The Cough

It was 2 a.m. I’d been lying awake for hours, kept up by the sound of my own cough.

I heard my bedroom door creak open and looked up to see my mother, old and haggard, enter my room. In her hand she carried a plastic bottle and a metal tablespoon.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

“The cough?”

“Yeah.

She nodded at me and came to my bedside, unscrewing the bottle’s cap as she walked. She sat gently next to me and poured me a spoonful of the syrup.

“Here, try this.

“I just took some an hour ago. It didn’t do anything.”

“Take some anyway.” She brought the full spoon to my lips. For a moment, I kept them closed, but her look made me open wide.

“There,” she said as I swallowed the medicine. A pleased tone was woven throughout her voice. “That should help.”

“I hope so.”

Silence penetrated the room for an instant.

“I think you should see the doctor tomorrow,” she said.

I shook my head.

“And why not?”

“Because he won’t do anything about it.”

“He might give you some stronger medicine.”

“You know he won’t. He never does.”

She nodded sadly and said nothing after that. She knew the doctor was a poor one and that I would go undiagnosed for as long as I could.

Suddenly, a cough bubbled up in my throat and I began to hack. It went on for longer than I anticipated, and I reached toward my mother, motioning for a tissue. I covered my mouth with the thin paper and continued to cough, my body shuddering from the force.

When I finally stopped, I pulled the tissue away from my mouth and saw blood. I quickly wadded it up and threw it in the trash. I didn’t want my mother to see.

“Are you all right?” she asked, gently rubbing my back.

“Yeah,” I said, reclining back into bed. “I’m fine.”

Expendable

I know it’s coming. I can see my doom just off the edge of the table, inches from where I lay. I can sense my end just minutes away and I am powerless to stop it. I can do nothing to save myself – I can’t even move.

The hard, cold metal of the table beneath me penetrates every inch of my skin. I am freezing but still I lie naked on the table, bared for all the world to see, and I must endure this harsh coldness that seeps into me from below.

The Director never did care for the comfort of his minions.

The bright fluorescent lights above me are glaring like the sun. I am forced to lie on the table and stare into them, blinding myself. My vision is clouded by little black spots but they shy away from me whenever I try to look at them. Only one remains in the center of my eye, willing to be seen.

I remember when I first came here, to the Director’s Office, newly born and full of promise. I had great hopes then, but I contained a single flaw that the Director found and that was unacceptable. One flaw, one small mistake in my makeup, and I was sent to my death.

The Assistant was the one who brought me to the table. It was clear she took no delight in her task, which comforted me until I realized that whether or not I had her sympathy, she would continue to do as the Director had asked.

For a brief time, before my end, I thought of my brothers, born into the same world as I. I wondered if they contained the Flaw, as I did, or if they made it to that golden realm of which we all dreamt: the Director’s Office.

I began to see just how expendable I was to them, and my heart broke.

It’s been hours. I continue to lay on the cold metal table in the Assistant’s Office, waiting for my fate.

Suddenly, the Assistant appears. She gives me a longing look and sighs before she picks me up and carries me to my death.

Slowly, she begins to feed me into the machine.

I scream, but no one can hear me.

“Marlene, did you shred those files like I asked?” the Director asked his Assistant.

“Just finishing up now, sir.”

Thus I am ended.