The Secret Monologue

He looks dead. At least as close to dead that you could possibly get while still living. His face is sunken in and he looks three times his age. He’s deathly pale with a tint of yellow that always seems to come with sickness. All the muscle seems to have disappeared off his body, leaving behind skin and bones that could be mistaken for toothpicks. Photos line the wall of a star hockey player, and a high school track record setter along with numerous ‘Get better soon!’ cards. It’s odd to see that the man immobile in bed is one in the same with the healthy individual in the photos.
When I first heard he was in the hospital, I didn’t believe it. I knew he was sick, but he’s always been sick. Whether it was with a cold or the stomach flu, being sick wasn’t new. But never sick enough to land himself a spot in ICU at Lawrence General like he is now. I was told over the phone that it was just a small case of pneumonia. However, it was more than that and we all knew it. He was too stubborn to admit weakness as always. That flaw almost killed him.
Clostridium difficile colitis, they say. A bunch of words that have absolutely no meaning to me. Three feet of his intestine will be taken out during surgery, they say. In three surgeries, to be exact. This will take place after he wakes up from his medically induced coma, of course. And after he recovers from kidney failure. He’s a cockroach, somehow still kicking.
A tangle of wires snake themselves from bulky machines and latch onto his body in various spots. The rise and fall of his chest is barely noticeable under the white hospital gowns and itchy blankets. He’s a shadow of the man he was two months ago. Yet, walking into the hospital room for the first time and after hearing all the horror stories from my mother, I still didn’t know what to expect. Seeing a walking corpse wasting away in a hospital bed was not it.
He looks over as we walk in, exhaustion clearly plastered on his