. I've failed to read the room.

Lethargic and disengaged, the tall thin man in the long lab coat speaks without sentimentality, without compassion. He articulates facts.

He looks up to reiterate, this time enunciating for the simpleton he calculates me to be, "It will take one minute." A mathematical calculation. He checks the paperwork against the numbers on the box. Nods. Reviews my license. Squares the picture on the plastic against the pale, depleted man in front of him. "Everything seems to be in order."

Numbers on a box. Christ.

Some people really are better with animals.

It will take one minute echoes in my ears. Everything seems to be in order. His words erase everything beautiful in the world.

He means it literally. 60 seconds. He feels put upon, that I might need more time. More than one whole minute to do this. It does not even register for him that this moment is, by far, the hardest thing I have ever done. Or will ever do.

Must be harder for you, Ash.

He does this every waking hour. And now he's missing lunch.

He wants me gone. I've disrupted his routine, his sanctuary.

He flicks a switch and a conveyor moves. 59. The countdown starts.

"Shouldn't take long now," he says, obtuse, dispassionate. Usually it's in and out and on to the next. The living take longer.

With an air of disdain, he stuffs his hands in his coat pockets. He's really ticking me off now.

He holds for one brief second, and then another. The most he can offer.

And he's back at it. 58, 57, 56, 55.

I watch him deny an itch riding up his wrist. Fast acting, maybe poison sumac doing the deed. Scratching that itch would put him even farther behind schedule, and we mustn't have that. 54, 53. So he moves along, not running his too-long nails against his itchy, flaky dead skin, impatiently dragging my discombobulated body in his wake.

I crumple emotionally, little more than a feeble wreck. He probably hired on specifically to get away from breathers. 52.

51, 50. I'm an exception his bosses make him concede to. Too high ranking. Too well off. Too willing to pay for this privilege, this torment. He can't dismiss me with a wave of his skeleton hand.

He doesn't understand our bond. Had no children of his own. No love to have to grieve.

He usually has the quiet, and the darkness, and his book to read, with his lunch, in between.

Now he's pressed for time, or so he'd have me believe. 49, 48, 47. Work orders are stacking up. He couldn't care less how impossible this is for me.

I cannot bear to think how it is for you.

He smiles as if translucent lice climb invisible ladders to scale his monumentally long teeth. Suddenly I cannot take him seriously. I laugh out loud--46 now, 45--disrupting the stillness that slips between the wheezing of fire, the swirling of gases. He grimaces but carries on, setting dials, pressing digits. 44, 43. I cannot watch his hands.

Just look at his stupid big feet. Clown feet. Clown show. But I'm the idiot stood staring into the wobbly mirror, being taken for a ride. 42.

I do not like what I see. You, your box, engulfed in flames.

In this moment --41-- I cannot take any of this seriously.

This can't be real. This cannot be happening. I'm going to be sick.

One minute he said, as if he were scooping a bowl of ice cream. All it takes. To melt a child's life to ash.

The orders spell it out for him: Privileges, honors, rites, requirements, what our religion dictates.

He invites me to stay. With him, with you. "If you want to." He says, articulating slowly for my benefit. 40.

I can't get outta here fast enough. 39.

But my feet refuse to flee. 38.

I promised you. Gave you my word. I held your tiny hand and looked into those perfect eyes and swore I'd see it through. For you. I would never leave you alone to your fate.

I want to bolt --37, 36-- down the long white corridors. Guts heaving. Knees buckling. Eyes dispatching tears like tear gas. But I stand still, sentry at the door.

I swore an oath --35-- and it will be honored.

Furtively, he navigates wristwatch to wall clock. For him, it's business.

Dizziness confounds me. I see what I do not wish to see. 34.

My mind's eye will not avert. Lights, buttons, gauges, dials. And you, boxed. Not you. I try to blink it away. 33. I try not to think about what is happening at this very moment. During these infernal ticking seconds. 32, 31.

His latex gloved hands depress a large, smooth, round red knob. The blue flames growl, hungry, crossing a line from which you cannot return. The shell of your former self the most beloved piece of me, caving in.

I morph into kid-sized pieces of a petrified adult, quaking. 30.

You have more strength than I ever did. You're half-way there. Wherever there is.

Pull the rip cord. Eject! Flee the maze, I plead with myself. Flee the landmines. Run, wildly, from this basement turned hospital morgue. Never look back.

_____

"Daddy," you had whispered, your breath coming painfully, "Do you promise? Don't ever leave me alone." Your tiny fragile pinky wrapped round my heart.

Of course I agreed. How could I not?

You asked for fire. You feared the cold, cold earth.

Too weighty a choice for any child to have to make.

_____

Cinder blocks press in on all sides. 29, 28. I look for the exit. This place mocks me: narrowing long white halls, low white fluorescent lights, endless corridors smeared with doors with handles I cannot bear to press into service. 27.

The moments pass away. At last I see an exit, but there is no escape.

It's happening now. 26, 25, 24, 23.

I force my hands into pockets, deeply down, fidgeting. I try to remain calm. Remind myself to breathe. 22, 21.

Time is cruel. 20. Death is crueler, hateful, ruinous. 19, 18, 17...

Lab Coat smiles, inwardly, taking pleasure in his work. It's more art than science. 16, 15...

I collapse, hitting the floor, I love you, Ashley floating on the ether. My eyeglasses careen across the tiles, glass shattering at Lab Coat's feet, this'll take a minute, echoing in my ears.

______________________

Copyright © 04/14/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.

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Inspired by Vocal's Just a Minute Challenge.