chyeahhh

9th February 2013

Post

dougie boy

 the “best” short story I wrote for a Intro to Creative Writing unit at uni.

I’d been alone practically my whole life. I had grown up in what resembled a family but I avoided them as much as possible. As a kid I used to invent scenarios in my head to explain it away. One week my family had the black plague, the next they were brain-eating zombies. I made sure I had the least amount of contact I could to ensure I wasn’t infected with the disease of the week. I continued with that until I outgrew such fanciful notions and then ignored them with no pretext at all. That method of avoidance continued until I was old enough to leave home and be truly alone.

“Doug?”

It wasn’t like I was a complete hermit, but I interacted with the bare minimum amount of people required to get by. I choose the avenue of least interaction in every facet of life possible. I worked in a small warehouse on the night shift just so I could have the place to myself. Because of this I could also do everything required in the day when most people were at work. And when I was out getting supplies, I wouldn’t reply to anyone who acknowledge my existence, I would pretend I hadn’t heard them unless they persisted.

“Doug? You there?” said Dr. Cooper.

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Doug the results are back from your tests and we’ve checked them thoroughly. I’m afraid it’s serious. You’ve got stage four bowel cancer,” she said.

“Stage four? There’s no Stage five right? How long do I have Doctor?

“Only a couple of months and that’s optimistic. It’s metastasized to your lymph nodes and other organs.” said Cooper in her matter-of-fact tone.

“It’s beyond recovery.”

I was happy enough with the lifestyle I had chosen. I had no responsibilities or stress. No one knew Doug LeStrange and I liked it that way. I didn’t have to change for anyone and my actions affected nobody but me. I could up and change everything or keep a strict routine; it made no difference to the world.

“It’s extremely surprising that it’s gotten to this stage without being diagnosed. No one noticed any change in your demeanour? Fluctuating moods? Or that you were looking a little green around the gills?”

“No.”

I guess I’d found one downside to my lifestyle.

This news was a problem. I couldn’t just go on how I was. Every person thinks about their legacy at some point and this was mine. I would be forgotten once my family died and once the sparingly few other people I came into more than fleeting contact with did too. This was so unexpected. Who gets cancer at 26?

Everybody dies alone. No matter how popular and loved you are, you are alone at the close. I had always been fine with that, but now I would be going towards death all alone. I had no one to help me on this journey. I guess I had held on to the romantic notion that one day I might not be alone and would have someone to be there for me.  But it had come too early. Now I could only choose how to spend these last few months. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew it wasn’t more of the same.

looking back at it now (this was done in the first half of 2012), I would cut everything after “Well I guess I found one downside to my lifestyle”.