Fighting Fate

“Death”. The word seems to come alive, grab my throat and push me to the floor. The garage becomes a carnival and the sunlight peeking in through the small windows turns to strobing roller coaster bulbs. I am bound to a Ferris Wheel riding a black horse. I’m psychotic. I have to be. Maybe mental illness runs in the family and I am just finding out 30 years too late. This can’t be true. It just can’t.

I flip back through this vile calendar one more time. I check the dates, then check the description of events, then check my memory. True. All True. My mind flashes back to one of my patients asking me if I’d rather know when I was going to die or how I was going to die. I didn’t know at the time that maybe I was choosing my fate.

“Good morning Betty! How’re you?” I said wheeling in a squeaky cart with breakfast and a few medications on it.

“I’m still breathing,” She smiled. Her dentures shined in the glow of the morning sunlight.

“I’m glad to see it. The kitchen said they were out of butter. Hope that’s okay. I got jam instead. You like jam, right?”

“Only strawberry. Is it strawberry?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Well done,” she winked.

“Alright, you enjoy and I’ll be back in a couple minutes to check on you. Ring the bell if you need anything, anything at all.”

“Hold on Rodrick.” Betty could never remember my name but I’m sure I’d forget everyone’s name if I was 103 years-old too.

“Yes ma’am.”

“I have a silly question I was thinking about last night dearie. Can I ask you?”

“Of course!”

Betty sat up a little more in her bed. She began fiddling with a sausage on her plate and for a second, I thought she’d forgotten about that “silly question”. “Would you rather know how or when you’re going to die?” It wasn’t uncommon for me to have conversations with patients about death. Most of them are on their way out anyway. But this one made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t quite understand why at the time, but now I know that this was the moment I chose my destiny.

“Definitely when, so I could plan accordingly. If I’m dating someone, maybe get married before then so my wife can get the insurance money. Make sure my family is set. Go bungee jumping, maybe.”

“Why not how?”

“Well, if it’s something crazy like me being the first person to get hit by an asteroid, then I’d live every day in fear.”

“You’re doing that anyway with knowing when.”

“Not really.”

“So you’d be comfortable with it? Knowing when you will die? You wouldn’t wish for more time?”

“No. Everyone’s gotta go someday.”

“What if your someday was today? Would you be afraid?”

“Betty, are you planning to take me out clean? I knew you had a handgun underneath that pillow.”

She chuckled as her cheeks turned red. “Darlin’, thank you for the breakfast. I’ll call you if I need you.”

I nodded and walked out the room with an eerie feeling.

“You good, man?” Joseph, my co-worker, asked as I passed him. I guess my grandmother was right, I di wear my emotions on my face. I debated telling him what just happened and how it had me feeling queasy for some reason. But as I looked at his desk stacked with papers, and a fresh coffee stain on his scrubs, I knew he didn’t have the time to entertain the conversation.

“Yeah” I forced a smile. “Thanks for askin’.”

Betty died later that morning. She was said to have had a heart attack from old age. But I found something strange as I was cleaning out the room after her body was removed: a calendar with the word “death” written on that day’s date. Was it a prediction? I shook my head so hard at the thought, I could hear my brain ricochet off the walls of my skull. Maybe one of the nurses wrote it so we’d know when to commemorate her the following year.

I took the calendar and put it in a box with some other belongings of hers. I didn’t know what use her family would have for it, but I felt odd discarding it into the trash. Like I might be cursed or something.

“When or how?” I said out loud. “I wonder which one she chose.”