A Nightmare

Several nights ago I had a terrible yet poignant dream whose themes of unsatisfiable yearning (symbolized by unquenchable thirst) and frustrated hopes still linger in my mind.

The Dream of the Deathbed





It is a hot August day, and I lay in a small room in a hospital fighting for what remains of my life. A sheet covers the lower half of my naked body, with its swollen abdomen; above it, my chest and thin arms. A tube is inserted in my nose; a second tube leads from my side into a glass jar at the foot of the bed; both are removing the wastes my body can no longer eliminate. The gallons of iced apple juice I gulp down to moisten my cracked lips and dry throat reach only the stomach and flow into the jar. Nothing moves past the stomach level, below which there are intestinal obstructions, and because my body absorbs little, whether I drink, suck lemons, or rub ice on my lips, my thirst is unslakable.

Compulsively I keep flexing my long fingers, rippling them as though playing an instrument. Whenever the powerful sedatives pumped into my body threaten to overwhelm me I wrench myself up into consciousness, forcing myself to activity. At times I extend an arm at full length, shake my fist and shout, "Gary Freedman, you have so much to do!"

I say, "I want to yell, can I yell?" And then I shout, "Yell!"-- prolonging the word interminably like a fire siren. Those who hear it forgive its theatricality because it is evident there is something penultimate in this howl.

I put into words what I think is the reason for waging my nightmare battle: "I may fool you all . . . you know, I may live. . . . Then perhaps Gary Freedman will do something to redeem the last 15 wasted years."

It becomes a matter of utmost significance to me to know what time it is, and repeatedly I ask; once, after I am told, I say, "Why don't they tell me the time, why do they keep it from me? Why do they do this to a man's courage?" It is as though I am counting the minutes that are still mine.