Terminal Agitation

Your past really does come back to haunt you.

The doctor straightened up, she had that stoic look on her face, the one she puts on for every patient she’s just delivered bad news to. “I’m sorry. We’ll try to make you as comfortable as possible,” she said to John, who was lying on the bed. She met his gaze, but she looked straight through his eyes - it was always better not to register watching the last shreds of hope evaporate. She stopped playing with John’s watch and placed it back on the bedside table. It’s a curious thing, to try and distract yourself with random objects before delivering bad news.

John watched as she turned to leave. “Is there anyone we should contact?” she asked.

“No, I’m alone,” he replied. She nodded in silent resignation and left the room.

John wept. His life had amounted to this moment - dying in a whitewashed room in a hospital with a view of a partially constructed highrise. I have a few drug-fuelled days left at most, he thought to himself, at least the morphine will let me dream while the rest of me rots.

The next day, he was fitted with The Box as he liked to call it, the small device that pumps anyone hooked up with a concoction of drugs on a timer. He had seen his parents and friends in palliative care reach this magnificent milestone in their lives before him and had witnessed it doing fuck all to relieve the terminal agitation they all experienced in their the last moments. He wondered what it was they were trying to escape from because it looked like each one was clawing to get away from something invisible even though the informal medical explanation was ‘that’s just what happens at the end’.

Some comfort that was for the person watching it happen, never mind the poor sod dying in the first place.

The first cocktail dose was delivered. John felt a warmth spreading over his body, his skin itched and tingled like getting a concentrated dose of caffeine from one of those little bottles you get from the gym. He could feel the pathetically thin hospital mattress under him balloon, and he sank into it like it was made of marshmallow. If this is what the end is going to feel like, then bring it on, he smiled.

A little later, there was a knock at the door. A nurse popped her head round as she opened it slowly, “You have a visitor, John,” she said and stepped aside. “And there’s you saying there’s no one here for you!” she fake scolded. “I’ll leave you two to it then.”

Who’s visiting? John’s mind was plodding in treacle, trying to look for an answer under the influence of his latest shot.

“Hello, John,” said the stranger, closing the door as the nurse left.

John stared through the morphine mist until something resembling a person started to coalesce in front of him. “Who are you?” he croaked, realising he was absolutely parched, he couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a sip of water. The figure stepped forward, poured a glass of water from the jug sitting on the bedside table and handed it to John. He took it from him and, with hands shaking, gulped greedily. The figure refilled the cup without a word.

“Who are you?” he asked again, this time clearer.

“You probably don’t recognise me,” the stranger replied, “and this is going to be a lot to take in, especially now at the end.”

John tried to focus on the stranger’s head. Features started to form, like a sculptor pinching and stretching at a lump of clay, until it revealed a face. There was no mistaking it. It was his own but younger.

“I don’t understand. Who are you? I don’t have any children or siblings, this must be…”

“The drugs?”, finished the stranger, “I’ve heard they all say that to begin with. No, it’s not the drugs. I’m not your son or a long-lost twin you never knew you had. I’m you. Or rather, a version of you.”

“What?!” John’s face was contorted with the grimace you make when you just can’t believe what you’ve been told or have seen.

“Let me explain,” the younger man said, walking around the bed, carefully picking up John’s notes hanging from the side of the bed on a clipboard to examine them. He wasn’t curious, he was just distracting himself.

“Throughout your life, John, you’ve made decisions. Decisions that have led you here. To this moment. Of course, we all look back and think about the choices we could have made along the way, should we have turned right instead of left; should we have proposed instead of letting her walk away; that sort of thing. You ever see the movie ‘Sliding Doors’, John?”

John blinked. What a strange question to ask at a time like this.

“No.”

“Ah, thought maybe that was another decision you’d have made, would have helped with the context here at least. What about superhero movies? You like those Marvel movies, John?”

“I suppose. I don’t underst…”

“Well, it’s not that either, “ the younger man interrupted. “In any case, this isn’t a comedy or a comic book. It’s a tragedy. You see, every choice you made had a consequence. Like not watching Sliding Doors.”

The younger man allowed himself a laugh. John did not like the tone of this laugh one bit.

“And every decision robs another of the chance to exist.”

“Wait,” said John, “that’s not how it works. Every choice creates a new branch. That’s what happens in the movies.”

“In the movies…yes, because they’re totally accurate, aren’t they, John?” His voice was dipped in sarcasm and laced with poison - there was definite malice behind the tone this time, and it shook John to the core.

“Do you want to know what the truth is, John? The truth is that we all existed from the moment you were born. We were all there. We all got our chance to live. And from that moment on, with every decision, with every choice, you cut one of us down. You don’t create a new branch with your decisions, you destroy them.”

John shook his head in disbelief. “No, no, no, this doesn’t make any sense.”

A knock at the door. The younger John walked over and opened it. The same nurse from earlier stood there beaming. “Here’s another visitor for you, John.”

Slightly older than his first intruder, this version entered the room and looked around briefly before giving a knowing nod to the younger visitor. “Hello, John.”

“Get out! I don’t know what kind of trick this is, but it’s a sick joke to play on a dying man,” John’s voice was shaking - he wasn’t sure if it was the morphine or the sense of dread that started to fill his mind. None of this made the slightest bit of sense, and whoever these people were, he needed them to leave.

“Oh, nobody is going anywhere,” the new version said. “Didn’t you ever stop to think about the consequences of your decisions? You know, I don’t think anyone ever does. I blame philosophers, with all their crap about the meaning of life.”

What the hell is this one talking about? Philosophers? John’s mind screamed.

“Let me tell you something, John,” he continued. “The meaning of life isn’t to live a full life without regret - it’s to regret every moment, knowing what you’ve chosen to do in life will end another. And then it’s time to face those decisions. Frank Sinatra can go fuck himself. My Way my ass, that’s the problem with you all, you think it’s all about your way without a second thought for anyone else.”

The younger John placed a hand on his doppelganger as if to signal him to calm him down. “We’ve a long road ahead, our time will come soon.”

There was another knock at the door.

“No!” John shouted, “No! Go away!”

The nurse opened the door. “My, my John, aren’t we getting all the visitors today!” she said in those overly exaggerated and condescending tones nurses use.

One by one, throughout the afternoon, versions of John stepped into the room. They each told him the same thing, that one choice or another had led to their lives being destroyed in an instant. John still couldn’t understand what was happening or what was being explained. They’d tell him of the exact moment he made a decision, some he remembered, others he had no recollection of, but each one erased another version of him. So they claimed.

Like clockwork, John was pumped with another cocktail shot of drugs, only this time, the bed didn’t feel like a welcoming hug from a giant marshmallow. The mattress was more like lying on shattered dreams, and each shard pierced his frail body, and that warm, gentle glow spreading through his veins felt more like a river of lava.

The room was at bursting point now, filled with the cacophony of what sounded like a thousand overlapping impersonators at a talent show. John could barely hear himself think when, all of a sudden, the room went deadly quiet.

The first visitor spoke.

“John, it’s nearly time. Can you feel it?”

John started to cry. This wasn’t what he imagined his final moments would be like.

“John, John,” the younger man cooed. “Did you think you’d be standing at the Pearly Gates, greeted by Saint Peter? Were you a good boy? In you come, you little scamp,” his voice mimicked in a twisted, sarcastic manner, “Here’s your wings and we’ve got a nice cloud reserved for you. No. It doesn’t end like this. Ever. For anyone. You get to face off to us. For judgment.”

There was a knock at the door. The nurse opened the door, squeezing herself in before shutting it behind her, shuffling her way through to the front.

“Hi John, my, don’t we have a lot of visitors now. What a lot of poor, poor decisions you’ve made, haven’t we?” she said, frowning, like a school headmistress does when chiding a naughty boy from class.

“Who are you?” John asked. He was afraid - he didn’t recognise her amongst the many faces of himself in the room, and the drugs were offering nothing for this new pain he was experiencing.

“Why, remember when they all told you it was just a phase? You’d grow out of it? You liked wearing your mother’s clothes once. But, they took you to church again and again, prayed for your soul, prayed that you’d come back to them, normal, and you believed all that they told you. You eventually forgot who you were, didn’t you?! Forgot about me.”

John started shaking uncontrollably. He tried to grab at them, any of them, as they moved closer to his bed. He was murmuring, unintelligible, as if his mind had finally snapped, words eventually falling silent in a room that screamed his name over and over.

In the corridor, the doctor passed by and paused by John’s door. She peered through the small, square window, watching John in the bed, alone, flailing in terminal agitation. He’s nearing the end, she thought. She made a note on a piece of paper to alert the night nurse, then went to finish her rounds.