by Scott Blum
“Can I get you a pain pill?” Suzanne asked.
“They don’t work anymore—keep them for yourself.”
He didn’t know how much longer he could tolerate the pain, but the thought of acquiring more medical bills felt even worse than his physical discomfort. Although the thought of ending his own life had initially repulsed him, it began to make more and more sense as a viable alternative. If he could work out the details to minimize the trauma inflicted on Suzanne, she might eventually forgive him and agree that it was the best solution for everyone.
Later that week, Don had an intensely vivid dream that felt incredibly real. It started in a lightfilled tunnel swirling counterclockwise, with the path he was standing on remaining still. As he walked closer to the light, he saw his deceased father gesturing for him to go away. He was drawn closer in order to speak with him, but his father began to fade as he approached the spot where he’d been standing. Then the entire tunnel dimmed to blackness, and he could hear footsteps walking toward him.
As the ominous sounds grew more intense, he became acutely aware that he was standing completely naked. He felt vulnerable as he tried to cover himself with his hands. After several minutes, the footsteps were silenced and he could hear a figure breathing loudly immediately in front of him. As he tried to calm himself, he couldn’t help but feel that there was something familiar about the sound of the breath.
Slowly, the figure came into focus as the light around them began to brighten. The man standing there was of medium build and dressed entirely in white. Don strained to make out the details of his face and then rubbed his eyes in disbelief. After his focus completely returned, there was no mistaking it—the person who was standing before him looked exactly like Don himself. It was a feeling similar to looking in the mirror, with two major exceptions: there was twice as much energy emanating from the reflection, and the figure’s movements didn’t correspond to his own.
Don’s focus returned to the fact that he was standing there naked, and when he looked down, he was relieved to find that he was now fully clothed. He was wearing exactly the same outfit as the person in front of him, yet his own was completely black. He imagined that there was some significance to the fact that he was clothed in black while the other was in white, but he was just happy he was no longer naked.
There was a long silence while the two stood staring at each other, until Don finally said: “Hi.”
“Hello,” said the other in a voice that was nearly identical to Don’s.
After another uncomfortable silence, Don finally asked the only question he could think of: “Who are you?”
Without pausing, the man answered, “I’m Robert —nice to meet you.”
Robert stretched out his hand in a greeting, but Don just stood there looking at it, dumbfounded. Robert retracted his hand after a few seconds, and Don felt a smirk creep onto his face. The smirk widened into a full smile, and within seconds he began laughing hysterically. He continued to laugh for over a minute and then doubled over at the waist and slapped the ground next to his feet as tears streamed down from laughing so hard.
“Robert!” exclaimed Don in between chuckles. “That’s classic! I finally meet my doppelgänger, and his name is Robert! Of course your name is Robert—why wouldn’t it be?” He didn’t know why the name struck him as funny, but it did. There was something ironic about a supernatural experience having such a common name.
“So, Robert”—he tried unsuccessfully to suppress his laughter—“what brings you here?”
“I’m here to help you.” Robert was getting noticeably annoyed.
“Help me? Help me with what?”
“With your transition. Anything you don’t understand or anything you could use some extra help with.”
“My transition?” Don’s laughter stopped instantly. “What transition?”
“Your transition to the next dimension—the next stage of your journey.”
Don took a few moments to reflect on these words. “Are you the grim reaper or something?”
“Not exactly.” It was now Robert’s turn to laugh. “I’m more of an advocate. I’m here to help you transition in whichever way you choose.”
“You mean you’re here to help me die?”
“That’s oversimplifying it a bit, but I guess you could say that.”
Don felt a chill on the back of his neck. “Are you the angel of death?”
“I wouldn’t say the angel of death, but I’m certainly one of them.”
“You mean there are more than one?”
“Of course there are. Do you know how many people die every day? There wouldn’t be time to do anything meaningful if there was only one of us.”
“I have a question,” said Don thoughtfully. “Why me? And—why now?”
“Everyone ultimately takes the same journey, and now is your time to be on Summer’s Path:
Spring flowers wither
Honey Moon condenses light
Summer’s Path begins.”
Robert smiled after reciting the haiku, and patiently awaited Don’s response.
“Um, okay. I guess I’ve never really understood poetry,” said Don. “What do you mean by ‘Honey Moon condenses light’?”
“The Honey Moon is the first moon of summer —the moon that celebrates the summer solstice.”
“Okay … but how does that condense light?”
“After the first day of summer, the days begin to shorten. Leading up to summer, the days grow longer, so it’s easy to take light for granted. But as they get shorter, every second of light must be cherished.”
“Is light a metaphor for something?”
“Light is our life force—the energy we need to exist. Whether you call it a metaphor is up to you,” Robert laughed.
Don let Robert’s curious words sink in before continuing. “It’s ironic that it’s called a honeymoon, like after a wedding. Don’t you agree?”
“Not at all,” replied Robert. “Actually, I can’t think of a better word to mark the beginning of a life together.”
Don sat down on the narrow path and put his head into his hands as he remembered his honeymoon with Suzanne at Crater Lake. He knew life was short, yet he couldn’t help but feel he had been careless with his time with his wife. It saddened him to realize that he had taken his years with Suzanne for granted. And now it seemed as if he had once again come to a major crossroads. He needed to decide if he should let the cancer take its course or if he was prepared to shorten the process.
At that moment, the sound of a hundred voices began echoing inside his head. But the voice he kept hearing the loudest was Suzanne’s: “Don’t even joke about that … ”
After the voices faded, Don slowly stood back up and looked deep into Robert’s eyes, trying to decide if he could trust him, and if he actually could help with the transition. “Okay, you have my attention—what can you do to help?”
“I can start by giving you advice about how to make your transition easier.”
“Like what?”
“The first thing you need to do is get your affairs in order. You don’t want to unnecessarily burden your loved ones once you pass on.”
“But I don’t have any money.”
“Yes, but you do have obligations, and that’s even more important to figure out. I recommend you visit a lawyer immediately.”
“A lawyer?” Don questioned. “Why do I need a lawyer? What should I ask?”
Robert had already turned and was walking away. He waved without looking back, and before fading into the distance, he said, “I’m an advocate, not a babysitter. Just go see a lawyer, and come back to me after you have the answer you need.”
CHAPTER THREE
In the days following his dream, Don felt strangely disconnected from his body. He could see and hear everything that was going on around him, but it was as if his emotions had been packed into cotton and everything around him was happening in an adjacent room—almost as if he were watching a
movie in a drive-in theater with the sound box turned down. He could tell that Suzanne knew something was up because she kept asking him if he was okay much more frequently than she used to. But in reality, Don hadn’t felt any pain since meeting Robert, which was a welcome reprieve. And although he wasn’t convinced that Robert was real, their conversation definitely made him think.
After nearly a week, Don was still wondering why he needed a lawyer. He tried to come up with different reasons, but it just didn’t make any sense. Nobody was suing him, and he didn’t want to sue anyone himself. He’d thought about suing the hospital and doctors for being so incompetent, but in reality they had eventually recommended an oncologist who did know what was going on. And realistically, the cancer had been brewing undiagnosed for quite some time, so there was probably nothing they could have done.
Then one morning as Don habitually shuffled through the late notices, he had an epiphany. What if a lawyer could figure out a way to get out of paying the hospital bills? If there was a way that he could clean up all the medical debts before he died, Suzanne wouldn’t be burdened with paying them off.
He couldn’t escape the feeling that Suzanne would feel crushed under the weight of the debt as the years progressed. The ridiculously high interest was already beginning to accrue, and with just the bills they had already received, Suzanne would be in serious debt for the next fifteen years. And the new bills kept coming—it seemed that every week there was another doctor who finally got around to sending an invoice.
Don began to get excited about the possibility that a lawyer could help make the debt go away, and immediately thought of his friend Eric whom he had gone to Oregon State with. They had both been in the engineering program, but Eric had decided he wanted to make more money, so he enrolled at an East Coast Ivy League school to become a lawyer when his undergraduate work was done. After graduating, he had returned to Eugene, where his well-off family had given him the seed money to start his own practice.
He and Don had gradually drifted apart, primarily because Eric had relentlessly hit on Suzanne once when he’d had too much to drink, and it made her very uncomfortable. Don told her that Eric treated everyone like that, but she was convinced that he had crossed the line, and didn’t want anything to do with him ever again. Eric lacked an inherent tact, which made him a great lawyer but a less-than-ideal dinner guest.
Don found the phone book and dialed his friend’s direct line.
“Eric, it’s Don.”
“Hey, bud, what’s up? How’s the sexy chica?” Eric always called Suzanne “the sexy chica,” which didn’t help her view of him.
“She’s great. Are you still dating … what was her name?”
“Which one?” Eric laughed. “I don’t remember who I told you about. I’m seeing a few sexy chicas myself. Chronic bachelor, I am.”
Don attempted to join in Eric’s laughter, but he couldn’t. After several years of the same conversation, Don just felt sorry for him. “Hey, Eric, I have a professional question for you. Do you have time for a quick meeting?”
“I always have time for you, bud—let me see.” Eric covered the phone with his hand and yelled something to his assistant. “You’re in luck: my eleven o’clock just cancelled. But if you can’t do it today, it’s going to have to wait until next month. I’m going on safari for six weeks in Botswana. I’m leaving tomorrow. Gotta get back to nature, you know. It’s going to be mind-blowing. Elephants and tigers and shit.”
“Wow, Botswana. That’s cool. But, yeah, I’d love to chat today at eleven o’clock.”
“Okay, that’s great.” Eric put Don on speakerphone and began talking to someone else in his office. “See ya at eleven, bud.”
Don got cleaned up and prepared to drive across town. He had never been fond of driving before his diagnosis, and although he still had his beloved Land Cruiser, he had seldom driven it since he lost his job. He was worried that the battery would be dead since the car had been sitting on the street for so long, but it started right up, and he made his way downtown.
Eric worked in one of the nicest buildings in Eugene—a large white stucco with an atrium in the center that was filled with natural light. After signing in with the security guard near the entrance, Don took an elevator to the top floor.
“I’m here to see Eric,” he said to the receptionist who greeted him as soon as he entered the plush offices. Her imposing wood desk was perched in front of three large cherry-wood bookcases that contained an impressive collection of matching yellow-leather volumes.
“I will let Mr. Williams know that you’re here. Please make yourself comfortable.”
After several minutes, the receptionist led Don to Eric’s office and gestured for him to enter. Eric was wrapping up another phone call and looked exactly the same, except that he had put on a few extra pounds. The added weight suited him nicely and gave him a physicality that finally seemed to match his personality.
“Hey, bud—great to see you.” Eric walked around his large mahogany desk and stopped in his tracks, looking Don up and down. “You look like shit! What happened to you, bud? Are you okay?”
Eric’s frankness always seemed to catch Don off guard. “Um, I guess that’s part of what I want to talk to you about. Can we sit down?”
Eric gestured to a small leather couch in the corner of his office next to a floor-to-ceiling picture window. Looking out across Eugene, Don could see the neighborhood he lived in and tried to find his house.
As he sat down in the overstuffed couch, he noticed a small black digital clock resting on the end table. Don rubbed his eyes with his palms once the numbers came into focus: 11:11. He subconsciously held his breath until the last digits turned to 12.
“Thanks so much for seeing me last minute … it really means a lot. But I have to let you know, I really can’t afford—”
“Your money is no good here,” Eric interrupted while waving his arms wildly. “You saved my ass in the dorm that day, and I’ll never forget it.”
Don remembered when Eric’s parents unexpectedly arrived at his dorm one morning while Eric was still out partying from the night before. “Those were the days …” said Don.
Eric laughed. “So what’s up?”
“Well”—Don sighed deeply—“first of all, I have cancer.”
“Shit, man. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. That totally sucks. Shit. Is it serious? What am I saying? Of course it’s serious. Just look at you! Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, man. What kind?”
“Pancreatic.”
“Oh, shit. That’s what got your pops, right?”
Don nodded.
“They don’t really know what to with that, do they?” Eric kept shaking his head. “What do your doctors say?”
“They give me anywhere between three and six months.”
“I need a drink.” Eric sighed loudly as he opened a discreet mahogany cabinet that was filled with a collection of whiskey bottles and crystal tumblers. “You?”
“No, thanks.”
Eric poured himself a large glass and sat back down. “So what can I do? Anything, man. Anything.”
“You know I got laid off at the semiconductor plant?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, my insurance ran out about a year ago.”
“That sucks. So you need money. How much is it?”
Don told him the amount of the medical bills so far.
“Wow, that’s a lot. Okay, okay. Let me see. Yeah, I think I can do that.”
“Thank you, but I’m not asking for money.” Don knew Suzanne would flip out if she found out that Eric had paid off their medical bills. It was true that Eric hit on every female he met, but he really did scare Suzanne that night, and Don could imagine the possibility that his friend might use the money as a way of staying in her life after he was gone. He felt very protective of Suzanne as he repeated in a firm tone: “I’m not asking for money.”
“It’s no problem, really. What’s money for, right?”
“Seriously, Eric, I won’t accept your money. But I do need your expertise. Is there any way we can get out of paying the medical bills altogether?”
“Hmm, lemme think. Did they ask you to sign anything when you were admitted?”
Don nodded. “A bunch of things.”
“Yeah, they wouldn’t forget that—too much liability. If you want to bring by a copy of everything you signed, I’ll look through it, but it seems like a long shot.”
“Okay.”
“The only way to get out of paying medical bills is to file for bankruptcy or to die.” The filter between Eric’s brain and his mouth didn’t always work: “Sorry, man.”
“No prob—”
“Wait,” Eric interrupted. “That’s it. You’re dying, right? So that means the bills transfer to any legal heirs or assigns, and if there are none, they get written off by the company and go away!”
“I thought about that, but that means Suzanne would still have to pay them.”
“Maybe not. You’re still living in sin, right?”
“What?”
“You never got married.”
“Yes, we got married—I told you that.”
“I don’t mean some bullshit commitment ceremony; I mean really married. Did you ever file papers with the courthouse?”
“Yes, we recently did that to get insurance— but it was too late.”
“Pre-existing condition?”
“Yep.”
“Well, you can get a divorce.”
Don had already thought about that, also, but after waiting several years to finally wed Suzanne, there was no way he would intentionally taint their marriage just to save a few dollars. Their love was the most beautiful thing he’d experienced in this lifetime, and now that they were officially married, that was the way he was going to die.
“You can run up all the new bills you want,” said Eric, “and Suzanne would only be stuck with the old ones. Go back to the doctors and get all the treatments you need. Get the best room they have. Tell them to spare no expense.” Eric let out a loud belly laugh.