This is a companion piece to the ficlet, The Reunion.
Title: Boy, Welcome Home
His boy was dying. He knew it by the sound of the ever slowing beep of the heart monitor. Of the sporadic whoosh of the ventilator as his lungs refused to accept any more oxygen. His boy’s skin was thin and wrinkled. Time had not been kind to him. He looked so pale and fragile lying alone in the hospital room. Occasionally a nurse would stop in. She’d lower the volume of the machines, tidy the blankets, and then leave.
He was anxious to have his boy in his arms again. He wondered for a moment what his brat would think of him in the afterlife. No longer scarred from wounds of war and stress of the living. Instead, a specimen in his prime.
A long high pitched sound droned on as his boy’s heart gave in to its exhaustion. No longer able to pump life’s rich liquid through his veins. The room shimmered but the nurse who walked in didn’t see it. Machines were turned off and wires were removed from his boy’s still body.
He rubbed his hands nervously against his thighs. A remembrance of sweaty hands that only happened in life. A habit that hadn’t been broken in this realm. The shimmering moved from the plane of the living to this new dimension. And suddenly his boy stood before him.
He opened his arms. The one he’d waited for crashed into the embrace. He tightened his arms around the broad shoulders, knowing they had eternity ahead of them. He rested his head against the man he’d loved for so long and whispered, “Boy, welcome home.”
End
To read more ficlets go to the Drabbles and Ficlets page.
No comments:
Post a Comment