12:24 to Infinity

Whether he was conscious was up for debate.

I received the news from my mother a day after my father's trip to the ER.

It had happened before. He was a chronic smoker, and even after the first time, needing to receive a little metallic device inserted into an artery and bleeding with the tiniest scratch, he still didn't live any differently.

Then there was the second time. I barely remember what happened. He returned just the same.

So it goes.

"I see," I said.

"No," Mother said, "I think it's real this time."

"You think so?"

"Do you want to go?"

"To see him?"

"I don't know how long he'll be there," Mother said, "your sister said she's going on Wednesday, skipping school and stuff. We can go there together if you wish. I know it's hard."

"I suppose."

I thought he was just canonically, and stubbornly, dense. That he could take some Tums and knock off what uneasiness he had felt during the day.

I had not seen him for years, and driving to see him again at the hospital brought back emotions and tension as if he were in the car with me.

The Medical region of the city my father was flown to had a dour atmosphere that made you feel more alive, yet dismayed and ill. As if the possibility of death and disease increased in your case the more you lingered. The feeling heightened as we closed in, passing the children's hospital, before arriving within an area similar to an encircling lobby where Hotel Valet would take your things.

My stepmother met us and guided us to our father's room.

Seeing my father in that bed was an artifact which daunted me like no other. Little sights and attractions, nor frightening glimpses and pranks, had ever made me sink below even myself.

I sat in the basic hospital chairs as I saw everything that was connected to him. Two towers of medicine pumped multiple fluids, which were checked periodically and changed every couple of hours. His body did not move voluntarily and only from the cycles of a breathing machine. A tube came from under his sheet and into a toilet within the room. His eyes held a gap only noticeable when inspecting his face; they had shaved his beard off when inserting breathing tubes, and he had spent a while on it.

The whiteboard had my sister's name written on it along with my aunt's, however, my sister kept erasing it, for which my aunt would return and repeat. The cycles of the machines and beeps went in sync with the clock on the wall like a metronome.

The atmosphere made me nauseous, and even when dining in the wide and cold tile expanse of the food court, I couldn't do it. The building didn't have a strong selection, a popular coffee chain made my sister a nice Mocha.

I could not remember arriving at the hospital to the same degree as having seen my father's body. I had spent so much time within daydreams that they were processed better than memory. Hospitals could make dreams come true while being the ruins of one as well.

"How are you doing?" My mother asked.

"What?"

"How are you?"

"I'm...fine," I said, "I wonder what Belle's doin'."

My sister had been on her phone for a minute, and sipping her Coffee she looked over at me.

"What you lookin' at, bro?" She said.

"What are you watching?" I asked.

"Oh nothin'," she said, "just chilling until, well, we go back."

"Yeah..." I said.

Few records of progress were given to us, so we made our way to a lounge area with an aquarium to waste even more time.

"So what have you been up to, boy?" my stepmother asked, "Haven't seen ya in a while."

"I have been alright, just school and other things."

My mom chimed in.

"I heard you guys got some farm animals," she said, "and...Emus?"

"Yep," my stepmother said, "got 'em from 'cross state, they've been fine for the most part. We make a good deal with the eggs, we have an incubation box in the house."

"I see," my mother said.

"Well, I don't know what you have been up to, Mary," stepmother said, "haven't had the kids together in a while."

"Got a new job at a firm," Mother said, "just something remote for the time being."

"How long have you guys known each other?" I asked.

"I've known Heidi since High School," Mother said, “she would bring her kids over and play, but that was long ago."

Heidi's children didn't come, they were not out of school, and I was the only one who had graduated and didn't need to have a, though justified, excuse to visit.

When one visits a loved one, even a family friend or someone close, in the hospital and they are not awake, your time is without hunger, and even mild thirst is met with a weak stomach. Every second is stretched thin and long as a mile, distorted and manipulated by the perception of death that a clock's stone face tells you no progress.

Time spent with a sleeping relative is an unheard storage chest carefully unloaded until one's old eyes are too dry, or when uneasy wills are not broken but melt, and induce what little can be described except as an ugly dream. Others have had lifetimes to wait, and plenty of Thanksgiving dinners with portraits next to the fireplace. We barely had a furnace.

After having returned to the hospital room for an hour, a doctor came in and provided us with various diagnoses. Multiple organ failure and infections, and most notably, Heart failure. When Heidi arrived, he could lightly grip her hand, but when I came, his feet and hands became cold and gray.

The best I was given was the 'conscious unconscious.'

I suppose.

Later on, Heidi's sister came and directed them to my father's bed.

"Dave's fine," she said, "just yell at him, call him somethin' funny, that'll wake him up."

They laughed.

Various people came to see my father, people who didn't see him much in life.

On my mother's phone, we heard from family who couldn't come. One of them had landed in Florida when he was lifted to the Heart Center, and through her message said:

“Not Uncle Fishy."

I hadn't heard that nickname in years.

None of my father's side of the family visited. His sister didn't come when I was there and most probably didn't hear of it directly.

By the evening, the day had dragged me down like a stone soaking uneasy drugs into me. I had felt mildly carsick inside the room, and after a minute's discussion, me and mother decided to leave.

The Doctor returned, and so did two nurses who tended to my father.

"Is everything alright here?" He asked.

"Yeah," Heidi said, "what's happening so far?"

"We're reading that his state is improving," he said, "we now able to take him off some of the medication."

"Really?" Heidi said.

My mother looked over at me.

"What do you want to do?"

"I think we can go home, now."

We got up and said our goodbyes, I hugged my sister and stepmom. I didn't do it as hard as them.

My sister was to stay along with Heidi.

I came to my father's bedside as if grabbing a certificate. I felt that multiple people within the room ruined an honest appeal. I touched his hand.

"Hey Dad," I said, "It's me, I came to see you, hope you do better."

I had an unread letter in my pocket. It was first draft anyway.

The further I had been from the hospital, the less uneasy I felt. My mother and I stopped at a fast food place, and slowly my hunger returned in droves.

The evening gave way to a deep ocean's blue.

"Really thought something would happen," she said, "I gave others an impression that it was final."

"I guess."

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," I said, "Just tired."

"At least he is off one or two of the medications."

"He couldn't make up his mind either sometimes," I said.

Mother smiled, "Next time we can call him out on it."

It had turned dark as we arrived home. I went to bed, and my routine couldn't have been more of a drag as I fell asleep at every step. I turned on the TV and climbed into bed.

Despite having enough time to see him for any span he had left, I felt that no matter how much I saw him it would be uneasy. Unless each memory is stuck, the tenuous nature would be imprinted like muscle memory yet be a new experience overall.

I awoke in the morning to a message from my Mother.

"Your father," she said, "he passed in the night."

I went back to sleep.

I came downstairs later to find cookies from a fast food place on the counter and was told they were for my sister and me. Mother was at her desk working on documents, and turned towards me.

"Morning son," she said, "sleep good?"

"I think so."

She moved a chair over to her.

Do you want to talk about it?"

I took a bite, staring deeply without agency into the designs of the Kitchen wallpaper.

"Do you want to know what happened?"

"I guess," I said.

I came over and she explained to me what happened.

After we left, Heidi asked the Doctor to tell her the truth. He explained that he was the worst case on the floor and that he didn't have long. My sister was out of the room at that point, leaving Heidi alone with the Doctor.

She decided to stay a little longer, until eventually heading out as well.

His heart stopped, and he died thereafter.

They timed his death at 12:24 a.m.

I sometimes think about whether he knew he died, like how one knows the point to which they can say, "I am now sleeping."

Within dreams, even to my shock every time, an instance can last for hours. As he was in that state, I wondered how long he had spent there, in his mind, even though he had been there only a couple of days. An eternity of recognizable voices he can never process.

When our perceptions are scaled next to infinity, we gain nothing.