Thomas Disch: 334

“Here it’s a different situation. I know. I don’t mind discussing it with you. It’s your job and you have to do it. But with my family, you see, that’s a different matter. They’d try to argue against it but only because they felt they ought to. And I understand that. I was the same myself. I can remember visiting my father when he was in the hospital—that would be Twenty-twenty or twenty-one, in there, and talking away at him a mile a minute. Lord. But could I look him in the eye? Not for a moment! I kept showing him photographs, as though … But even then I knew what he must have been thinking. What I didn’t know was that it can all seem so possible.

“But I suppose you’ll need better reasons than that for the form you’re filling out. Well, just put down cancer. You must have a copy of my medical report. I’ve been cut open just once, to have my appendix taken out, and that was enough. The doctors explained to me what I can expect and that my chances are better than fifty-fifty and I believe them. It’s not the risk I’m afraid of. That would be silly, wouldn’t it?

“What I am afraid of is turning into some kind of old vegetable. There’s so many like that where I am now. Some of them are just completely … I stare at them sometimes. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.

“And they don’t realize. They don’t have any idea. There’s one of them who’s gone like that just in the time I’ve been there. He used to spend every day off somewhere, independent wasn’t the word for it, and then—a stroke. And now he can’t control himself. They wheel him out on the porch with all the rest of us, and suddenly you hear him in his tin pot, tinkle tinkle tinkle. Oh, you have to laugh.

“Then you think, that could be me. I don’t mean to say that pissing is so important. But the mental change! Old pisspot used to be such a sharp bastard, crusty, full of fight. But now? I don’t care if I wet my bed but I don’t want my brains to go soft.

“The attendants are always joking about this one or that one. It’s not malicious, really. Sometimes I have to laugh myself at what they say. And then I think. After my operation I might be the one they’re making jokes about. And then it would be too late. You can see that in their eyes sometimes. The fact that they’ve let their chance slip by, and that they know it.

“After a certain point you ask yourself why. Why go on? Why bother? For what reason? I guess it’s when you stop enjoying things. The day-to-day things. It’s not as though there’s all that much to enjoy. Not there. The food? Eating is a chore for me now, like putting on my shoes. I do it. That’s all. Or the people? Well, I talk to them, they talk to me, but does anyone listen? You—do you listen? Huh? And when you talk, who listens to you? And how much are they paid?

“What was I talking about? Oh, friendship. Well, I’ve expressed my thoughts on that subject. So, what’s left? What is left? Teevee. I used to watch teevee a lot. Maybe if I had my own set again, and my own private room, maybe I could gradually just forget about everything else. But sitting there in that room at Terminal Clinic—that’s our name for it—with the others all sneezing and jabbering and I don’t know what, I can’t connect with the screen. I can’t make it take me over.

“And that’s it. That’s my life, and I say, who needs it? Oh, I forgot to mention baths. Twice a week I get a nice warm bath for fifteen minutes and I love it. Also, when I sleep I enjoy that. I sleep about four hours a night. It’s not enough.

“I’ve made sense, haven’t I? I’ve been rational? Before I came here I made a list of the things I meant to say, and now I’ve said them. They’re all good reasons, every one of them. I checked them in your little book. Have I left any out?

“Oh. Family relationships. Right. Well, I don’t have any left that count. After a certain age that’s true for everyone, and I’ve reached that age, I guess. It took a while, but I’m there.

“As I understand it, you’ve got to approve my application. If you don’t, I’ll appeal. As I have a right to. And eventually I’ll win. I’m smart, you know. When I have to be, I am. My whole family was a smart family, with very high scores. I never did much with my intelligence, I have to confess, but I’ll do this. I’ll get what I want and what I have a right to. And sincerely, Miss Latham, I do want it. I want to die. The way some people want sex, that’s how I want death. I dream about it. And I think about it. And it’s what I want.”