Passing Moments

Taylor sat against the cafe wall, scribbling on a piece of paper. It was the only indicator that he ought to be something other than a placeholder. That he might, in fact, be a participant, even though the idea of following the singers after they had plucked their audience’s heartstrings or any of the poets who took out their beating hearts and threw them to the crowd went against everything Taylor held dear. Everything he had worked for as a solid B student who grew up to be a steady office drone. He didn’t volunteer. He was not someone you recruited. He appeared, did what was asked, and vanished at the end of the day.

If his wife saw him in this place, she’d shake her head, knowing it would all end in tears. His tears. She knew him as a man who could not make it through a Lifetime Movie commercial without crying. A man who could not tell the truth of what he felt, if it did not jibe with hers, without crying. This is not a man who could stand in front of an open mic and do anything but melt into a salty puddle. But here he was, waiting until the end of the night to stand at that microphone, and he had made sure she had no idea where he would be. Just as he’d made sure she didn’t know about his visit to the doctor that morning. If she had gone, there would be plans made, fights begun. Whether he wanted them or not. Whether there was any chance to finish them or not.

When he got the call, he could tell from the studied neutrality, the flimsy filter the nurse placed over the pity in her voice, that there was not likely to be good news. Just his luck that the first time he took this test, this “routine” test, they found something hiding inside him. Something as invisible as he was until the spotlight left nowhere else for it to hide. Now it was Taylor’s turn. He heard his name called, and he stepped up to a smattering of polite applause. No one knew him, so they did not bother to take out their phones to preserve this moment, though some did to ignore. He unfurled his little paper and began to speak.

I don’t know if I’ll make it through this

Don’t worry, it’s just a case of stage four

So chances are, I’ll have to exit soon

-

I don’t know if I’ll make it through this

Experimental piece, I found myself in

No script, no marks

I may be a prop

Someone forgot to put away

-

I don’t know if I’ll make it through this

But I guess none of us do

I’ve just been forced to take a shortcut

-

I don’t know - why I’m hiding up here in the spotlight, behind this scrap of paper. As if these words could shield me from a simple fact: I have cancer. I. Have. Cancer. Some of you may, too, but right now….I am the one with cancer.

I. Such a simple letter, but it can get cancer. Because I have cancer.

Quiet the responses echoing in your heads, I don’t want to hear them. I’m not here to boost your virtue signaling. I’m here to be me, and the me in this moment has cancer. And the next moment and the moment after that. Until the end of me.

Even under this light, I can see some of you aren’t comfortable with the extra, the backdrop, taking up center stage. You look just like my doctor, your eyes saying the same thing. My time is up.

Don’t worry. The light will go out. I, Me, the ones with cancer, will fade back into the shadows. And the light will come back up on you. And don’t worry about trying to remember this. Me.

I’m just a passing moment.

-

The cafe lights fell dark, leaving nothing but a sunspot impression of an invisible man. When they came back up, only a scrap of paper remained on the stage. Taylor had left a piece of himself behind, but kindly took the cancer with him. Later, the paper was swept into the bin. And so was his moment.