Waiting To Die...
By
Michelle Giles

Jenna Murphy fidgeted in her seat, unable to concentrate on the magazine lying across her lap. The doctor's waiting room was empty. Silent. She waited, her heart beating unsteadily.

Just two weeks ago, she had been a young, healthy woman seeking an annual checkup...then one test, another, and another...the look in the doctors eyes...the waiting...

"The doctor will see you now."

Jenna took a deep breath and stood. She followed the nurse down a long hall to the corner office. Dr. Wright remained seated at his desk, studying some papers. He looked up. "Hello, Jenna. Please have a seat."

The nurse closed the door behind her. Jenna stared at the doctor. Silence again. The expression on his face revealed nothing.

"I've reviewed your X-rays and test results," the doctor said, then looked directly into her eyes. "Im sorry. It's worse than we feared. Jenna, you have three months to live."

***

Timothy Kerrington clutched the answer in his hand--a sleek, .45-caliber gun.

Cancer. The big C. Age twenty-one, and life was over. No more partying. No more girls. No more fun.

Even chemo wouldnt help. Nothing, nothing would do any good. Cancer dammit.

He pulled the trigger.

***

Polly Hawkins lay in her bed and stared at the TV, barely paying attention to the woman complaining about her cheating husband. "She thinks she's got problems," Polly muttered, then clicked the remote. Each channel revealed more people with daily routines. Teens dancing in a cola commercial; two lovers kissing on a soap opera; some movie star bragging about her latest flick. All people with busy, interesting lives.

And futures.

Polly reached for the glass on her nightstand, knocking aside an empty bag of potato chips. In one gulp, she finished off the last shot of vodka. She reached for the bottle at the bottom of the bed and held it above her lips. Empty. She dropped it onto the floor, then fell back into the pillows.

Her eyes met the ceiling, an all too familiar site. For the past thirty-seven days, she had studied every inch. She counted again. Seventy-nine green flowers along the wallpaper border, fourteen small cracks, two holes and one smashed bug.

Her gaze lowered to the calendar hanging just above the TV. Each red X, a reminder of another day gone. Only twenty-three days remaining...

Polly staggered out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen. Kicking aside two pizza boxes and an empty bag of chocolate-chip cookies, she reached into the cabinet and grabbed the last bottle of vodka. As she held it up, she started laughing. That was her life now, red Xs and vodka.

And Dr. Wrights support group.

She cracked open the vodka and drank down its comfort.

Jenna focused on Dr. Wright as he listened to Polly describing, in slurred words, someone she'd seen on television. The doctor's smile appeared automatic and did not extend to his eyes. How did he deal with losing patients?, Jenna wondered.

"Now Jenna," he said, startling her. "Tell us how you are coping."

Jenna rubbed her temples. The doctor said this would help. Talk about your feelings with others. Let it out... 

"At first, I was in shock. I couldn't do anything but sleep for two days. Honestly, I don't know how to deal with this." Jenna felt her voice crack.

"We're all your friends here." Dr. Wright nodded. "Go on."

"I haven't told anyone yet, certainly not my mother. You see, she's blind and she'll need someone to take care of her." Jenna looked down at her lap. She couldn't tell them about her frustration, her anger. She still had so much she wanted to do, to accomplish, her dream... "I've been doing a lot of research. I work as an assistant librarian, and I've been reading about trials with new medications--" She looked up and found everyone staring.

"You're in denial," Polly snapped.

"Have you gone for a second opinion?" Dr. Wright asked.

Jenna nodded. "I brought my X-rays and test results....The doctor agreed with your diagnosis." She fought back tears.

"I'm afraid Polly is right," the doctor said. "Many patients go through a stage of denial. It appears, Jenna, that you're searching for false hope. Those doctors you're reading about don't care about you. They will only use you to benefit their own research."

"But if there's a chance..."

Dr. Wright shook his head. "The researchers will tell you that their new procedure will give you a one in a million chance. You figure you have nothing to lose, so you take it. But in the end, you'll suffer the ill effects of their tests, and you will still die. I know it's difficult, but you have to face the truth."

Jenna wanted to argue, to fight, tell the doctor he was wrong.

"Hey guys! Lets party!"

Jenna turned. A dark-haired guy, about six-feet tall, walked into the room, carrying a six-pack of beer in one hand and an open beer in the other.

"Matt," Dr. Wright said. "Please sit down. Now that you're here I have...some news for the group."

Polly sprung from her seat and grabbed a beer.

"What's up?" Matt asked.

Dr. Wright waited a moment before answering. "Timothy Kerrington killed himself yesterday afternoon."

The room turned silent, except for the loud ticking of the clock.

Jenna felt numb. She hadn't known Timothy, yet she shared his problem. Will I do the same? she wondered.

Matt threw his beer at the wall. "What did you expect him to do, Doc? Timmy was too young. He couldn't handle it."

"Each one of us chooses to deal with our problem differently," Dr. Wright said calmly.

"How would you know?" Matt shouted. "How would you feel, Doc, if someone handed you a death sentence?”

Dr. Wright sat alone, the smoke from his pipe filtering through his office. The evening's support group session had been a tough one. And it had reinforced his decision to set up the group, despite his lack of a psychiatric specialty. His patients had a right to his guidance.

Timothy Kerrington's suicide had touched them all. And for Dr. Wright, it had been a painful reminder of that day long ago.

The quiet house...Mama?...blood dripping from the kitchen walls, splattered across the white tiles...Mama?...her face blown into pieces...her body cold...so cold...

She had chosen a path and left him. Timothy had done the same.

But there were others. Others who needed him.

***

The next evening, Jenna sat in her apartment, looking through her notes on the controversial cancer studies. Maybe Dr. Wright and the others had a point. Maybe she was holding onto false hope. But was she just supposed to give up and let herself die? Should she go out and do everything she ever wanted in a short time? Start taking chances and risks she wouldn't take before? Or should she just keep waiting, and waiting, to die?

The telephone rang.

"Jenna, Baby!" It was Matt. "I'm in a crazy mood. Come out with me."

She wished now she hadn't given him her number, but she'd felt a special connection to him, and all the others in the support group. "Not tonight, Matt."

"We don't have much time, Jenna. Remember, you've got to live for the moment."

Jenna sighed. Why not? "Okay, pick me up in a half hour."

"Ten minutes."

Jenna looked at the clock. It seemed she was always looking at the clock now. According to Dr. Wright, she'd had three months. Did he mean exactly ninety days? If so, then she had eighty-five full days left.

Back when she was ten, thirty years of age had seemed so old. Today, the minutes were racing away from her. She'd been working for the past year in the library in search of her dream. A dream of writing a bestseller. She'd been using the library's resources to find just the right topic.

"Life really is ironic," she said aloud. She'd found the perfect topic for her book--people waiting to die. She could have even interviewed herself. But there wasn't enough time for her dream. There wasn't enough time to live.

The loud music from Matt's Jeep blared through her closed window. Jenna walked outside and slid into the passenger seat. "Right on time."

"Always," Matt said, then took a sip of beer. He threw the can next to four empties in the back seat.

"You should be more careful," Jenna warned.

"What for?"

As Matt peeled the Jeep away from her driveway, Jenna noticed a list taped to his rearview mirror. "What's this?"

"Everything I plan to do before I die."

Jenna grabbed the list. "I see you've crossed off some things, get high on coke, bungee jump, raid a modeling show, and dive into the ocean."

Matt smiled. "Did those last week."

Jenna read the last two items on the list. "Bank robbery? Murder?"

Matt stared ahead at the road, silent.

"You would really do these things?"

"Why not? You only live once, and in our case, not very long." He made a sharp left turn, nearly tilting the Jeep on two wheels.

Jenna shifted in her seat, clutching the safety handle. "But crimes, murder? Is that how you want to spend the last days of your life? Hurting others?"

"I've been hurt." He paused. "What about you, Jenna?"

"I don't know. I haven't faced the reality yet. I just don't believe I'm going to die."

"When you finally do, you'll understand what I'm doing."

Jenna looked out at the road, then back at the digital clock. Hanging next to it was a copy of Matt's blood test results. She peered closer. In each section, the numbers were exactly the same as hers...

"Hold on!" Matt yelled.

Jenna snapped her head up. She saw, for a brief second, the tractor trailer heading straight for them.

"Good news, young lady."

At the sound of the ER doctor's voice, Jenna struggled against the pain shooting through her back and sat up.

"You are going to be just fine," he said. "You and your friend were lucky."

"Yeah," Jenna mumbled. "Real lucky."

"I know," the doctor said. "Your friend was drunk. He's been released, but the police are going to charge him with drunk driving. You're both lucky to be alive."

"It doesn't matter," she said. "We're dying anyway."

The doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Cancer." Jenna looked at the clock on the wall, the painful reminder returning. "Started in my stomach and now it's spread all over."

The doctor pulled out her chart. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see any abnormalities in your X-rays or your blood results."

"What!" Jenna screamed.

"Try to stay calm," the doctor said. "Let me run some more tests."

Jenna fell back into the bed, praying she wasn't dreaming.

Ten days later, Jenna received her final test results. She spent every minute, of every hour, of the next three days uncovering the truth. A trip to another doctor and the Mountain View Psychiatric Hospital completed her research. She had her life back, and her dream. A sad, unbelievable story--a definite bestseller. Her first instinct was to call the police, but no, that would have to wait. She still had one last piece of research left.

She called Matt.

They cornered Dr. Wright inside his office.

"How could you hurt innocent people like this?" Jenna shouted, waving her file in front of the doctor. "You are a sick, sick person!"

Seated behind his desk, Dr. Wright stared into her eyes, again his face held no expression.

Matt paced the floor. The clock ticked.

"Telling perfectly healthy people they are going to die? What kind of doctor, what kind of a person, are you?" Jenna fought an urge to strike him, to release all her pain and frustration of the last several days.

"I wasn't hurting anyone," Dr. Wright said. "I was helping."

"Helping! You never helped anyone. Forging records and test results, pretending to console your patients. Do you know what an exact date of death does to a person's psyche?" Jenna leaned forward and stared into the doctor's eyes. "I've been in shock for days. One minute, too depressed to move, the next, trying to plan out every last second. What gave you the right to play God?"

Matt stopped pacing and faced the doctor.

Dr. Wright clenched his hands into fists. "Don't you understand? It's about the power of death. The perception of death."

"Oh, we understand that, a little too well," Matt snapped.

"The doctors were wrong," Dr. Wright said. "She never should have died. They were wrong...Oh, Mommy..." He dropped his head into his hands.

"C'mon, doc," Matt said. "We're not here for some pity routine."

The doctor took a deep breath, a glazed look filled his eyes. "I needed to study how the perception of immediate death affects us. Don't you see? I could have found a way...a way to change that perception so death could never take hold. We are only what we believe."

Jenna and Matt looked at each other. Matt started pacing again.

"So you used us?" Jenna asked in disgust. She began placing the incriminating papers in front of him one by one.

"You are all part of an experiment," the doctor said. "It is a study, which could help so many others. It could, in fact, change the world as we know it."

"You crazy, son of a--" Matt whipped a gun from his jacket pocket.

"No!" Jenna cried.

Matt pointed the barrel against Dr. Wright's forehead. "I've got nothing to lose, Doc. You see, I've already finished my list."

"Matt, you didn't." Jenna shook her head, tears filling her eyes.

"It appears I'll be spending a long, long time in prison, especially since I'm not dying." Matt pushed the gun forward. "One more murder won't make a difference."

"Don't!" Jenna pleaded. She grabbed the phone. "I'm calling the police."

Matt looked at Jenna, then back at the doctor. "You did teach me one thing, Doc. I learned all too well how to watch the time."

The doctor remained still. The clock continued to tick.

"And by now, I know the precise response time of the police." Matt tightened his grip on the gun. "How's this for a perception of death--you've got exactly two minutes and forty-seven seconds to live..."

###
Michelle Giles has had mystery fiction published in Woman's World, Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine, Mystery Time, The Villager, The Storyteller, as well as other fiction published in several magazines. She's a member of Sisters in Crime and the Short Mystery Fiction Digest. She can be reached via e-mail at
 mg12@gateway.net