FOTD, Chokeberry #29, Gingerbread #5 w/ Whipped Cream, Pineapple, Peaches, and Malt - Lifeline
Author: askingxalice
Title: Lifeline
Summary: Jakob’s dying wish.
Story: Phase
Timeline: March 2003 - Jakob is 17
Challenge: FOTD (effluvium), Chokeberry #29 (My Treat - to die would be an adventure - Jakob's eventual acceptance that he will die very soon), Gingerbread #5 (sleeping beauty)
Toppings/Extras: Whipped Cream, Fresh Pineapple (I’m not scared, but I can’t move), Fresh Peaches (Some volatile emotional matters that may have reared their heads over the past few days could finally be settled.), Malt (Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; The subject, not the citizen; for kings and subjects, mutual foes, forever play a losing game into each other's hands, whose stakes are vice and misery.)
Word Count: 346
Rating: PG
It didn’t scare Jakob to think that he was going to die soon. He wasn’t sure how soon. It could be weeks, days... tomorrow, maybe. But he could feel himself getting weaker as the days went by, could see the blood that sprayed from his lips in a fine mist with every cough, and how much weight he had lost. He had to sleep sitting up to combat the fluid in his lungs, and he could certainly hear the crackling and gurgling and wheezing with every shallow breath that took so much effort to make. He was ready to go. Death did not scare him.
What would happen to Oz after he was gone scared him. While Jakob knew that his parents had somewhat accepted his fate, he could see plain as day that Oz hadn’t. It was in Oz’s eyes for every second he was by Jakob’s bed side, in every trembling hand, every broken word. Guilt wasn’t allowing Oz to accept this. Guilt was making this worse. Guilt was the last thing Oz should have been feeling. Jakob didn’t blame him for this and neither did his parents, but monks with their knotted cords could not self-flagellate themselves in the way Oz did.
Jakob knew Oz wouldn’t listen to him on the subject. He had tried, but it had gotten nowhere, with Jakob coughing so hard he thought his ribs would break from the strain and Oz on the verge of a veritable breakdown afterward. So he did the best he could think of otherwise and begged his mother to look after Oz, after he was gone, because nobody else would. Jakob hated, hated the fact that for the second time in his life, Oz was losing the person closest to him.
His mother swore she’d do her best to help him, and they both knew that it wasn’t a promise to keep Oz well. They had both learned over the past few months that only so much could be done, and that sometimes it wasn’t near enough.
Jakob died a few days later.
Title: Lifeline
Summary: Jakob’s dying wish.
Story: Phase
Timeline: March 2003 - Jakob is 17
Challenge: FOTD (effluvium), Chokeberry #29 (My Treat - to die would be an adventure - Jakob's eventual acceptance that he will die very soon), Gingerbread #5 (sleeping beauty)
Toppings/Extras: Whipped Cream, Fresh Pineapple (I’m not scared, but I can’t move), Fresh Peaches (Some volatile emotional matters that may have reared their heads over the past few days could finally be settled.), Malt (Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; The subject, not the citizen; for kings and subjects, mutual foes, forever play a losing game into each other's hands, whose stakes are vice and misery.)
Word Count: 346
Rating: PG
It didn’t scare Jakob to think that he was going to die soon. He wasn’t sure how soon. It could be weeks, days... tomorrow, maybe. But he could feel himself getting weaker as the days went by, could see the blood that sprayed from his lips in a fine mist with every cough, and how much weight he had lost. He had to sleep sitting up to combat the fluid in his lungs, and he could certainly hear the crackling and gurgling and wheezing with every shallow breath that took so much effort to make. He was ready to go. Death did not scare him.
What would happen to Oz after he was gone scared him. While Jakob knew that his parents had somewhat accepted his fate, he could see plain as day that Oz hadn’t. It was in Oz’s eyes for every second he was by Jakob’s bed side, in every trembling hand, every broken word. Guilt wasn’t allowing Oz to accept this. Guilt was making this worse. Guilt was the last thing Oz should have been feeling. Jakob didn’t blame him for this and neither did his parents, but monks with their knotted cords could not self-flagellate themselves in the way Oz did.
Jakob knew Oz wouldn’t listen to him on the subject. He had tried, but it had gotten nowhere, with Jakob coughing so hard he thought his ribs would break from the strain and Oz on the verge of a veritable breakdown afterward. So he did the best he could think of otherwise and begged his mother to look after Oz, after he was gone, because nobody else would. Jakob hated, hated the fact that for the second time in his life, Oz was losing the person closest to him.
His mother swore she’d do her best to help him, and they both knew that it wasn’t a promise to keep Oz well. They had both learned over the past few months that only so much could be done, and that sometimes it wasn’t near enough.
Jakob died a few days later.