Born to Live

There were times Thomas found himself forgetting. His father, his mother, their faces and voices, the home they had lived in. All of it was distant in his mind, faded and blurred. It had gotten worse since he caught the sickness, even yesterday's events felt more like a dream than reality. Maybe they were. But for all his forgetting, his grandfather's memory remained firmly set in stone.

His parents had died at some point. Maybe at the same time, maybe years apart. A war might have played a role, or gangsters. Could have been a bootlegger with a shotgun or a hit-and-run driver. He couldn't remember anything about the ordeal accept for the doorbell's ring. Grandfather had come to collect them.

Them. Oh yes, Thomas remembered, shifting in his bed. The sheets were fresh, but his gown was soaked with sweat. A boy sat, somehow sleeping, at his bedside in an uncomfortable wooden chair.

He was small for his age, though Thomas couldn't remember just what age the boy was. He wore too-big knickers held up by suspenders and a warn out cap, hand-me-downs from his big brother. In his small, pink-tinged hands, he grippes an elegant white glove. It had belonged to their mother, hadn't it?

Ben, that's what Grandfather used to call the boy. Ben. He'd have to remember that.

The old man took care of them for a time. Those days were good, peaceful. But a sickness had spread through their town, through their country. Maybe through the whole world. Grandfather hadn't lived long. Thomas wouldn't either.

Coughing, he shifted in his bed again. It squealed under his weight, which wasn't very much. He'd never been particularly meaty, but he was all bones these days. Bones and bruised skin.

The creaking bed-frame was painted white, same as the dozen others. No one was in any of them, though he was sure half had been filled the day before. The ceiling was white, and the walls. A thick ropey wire ran up the wall opposite him, bending at the top to run further along the ceiling. It was white too.

Grandfather hadn't died in the hospitable, but at home in his own bed. It wasn't white, or cold and metal. His frame was made of wood, polished dark oak. But the men had burned it after he died, like everything else in the little house, save for the two boys. They'd been sent to a doctor for examination, but only one of them had caught the old man's sickness. Ben.

Hard as it was, Thomas could remember his little brother, sweaty and coughing and asking for water. A month of suffering had passed, but the boy survived. The doctors said he was cured, immune even. But by that time, it had passed to him.

Like Ben, Thomas sweat buckets and coughed so hard it felt his guts would fly out his mouth. A month had passed, and another after it. By the third, the doctors knew the truth of it. Thomas knew it too. He wouldn't be recovering, and he hadn't forgotten.

It was strange, knowing you were to die.

Everyone died, of course. One day. But they had the luck of delusion. They could pretend they'd live forever, or at least that there was still something good to come. Thomas didn't have delusion, though. Any day now, any hour, could be his last. There was nothing good, or even bad, to come. Just death.

“Men are born to die,” Thomas could remember his grandfather saying. “Only a few are born to live.”

He didn't what the words meant, but they were the old man's last. He still couldn't make sense of them. Or maybe he had, but he'd forgotten. There wasn't much he remembered, just himself and his grandfather, and his little brother.

Struggling into a sitting position, he set his eyes on the still-sleeping boy at his bedside. What was his name? 

Oh yes, he remembered. Ben.

Thomas couldn't help but feel guilty for dying. Ben would be alone then, the last member of their family. His future was bleak regardless of his big brother's mortality. But if Thomas still lived, then at least Ben could be supported and loved. Instead, the boy would likely be locked away in some orphanage, or forced into factory work.

These concerns were just about the only thing keeping Thomas going. He knew that if he fought just awhile longer, Ben wouldn't suffer so. But he was tired, so very tired. He didn't want to fight anymore. And more and more, it was becoming hard to remember why he was fighting. 

The sweat made his gown stick to him. He pinched the rough fabric and tugged it off his wet, clammy skin. The stale air of the room was refreshing, and he swallowed a mouthful of it before crashing back into the mattress. His body ached down to the bone, not that there was much else to him. He really was tired.

He fell asleep soon after. And though he didn't know for how long, he was glad to wake again.

The boy, his brother, sat on the bed's edge. His eyes were teary, his lips pink and teary. He still gripped their dead mother's glove, but with the same hand he clung to Thomas' own, the soft fabric pressed between their sweaty palms.

"No crying," Thomas told the boy, even though he himself felt like doing just that. Not because he was sick, but because he couldn't remember his brother's name. "You, you're the man of the family now. You can't cry anymore."

Stoically, the boy clenched his jaw, sniffled, and gave a nod. "I won't," he vowed. "But you can't either."

"It's a deal," Thomas said, rolling his head over. On his other side stood a man, tall and silver-haired and wearing a long white coat. He swallowed. "Is it time?"

The doctor gave a tight lipped smile, an attempt at comfort. "It won't be long, my boy. Not very long at all."

With all his strength, Thomas squeezed his brother's hand, the glove wrinkling. He stared up at the white ceiling and the thick ropey cord that ran down its middle to the dim overhead light. He took a deep breath, his bed creaking from the feint movements of his body, and remembered those words, his Grandfather's last.

“Men are born to die,” the old man had said with a gasp, his dying breath a high-pitched whistle. “Only a few are born to live."

The white of the room went black, the boy and the doctor at his sides vanished, and Thomas was falling. It wasn't a swift, stomach flipping fall like on a carnival ride, now a sudden drop like when you tumbled from a tree. It was a slow, sinking fall so slow it felt as if he were barely moving at all. He was a feather drifting down through the darkness, alone and peaceful.

He felt as if he'd fall forever. But forever ended quicker than expected, for he'd reached the bottom of the nothingness. It felt soft, cushiony. I'm asleep, he reminded himself, and opened his eyes to an alien world.

It was dim in the little room, the morning sun just beginning to slip through the curtains. He was warm, but not sweaty. The bed was thick, cushiony, and the sleek sheets had a pleasant scent. But they weren't his, he tried to tell himself they weren't. He was in someone else's bed, yet the mattress and sheets and blankets felt familiar, as if he'd slept here a million times before.

The walls around him were painted baby blue, and they were lined with bookshelves, all except for one where a strange object hung. It was rectangular, and resembled the large screens at the picture shows. T.V., his mind supplied, though he felt the word belonged to another language. Another word came to mind, a name. Ben. He just couldn't remember who it belonged to.