Herbert Gossamer’s Wife

Hebert Gossamer stared at his wife, tears forming in his eyes as he looked up and down her emaciated frame. As of today, she had two, three weeks at best, although in her state she looked as though she had already died. Her lips cracked and thin, her skin ashen, her eyes sunk deep into the cavities of their sockets, Mrs. Gossamer looked like a corpse that had been dug up and placed onto a hospital bed. He hardly recognized her. The woman he had been married too for seven years, who’s face he had studied, memorized every crease, freckle and contour now looked like a total stranger lying before him. The very woman who, just a year earlier had beat him in arm wrestling matches and kicked his ass in every single video game they played now lied their gaunt. A mere ghost of her former self. 

As he stood there staring at his wife, Herbert realized that her IV had been dripping the whole time. It used to be that the slow, monotonous dripping of the IV would break the pensive silence that Herbert often found himself in. Now he barely even gave it a thought. Hearing it had become routine. Everything had become routine. Check-in, take the elevator to the third floor, head to the oncology ward, take a deep inhale to steady his nerves (he still found his nerves heightened even though he had done this every day for the past two months), and enter the room where his wife lay slowly dying. He would then walk up to her, take ahold of her skeletal hand, stare at her shriveled face, and cry. It was all routine now. He didn’t have to consciously think about it anymore. His finger would unconsciously press the third-floor button. His feet would take him to the oncology ward without even a thought about where he wanted to go. He no longer told himself to take a deep breath, he just did it.

Breath. He stared at the faint rise and fall of his wife’s chest. Breath. He stared at the uncomfortable looking hospital-grade pillow under her head. Breath. Back to the peaks and troughs of her chest. Breath. Back to the pillow. Breath... He couldn’t do it, could he? He shuddered at the thought of him, in a frenzy, ripping the pillow out from under her head and using it to smother her. It was murder! But she was going to die anyway, right? Plus, this way she wouldn’t have to suffer two more excruciating weeks, slowly dying. Her death would be quick this way, of that he was sure. Would it be painless, however? He pondered this over for a moment and decided that in her current condition, it would be relatively painless. She could hardly breathe anyway, so a total lack of oxygen wouldn’t be too much different from what she was used to and...

He stopped himself. This thinking was absurd, sadistic. Besides, it was selfish. Would he be killing his wife for her benefit? To end her suffering? He could lie to himself all he wanted, but he knew that deep down, in the deepest pits of his being, his motivation for wanting to kill her was to end his suffering. No longer did he want to stare at her every day and cry. No longer did he want to feel the sinking feeling he felt watching her die. No longer did he want the whole damn thing to be routine! He wanted it to be over with, done! He wanted her to die so he could go on living as he had done before. No longer did he want his life to revolve around a dying woman’s. Why should he change his plans for her? Who’s to say she’d do the same for him? Who’s to say...

He broke down, knelt to the floor and cried. He felt like an egotistical ass. He was an egotistical ass. Of course she’d do the same for him, of course he should change his plans for her. This was his wife, the woman he vowed to love in sickness and in health, a vow he planned to keep. His eyes foggy with tears, Hebert wiped his nose clean of the liquidy snot that comes with crying and stared at back his wife. 

“I’m sorry.” He said, his voice choked up and full of sadness. “I should have never that those thoughts.” He softly gripped her hand and stroked it up and down with his thumb. “I’m so sorry.” He stared into her eyes, which, once a vibrant, light blue, were now hollow and gray. He wondered what she’d say if she still had the strength to speak. Would she accept his apology? Or would she call him an egomaniacal jerk and spit in his face? He began to cry again. Until now, he didn’t realize just how much he missed her dulcet southern accent. How much he appreciated her slight rhotacism. “Hewbart.” That’s how she would pronounce his name: “Hewbart Gossama’.” 

“You know, you can call me Hewey if you want to.” He’d use to tell her. “All my friends do.”

“Well ah ain’t one yuh fwends am ah?” She’d reply. “Ahm yuh wife.”

“And that means you’re my greatest friend of them all.” He’d reply. Then he’d usually lean in and kiss her, causing her to giggle. Then he’d start laughing as well because her laughing made him laugh. She’d then notice he was laughing, which made her laugh even more. This of course, only made him laugh more as well, which caused her to laugh more and so on. But that seemed like years ago now. There was no time for laughing in this depressing room. No time for laughing inside these white walls. No time for laughing as his wife lay there before him, skeletal and cachectic. He knew what his wife would say. He could picture her saying it as clear as day:

“Ah fo’giv you Hewbart.” She’d say. “Ah can’t imagine what y’all ah goin’ thwoo. Y’all had a moment of weakness. Ah fo’giv you.” As he assured himself that this was indeed what his wife would say if she were able, Hebert caught himself looking at the pillow again. Maybe, although his motivations were selfish, his wife would understand? Of course she would! She wouldn’t want him to suffer on her behalf. She wouldn’t want him to cry over her day after day, to stand next to her, holding in hand in silence for hours on end just watching her die. No! She wouldn’t want him to feel the intense emotional pain he felt every waking hour, knowing that she was dying. She would want him to feel happy, want him to be able to go on about his day. She wouldn’t want him to drop everything for her, no, she loved him too much for that.

 ‘So it’s agreed upon then Herbert.’ He thought to himself, still stroking his wife’s hand. ‘You’ll smother her with the pillow. It’s what both of you would have wanted.’ With his free hand he reached out for the pillow, but some string force was still holding him back. Agreed upon. Agreed upon with whom, his wife? Certainly, she was in no state to agree upon anything. No, he agreed upon it with his imagination. With what he believed his wife would want for him. True, while he was pretty certain that his wife would not want him to suffer emotionally, there was no way he could be one-hundred percent sure. The exponentially small off-chance that his wife did want him to emotionally suffer, for whatever reason, held him back from committing the deed he so desperately wanted to commit. On top of this, what if his wife’s desire to live was stronger than her desire to keep him happy? It’s common knowledge that the desire to live is often the strongest desire burning in one’s soul. Plus, who was he to say that her “supposed” desire to keep him happy was justification for killing her? No, he stood with his original decision; he would not kill her.

He stopped stroking her hand. He slowly walked backward until he got a full view of her on the bed, cocked his head slightly sinister because the IV was in the way and stared at her with all his might. Every ounce of his being, every muscle and fiber he had went into staring at her. Although she was haggard and pale, she still looked beautiful to him. Her eyes no longer a crystal blue, still sprawled in the light. Her lips no longer full and red were still warm and inviting. Her arms no longer strong were still lean and smooth. He couldn’t kill this woman, could he? As he watched the morphine finds its way from the IV bag, down the lines and into her veins, he contemplated the question more and more. After a while, he concluded that the only way to go about this was logically. 

Logically, he could indeed kill her. For, killing her was just one of the many logical possibilities in this absurd scenario. However, was it the most logical? After thinking it over, Hebert concluded that it was in fact, the most logical choice. For, if he didn’t kill her, they would both continue to suffer. Him emotionally and her physically. However, killing her would end both there suffering. Since killing her would result in a greater outcome for both of them, it was surely the most logical choice. With that, he stood up and walked over to his wife. He bent over, kissed her on the cheek, mouthed “I’m sorry”, reached his hand out for the pillow and... 

‘Wait!’ He thought to himself. ‘My reasoning is based on the presupposition that my wife is indeed suffering. I have no way of being sure that this is true. Of course, I can make very sound logical inferences, but I can in no way be sure my wife is indeed suffering unless she explicitly tells me.’ He retreated his hand back to his side. As he fidgeted with his thumb and forefinger, he thought some more. ‘Philosophically, her death would just be means to an end, and Kant said... oh to hell with what Kant said! He was a self-important ass.’ Herbert paced around the room, trying to come to his ultimate decision. Every sound argument he thought of for one side, he would think of an equally sound counter-argument for the other. All the thinking and pacing was making him sweat, and every so often when he would look back at his wife, he would find his eyes slowly creeping towards the pillow. He wanted to do it so badly, but did he?

Herbert rushed over to his wife, knelt beside the bed, bent his head down and cried. “How I wish you could still speak! I wish you could tell me what you want me to do!” I want to end my depression! My emotional state! I want to end your suffering so badly! But it’s murder! Murder! When we got married I vowed to never hurt you, but would letting you live and suffer for longer hurt you more than killing you would? Oh god! Everything is so pointless! To hell with it all!” He continued to weep and weep until he had no more tears. He looked up at his wife’s face, wiped the tears away from his eyes and smiled. For the first time in the past two months, he was happy. The warmth of joy melted the depressive ice that surrounded his heart. He had experienced the final stage of grief: acceptance.

He had gone through denial early on. He felt it the very second he thought of killing his wife, the part of him the denied he could ever do something so awful. As for anger, he had felt so much of it recently. Angry at his situation, angry at God, angry at the world, and (most recently) angry at himself for being such a selfish jerk. Bargaining. It was pointless in this situation. Who could he bargain with, God? As if they‘d listen. No, he didn’t bargain. He would’ve if he could, but there was no one to negotiate with. Depression. If him just now, kneeling at the side of his wife’s bed in tears wasn’t depression, he didn’t know what was. Finally, after all this time, he had come to acceptance.

What he had come to accept he did not know. All he knew is that he came to accept it. It was a strange yet comforting feeling, accepting something and not knowing what you accepted, A great unknown. Like if there’s life after death, or if there really is a god. A great sense of calm washed over him like a tide on a beach. He took a deep breath in, then out. In. Out. He held his wife’s hand, looked at her and wondered if she had already accepted her fate. He decided she must’ve done so long ago. Long before she was ever bedridden and dying. Standing up, Herbert realized he had made his decision. He knew what he was going to do...

As Herbert Gossamer drove home, he thought about his decision. He had made the right choice, hadn’t he? He shrugged. ‘There really is no way of knowing.’ He thought to himself. ‘There really is no way of knowing.’