The God Stone (Part I) [LOWWC]

“I’m afraid that I have some bad news...you have a very advanced stage of aggressive ductal adenocarcinoma, pancreatic cancer...Unfortunately the cancer has spread via the lymph nodes and your body is riddled with tumours...There’s...I’m afraid, you only have two months to live...”

Sampson woke in a cold sweat, feeling like the internal walls of a fridge dripping with condensate. Puffing and panting just as a drowning child gasps for one last breath, before a reassuring hand comes to the rescue.

“Jesus! are you ok?!” Josie questioned, as she clasped Sampson’s hand.

“No, Josie...The doctors words keep haunting me...I mean, it’s almost been two months now, and I know I...we, have come to terms with this...illness, but I could die any day now,” Sampson wheezed. A tear rolled down his cheek from his bloodshot eyes, like a volcano weeping magma. A duet of eye perspiration ensued as Josie joined to create an amalgamation of melancholic duress.

“How will Sophie react when I go?” Sampson wept. “She’s only six for God’s sake...she doesn’t deserve to lose her Daddy.”

“These things happen Sam...we were just unlucky...” Josie replied. “I have to go and do the food shopping, is there anything you need before we go?”

“Let Sophie stay with me...I...I just want to spend some more time with her.”

“Yes...of course...”

“And Josie...” Sampson added.

“Yes...”

“I love you...”

“I love you too...” Josie replied as she turned and walked out of the room trying to hide her emotion. Sampson could see the sadness in her eyes, and it broke his heart.

Sampson lay there attached to his morphine leash, as a dog chained to his kennel, broken like an old dog who’s become more trouble than he’s worth. His body a mere shadow of his former self, skin stretched over bone like the grim reaper wearing a suit of latex. He musters up the strength to move his bed sheet, as to gaze at his hideous prison in more detail. Pale hills and mounds obtruded and protruded across his podetiiform body and a sudden wave of nausea permeated over his disease ridden body, forcing him to wrench back the sheets in disgust.

...................................................................................................................................................... .............

“Daddy! Look!” Sophie screamed, running into the room. “I drew this for you.”

“Ahhh, thank you Sophie, let’s have a look,” Sampson said, followed by a loving smile.

“That’s me, that’s Mummy and that’s you after you get better,” Sophie proclaimed, innocently unaware.

“I suppose I have to tell her...she might understand and it’s not fair to leave it up to Josie,” Sampson thought.

“Sophie...I’m not...Daddy’s not...going to get better,” Sampson said quietly, trying to hold back the tears. He watched as Sophie’s smile slowly disappeared as she tried to contemplate his statement and he felt his heart sink, leaving him even more ill. “I’m not going to be here much longer Sophie...”

“No! Daddy don’t leave,” Sophie said welling up, “I won’t let you leave...I’ll sit here on the bed and hold your hand, so you’ll have to stay!”

“...I don’t want to go...but, I...I don’t have a choice Sophie...I’m dying,” Sampson could see that Sophie understood now, as her face turned upside down and grew red. There’s no worse way to upset a child, than to let them know that one of their most prized possessions in the world is dying.

Sampson lay watching Sophie’s first tears start to fall, and soon after she buried her face into his side, sobbing as if already pining for a lost cause. They sat weeping together in a concoction of emotions. As the air reached a lugubrious saturation, Sophie sat up, her face all sullen and wet as if having awoke from a morose nightmare.

“Daddy...will you go to Heaven?” Asked Sophie in emotional fervour.

“Ummm...Yes, of course,” Sampson replied trying to console Sophie. He had never been a religious man, and as such, he didn’t have too much to believe in. In fact to say Sampson was afraid of dying was an understatement, He didn’t have an inkling about what was awaiting him on the other side. Was it Heaven, Purgatory, Hell...or a vacuity of non-existence.

“Sophie?” Sampson called.

“Yea?”

“I promise you...if there’s a way I can let you know I made it to Heaven, I will,” he replied solemnly. “I love you Sophie.”

“I love you too Daddy,” smiled Sophie, with sad eyes.

...................................................................................................................................................... ..

Sampson always demanded that Sophie and Josie had some time away from him. Not just to get used to life without him, but mainly because he didn’t want them to constantly face the trauma of watching a dying man. He didn’t want their main memory of him to be that of a weak and feeble bag of bones, like a living graveyard. He always tried to be light-hearted when he joked about being the closest living thing to a zombie, but he didn’t want them to remember him like that.

As he lay there, listening to the quiet murmurs emanating through the walls, the tones, one soft and soothing and the other high pitched and sweet, a last smile shone across his face as he drifted into a dream...

...An abysm opened up around him of pure white infinite perturbedness, like the sempiternal universe had distorted through an interruption of adequate significance...

“Please wait Sir,” a receptionist like voice called out in a Tannoy sounding manner, “in a moment you will be transferred to plane of existence 2B. Thank you for your continued patience.”

“What?! Wait! Who said that?!...Am I dead?!” Sampson cried out. “ I didn’t get to say goodbye!” Sampson stood awe struck, thinking about the possibility of his death and devastated that he had missed the opportunity to give his wife and daughter one last kiss, and if this was the afterlife he was deeply shocked about its management. How impersonal, a Tannoy announcement in spatial nothingness.

“Sir, please remain calm. Your transfer is imminent,” the Tannoy voice rang out, “please stay within the transfer area.”

Sampson looked about him into the vast ocean of infinite inexistence. “I don’t think that will be a problem, shall I take a seat?...Oh, there is no seat!” He snapped back sarcastically.

“Sir, it’s understandable for someone in your condition to behave in such a manner, but please bare with us, we are just experiencing some minor technical difficulties,” the Tannoy rang out again.

“My condition? And what would that be?” Sampson snapped frustratingly. “And what do you mean minor technical difficulties? Is this some sort of computer programme?”

Sampson could now here two voices squabbling over the Tannoy, and they seemed to be arguing with increasing intensity.

“You fool! You’ve pressed the wrong button! That’s 1A not 2B-“

“I’m sorry...I’m new here-“

“Damn it! That’s the last time we entrust an apprentice to press a few simple buttons alone,” the Boss shouted at the apprentice. “Now we have to deploy the drones to find this guy and send him to the right plane of existence! Do you realise the seriousness of the situation?!”

“I’m sorry, my finger slipped,” the apprentice replied, sounding rather distraught.

Sampson coughed, “Ahem...Excuse me-“

“What?!...you idiot! You left the Tannoy on! He just heard everything! I tell you the big guy is not going to be happy!” The Boss screamed hysterically bemused.

The Tannoy system screeched uncomfortably loud and then suddenly cut out. A nauseating feeling permeated through Sampson’s very soul, as his vision and head began to spin uncontrollably. He let out a piercing scream, like a cat having it’s paw stood upon, such was his distress. When the spinning and disorientation stopped, Sampson stood bewildered and spellbound in a magnificent and strange new world of wonder. He had awoken in the most paramount stratum of existence. Plane 1A.....