embrace

embrace

It was an unintentional embrace. I held him, then, and I did not say
anything, because I did not know what to say. He spoke, and I could not
understand. He spoke again, and again, and he repeated himself, as if to
say: "please, just know this one thing." As if to imply it mattered for me
to know. But still, I did not understand. He stopped speaking, and yet I
held him. His arms grew heavy over me, and his head weighed upon my
shoulder. He did not croak; he did not gasp his breath; no, silently,
unflinchingly, inert, he died. Uncomprehendingly I held him. It seemed
like an eternity, and I was moved, finally, to say: "Hello." He did not
respond - even in his own language - even just to move a muscle. So it
became a question: "Hello?" Then, with urgency: "Hello?" Again: "Hello?"
Again: "Hello?" He does not respond: "Hello?" I cannot shrug him off:
"Hello?!" I cannot move: "Hello?!" He has to react, he has to respond, he
has to do the decent thing and acknowledge me, and who is he anyway? How
does he dare to ignore me? How does he dare to lie in my arms and not
reply? "Hello?!" Again: "Hello?!" Again: "Hello?!" "Hello!" "Hello?"
"Hello!" "Hello?"

"What the fuck are you doing?" "Hello?"

"Let go of him--" "Hello?"

"Fucking- you're fucking lost it, ain't you?" "Hello?"

"Oh, Christ. Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck."

"Hello?"

And what do we do, then? What do we do, with this lost thing? What does
the dying mean? I am alive and I cannot but hold him; and this is what it
means to be alive: to hold life in your hands as it slowly slips away from
you, and to refuse to let it go: to demand of it: acknowledge me! Accept
me! Know me!

"Hello?"

It is the act of a brave man is to put his brother out of his misery. To
spare his family the years of finding him, sitting alone, in a room
without his nurse, and asking, again and again, to be acknowledged; and
refusing, again and again, to hear them speak; and saying:

"Hello?"

It was the right thing, for you to do, then. It was the right thing to
shoot him. To end for him, and for his family, his suffering - his knowing
pain. For he had embraced death already, and he demanded its reply. He
asked of you: this do, for me; and you, hearing him ask:

"Hello?"

You grant him this: that he needs not debase himself to ask again.