He always had trouble breathing. Cold dry air burned his lungs and humid air coated it in a thick slime that sucked the hollow cavity of his chest together every time he took a breath. It didn’t hinder his daily life too much - don’t run too fast and remember the inhaler and he was good to go. It wasn’t until recently that he’s had any real difficulty with breathing. It’s as if as he’s gotten older, his lungs have grown tired and decided they didn’t want to keep up with the rest of his body. His walks have gotten shorter as his breath got shorter. Dry and wet air both drifted through his lungs and back out again, but there was never enough air to breathe. Eventually they told him that he should go on oxygen. He wasn’t old, not young either, but certainly not old enough to warrant hauling around a tank of air whenever he went out, but he needed that tank if he ever wanted to be able to walk from one end of his house to the other without keeling over and dying right there on the lush shag carpet of his slightly outdated family home. The problem, they told him, was partly where he lived. Salt air was a nice aesthetic for those that were not asthmatic, and no matter how fine the sunrises were across the water or how intense the smell of lightening before a storm, it wasn’t enough to justify ruining what was left of his compromised breathing system. Of course, he would never leave, not with his parents and his little sister buried on the small cliff side dotted with pink blossoms in spring and scattered with long waves of grass that ebbed and flowed like the tides below. And so he hauled his tank of precious oxygen around and his doctor fretted and warned and he walked across the beach sucking in as much salty sea air that he could while he still had lungs to do so. Oftentimes he would wave to the girl that manned the lighthouse. She wasn’t from around here, an outsider that arrived when the old light keeper died without anyone else in town to take up the post. But she integrated neatly into the small town and she was friendly when he ran into her in the store and she had lovely silver eyes and he may have a bit of a crush on her. She never minded when he wheeled up next to her on the beach, hefting the strap of his oxygen tank over his shoulder and hacking out half whispered words that rattled up through his broken lungs. She would laugh easily though with him and touch him gently on the arm and patiently let him work through his breathing to finish telling her that she looked beautiful and would she be interested in going out for a coffee or a tea the following afternoon? His breathing came a little more difficult when she kissed him on the cheek and no amount of oxygen in the world could have helped, but then again, he didn’t mind so much in that case. And then they would walk together, one of his arms around her shoulders and the other looped around the strap of his oxygen and she would occasionally steal his breath away and he would let her because this was the only time he was ok with the shortness of his breath if it meant he could steal a little bit of hers in return. There came a time though that no medicine or exercise or surgery or anything but better genetics could have helped him and he began his last slow walk across the beach. They would be moving him tomorrow, out of his family home and into a facility especially designed to help him continue living and breathing. Today he was alone because this was the kind of walk he felt needed to be done alone, he also didn’t want to trouble her because who wanted an invalid as a lover and really they didn’t know each other that well, she would be fine after he was gone and she would soon be stealing someone else breath away while he wouldn’t have any left. He walked slowly down the beach, partly out of necessity and mostly out of cowardice. There was a lot to face when he reached his home and he wanted to stretch this time in between for as long as he could, for as long as his failing lungs would let him. There was a splashing in the water outside of the usual rolling of the tide and he felt his feet turning to shift from sand to water. The wetness creeped through his shoes and his socks and the air burned cold and bright in his chest. The moon was out tonight, a waning crescent that still shed enough light to bathe the ocean in a silver sheen that bounced gently off the chrome of his oxygen tank. The water was up to his chest now and the tank was getting heavier despite it being filled with nothing but air. She was waiting for him, out there where the sea met the sky in a thin stripe of horizon that didn’t seem so far away now. Of course she was, she wouldn’t have let him walk this alone. He couldn’t feel the ground anymore and he spread his arms across the water, letting the strap of the tank slip of his shoulder, and he didn’t bother watching the tank sink, the plastic leads that had filled his nose for months were torn away and he sucked in a breath with his mouth wide open. She met him then and draped her arms around his neck and covered his gasping mouth with her own. His last breath was pulled from his lungs and then she was dragging him under. The water closed over their heads and he could do nothing but breathe and the water rushed in. His chest heaved, lungs struggling for so long on air suddenly opening up and letting the water in. He felt strong hands on him now, thumbs gently stroking across his cheeks as they drifted through the ocean. And finally, finally, with water in his lungs and in his mouth, he breathed.
I wrote this all out in about twenty minutes late one night while facing a random bout of insomnia - I'm not sure where it came from or where it's going but it's a nice little short I thought I'd share. I'm trying something new?
:) Kathryn