“Ssssss-Plunk!”
It was an awful sound, mechanical torture that repeated over and over again.
“Ssssss-Plunk!”
Mark Simms lived with the taunting seemingly never-ending noise as of late. It was in his dreams; horrific nightmares that left him restless. The sound permeated the forefront of his mind, surrounding him in uncontrollable thought even when he was nowhere near the machine that expelled the repulsive reverberations. As the barrage of frightening sound-waves hissed and clicked relentlessly around him, he knew they were carving a deep space in his memory never to be forgotten.
“Ssssss-Plunk!”
It was a breathing apparatus that created the noise, and it was attached to his mother providing her with life-giving oxygen in what he knew was likely her final hours. Helen Simms had been diagnosed with Apathia Syndrome less than six months prior, a rapidly degenerative disorder causing the body to turn on itself by shutting down the absorption of nutrition. His mother withered quickly to a barely recognizable state of thin as her internal organs slowly shut down one after another. Her lungs were weakened as the disorder spread, leaving her reliant on the ghastly machine. As her end appeared to be growing nearer and nearer, Mark watched helplessly from her bedside, lost in emotion with the sound keeping time with the beat of his aching heart.
“Ssssss-Plunk!”
“You must… listen to me,” she wheezed between heavy breaths powered by the hisses and clunks. Emaciated and pale, she turned her frail head to look towards her son and whispered a plea. “Mark.”
Mark, a barely adult young man who was also thin from loss of appetite, glanced up and leaned forward to be closer to his mother as she called out to him. His heart ached looking upon the face that he loved and relied upon now so thin that her cheeks seemed concave, her skin pale and nearly translucent. Wiping the haze of caked tears from his eyes to see her clearer, he softly answered her plea. “I’m here.” Fresh tears were forming in his eyes.
“Your father.” With an exhale that sounded as if her lungs were emptying without control of her own, the machine continued its mechanical serenade. She wheezed, and then continued. “You must forgive him.”
Mark’s eyes grew glassy as he pondered her words, his memory journeying from the room deep in the infirmary to other places, other times. In his thoughts, his father, Governor of the Boston and Quebec Territory, was an absent man. As a child he grew to know that it was his mother who was always there to greet him, to play with him and to nurture him, while his father was a figure that only appeared occasionally. The man was there nightly, and oftentimes the younger Mark would hear the shouts of the mother he loved; his own anguish bubbling into tearful evenings in the tempest that was his own family life. Mark grew to hate his father for being the man that could not love his mother, for not being the man who could be proud of his son, for never wanting to show any interest in the boy that he had brought into this world. “How can you say that?” He replied with a tone that rose just above a whisper. The forming tears began to track down upon his cheeks.
“You must stop blaming him,” she answered with a weak huff. “You’re going to need him now.”
Mark rose up from the chair, gazing down at the frail body that his mother was trapped within. Turning away, he stepped towards the corner where a small silver dresser stood with a mirror hanging on the wall just above. He saw his reflection, his face thin and pale topped with an unkempt mop of light brown hair. As his mind continued to drift, he heard once again the words of angry parents when he was older. It was a memory from just three years prior, the day that his mother stood her ground and left his father. ‘I’ve never been the woman you wanted, Drew,’ his mother had said. She always had the reasoning voice in the arguments he remembered. ‘Mark’s older now and it’s time for you and I to try our lives apart.’
In his memory, Mark remembered creeping to just outside the doorway where the voices were emanating from. ‘You’re right,’ his father had replied. ‘You’ve always been right.’ Mark bowed his head as the moment played on; a vision from an unhappy time. Though he had been proud of his mother then, happy that she was leaving the man he knew only by the word father, he was always tormented by their fractured relationship. “He’s never been there for me,” he said glancing back up at his reflection. He could just see the image of his mother’s face in the mirror behind him. “Why would I need him now?”
“There were good times.” With the intake of another raspy breath fed by the machine, she filled her weak lungs and continued. “You just only remember the bad. He loves you deeply. He’s just never been very good at showing it.”
“You left him for a reason.”
The machine continued to pump and hiss. “We weren’t right for each other. That doesn’t mean he’s not a good man.”
“Then where is he now?” Mark spun and looked directly upon his mother. “Avoiding again? That’s what he always does.”
“No,” she responded quickly through a raspy gasp. “He’s never been very good at showing his emotions. He is the man he is capable of being. I was wrong to try to make him something more.” With the finish of the words, her chest buckled with the wheeze of the machine. She was in pain.
“Mom,” Mark stepped closer placing his hand upon her small chest as a different sort of pain erupted within him; emotional agony. The tears erupted once more.
“Forgive him,” she whispered. “You both need each other.” Her chest rose again and then lowered. The machine continued its infernal sounds as Helen slowly reached a finger out from the sheets and touched her son’s wrist.
Mark looked into his mother’s eyes. It was clear she was tired and their words were taxing. “You should rest,” he whispered, backing away slightly. Her finger slipped off his wrist and to the sheet as he stood and stepped back to the dresser. Like his father, there were times when he felt that need to back away from a sensitive moment; step aside just to let it pass. He hated his father though as the thought crossed within his mind. ‘I’m not like my father,’ he thought. The machine hissed and clicked again.
Mark took a deep breath preparing to step back to his mother’s bedside, to show her the love and support that was within him, the side of him that was innately from her. As her words settled within his mind, the room fell into silence. With the stilling of his own breath frozen within his chest, the realization that the machine had stopped washed upon him like an icy shower.
With a thud, the door opened suddenly, startling him though he continued to look at the reflection in the mirror. His mother was still in the reflection, no movement. Looking quickly away, he heard scuffling behind him; a nurse had entered. Unable to catch a breath, as if his own breathing was reliant on the awful machine, the truth of what was happening shot through him like a bolt of electricity. His mother was gone.
Without air, his lungs began to gasp with the remaining breath within him expelled in the beginnings of a wail. Tears flowed freely as he lost control of his senses and took in a hefty gasp, though it uncontrollably left his lungs once more in a louder outcry. Mark doubled over overtaken with grief that felt as if he had been delivered a swift punch to the gut. Unable to stop himself, lost within a dark world of hurt, his lungs released a third wail just when he felt the hand of the nurse upon his shoulder. He fell to his knees and allowed the tears to flow into his palms that he brought before his face.
The scuffling continued behind him, but he could not bring himself to look backwards at the bedside where his mother’s body still laid. In the midst of the place of anguish he had been thrust into, he heard the words of a woman. “She’s gone, sir.” Who was she speaking to? He could not look.
Mark’s body began to spasm out of control, the tears and outcries unable to be ceased. He felt a hand upon his shoulder once more, a body close behind him. Reaching up, he took the hand in his own. It was all he could think of, to reach out for aid. Another arm reached around to his front, pulling him into a warm embrace. When he heard the words, he knew who it was. “It’ll be alright, son.”
Mark fell back into his father’s arms for a moment, his grief completely in control. Though the moment was somewhat surrealistic, the tears flowed in the acceptance of the end of the woman who had always been there for him, into the knowledge that he would never hear her words again. His mother really was gone and for a few seconds he simply opened his mouth and sobbed loudly.
After the short moment of crying, acceptance of what was happening around him seeped in like moisture upon cloth, Mark spun, struggling quickly to a stance with the wipe of his eyes upon his arm. His breathing in heavy gasps, he gazed upon his father, the man also tearing though his hair was fully primped and his suit was neat and pressed. His mother’s final words rung within Mark’s ears briefly, but then faded quickly. “Stay away from me,” he said.
“Son,” the governor returned with an outstretched hand.
Mark glanced passed his father to glimpse the even paler face of the woman that was his mother. She was motionless and her eyes were fixed. Grief washed over him quickly once more as he bucked forward and released a gasp. Without a moment of thought, his head erupted with putrid detest for his father, hatred for him not being the parent upon the bed. He reached forward pushing his father aside to make a hasty exit. As he passed, his shoulders bumping up against his father’s chest, he could hear the man’s words behind him, though they were meaningless and empty. Mark wanted only an escape from the room that he had come to know as a dark place with a terrible sound.
Mark continued to walk rapidly once outside the room, down the corridor towards the infirmary hub. His tears were relentless continuing to paint a gray haze before his eyes, his mind lost in a world of sorrow that was also bitter with resentment. He could hear his mother’s final words once more, though as if she were still with him, in his mind the argument continued. ‘I don’t need him,’ he thought in reaction to her words. ‘And I’ll never forgive him.’