By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: August 26, 2005

This is the beginning of a story that only you will read. It takes place in a house in a small borough where a man is sitting at his desk with a pad and pen making a list of some sort. The nature of the list is irrelevant. All you need to know that it’s a very long list, written in green ink. You also need to know that he is writing this list with the intention that only he will be the only one to ever see it’s contents.
In the next room his wife is watching a documentary on the monarch butterfly. She has always been found of butterflies, but would not be able to fully explain her reasoning if asked why. She believes that the man – her husband – is in the kitchen reading the newspaper. However, as you have just been informed, he is at his desk making a list, the contents of which are undisclosed.
It doesn’t particularly matter what either of them look like. All you need to know is that they both consider themselves to be old and have not had intimate relationships more than half their marriage.

The man at his desk is parallel to the front set of windows in the house where a cat sits on the windowsill.

By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: July 22, 2005

The night
Thick and black
Can hurt you
If you’re not careful
Remember to calm down
Relax
Believe what everyone else does
Is the right thing to do
Close your eyes
But not too long
For the night is thick
And black
And this is a bad poem
But I feel I have to write
I don’t know why
Stop asking me that questions
It is just because there is nothing else so special
But yes there is.

By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: July 15, 2005

An illusion by which we are more free.
– ben okri, Mental Flight

REFERRING TO THE CHARACTERS IN THE SCENES AS IF THEY WERE CHARACTERS IN A STORY

1) FIRST SCENE WITH DOCTOR

“Take a deep breath.”
She placed her cold stethoscope on my chest.
“Breathe from your mouth, not from your nose.”
She listened to the two dying dogfish flopping about in my chest cavity.
“I hear less air movement than yesterday. Your lungs seem tight. I think we should change your meds and wait a couple of days, see how they respond”.
She made some notes while I waited. I sucked on the air. Examination room air is stale, like breathing in exhalations.
“Do you think its coming?” I asked.
“The nurses told me you’re writing a story. What’s it about?”
“Death” I said. She looked up at me.
“Don’t think like that”, she warned, “It’s not going to help. Try and be positive”.
“It’s just a story” I said.

2) HOSPITALS AND DEATH – (possibly this could be spread out over the other paragraphs)

Too preoccupied with prolonging life, hospitals don’t do death. Yet every night I sleep on a mattress that has rubbed against 58 dead bodies. Number 58 was a man with emphazema who died last week before I came. The nurse couldn’t remember his name, only that he was old. As soon as he passed away, nurses ushered his family out of the room, sent his body to a temporary morgue while the bed sheets were changed and I, the new patient, was admitted to take his place. Death is immediately replaced by life. It’s like forcing the end of a well developed story.

There is never anytime to cry. Death must always be replaced by life, which is why the hospital gift shop only sells potted plants. There is nothing worth preserving about death, no reason to make it last any longer than the time required for disposal.

3) When I got back to my room, Terry was waiting for me. He had taken the oxygen prongs out of his nostrils and was resting his heavy body – full of steroids of retained water – against his IV pole. He had a round face, bald head and very comforting eyes. Terry was breathing heavily, trying to squeeze the oxygen out of the air and into his lungs. Together we sounded like a lawnmower engine running out of gasoline.
Good day to you sir, he said smiling. Did you read the story I gave you last week?
I haven’t had a chance yet. I will, I promise.
You asked me if I thought there was a relationship between stories and death. That was my response.
Terry reminded me of a prophet who did stand up comedy.
We shall talk about this tomorrow young man. I expect you to have done your homework, he said with a smirk. I’m off to the library before it closes.
A library in the hospital?
You didn’t know? It’s mostly full of romance novels and outdated medical books. But there’s some comics and the occasional classic.
I waited as Terry nodded goodbye and started to wheel his IV pole and oxygen tank down the hall that was made narrow by plastic bags of used hospital gowns and bed sheets. He made it a couple of doors down, let out a rusty sigh, and put his nasal pongs back in his nostrils. He looked back at me, forced a smile, and carried on.
I had read the story Terry gave me, thought I was kind of boring. It was a myth passed down orally originating in Sudan called The Legend and Destruction of Kash. The tale was about a city called Napata where priests would watch the moon and stars to determine when God wanted the king to be killed.
In addition to the king, his companion of death whom the king chooses and a flame keeper who maintains the torch flames, die with the him. The story begins with the succession of a new king named Akif, who chooses Far-li-mas, a slave and storyteller, as his companion of death. The priests appoint Sali, youngest sister of the new king, to maintain the king’s flame. All is well until the king realizes that any day the constellations could dictate his death. He is scared and summons Far-li-mas to tell him a story. The stories are so powerful they cause Akif to enter a deep unconscious state. With stories more seductive than hashish, the slave storyteller becomes popular. One night before telling the king and company a story, Far-li-mas notices Sali and they fall in love. She doesn’t want to die and Far-li-mas agree’s to help save her. Sali goes to see the priests and convinces them to hear one of Far-li-mas’s stories, arguing that the stories of the constellations are not as great as the stories of Far-li-mas. The priests hear his stories, and forget to watch the stars and the moon, no longer able to tell when the king is suppose to die. Thus, the Akif, Sali and Far-li-mas are saved. Storytelling saves the day.

was a major trading partner to Egypt that was after it’s gold (LOOK UP ON ENCARTA).

I brought you a myth. Terry handed me some yellow papers titled The Legend and Destruction of Kash.

TALK ABOUT THE MYTH – OVERVIEW OF THE STORY
As soon as I could understand long division, I knew that I was going to die. There are two common coping strategies: Those who, at the age of 22, have the house, car, kids and are housewives while their partner works, kids grow up and go to school, and they sit at home and wait. At the other end are those who are always dying tomorrow, always taking another “last” trip around the world but returning disappointed that they are not yet dead. They too have nothing else to do once all their money is gone and their friends don’t have enough time to feel sorry for them. They too must wait. It’s all about waiting: Waiting often takes up all our time.
Most in my situation have opted for a lobotomy where they remove the part of the brain that’s able to realize you are going to die. Two years ago I was in hospital room as this woman who was so unable to let go of her life that she continued to breath and force the blood to move, even though her body was dead, decaying and stinking up the air with her family around her weeping like severely damaged robots. I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want illusions to hold on too. Being alive is just another fiction I refuse to misinterpret as truth.

5) I tried to do some writing before I went to bed. There was something so gentle and meditative sitting at this make shift desk listening to the orchestrated breathing of the respiratory ward patients. During sleep the body uses less oxygen, breathing becomes shallow, organs calm down; we move toward to death. The collective life of my fellow patients sleeping became a meditative hum. Most deaths occur at night when the ward is still and quiet.
In the room across from mine a man and his daughters are watching the hockey game on mute. Some of the television images are projected on their faces. Last night, without the hockey game, his daughters sat on chairs around their father’s in his bed in a strange tableau. Tonight they are grateful that the Leafs are not yet out of the playoffs so they can watch the game they hated at young girls with their father who is soon probably going to die.
I do not know their father’s name but I feel I should give him one. How about Terry … but that name has been taken…I will name him Alex, after (FILL THIS IN?). Alex is on a respirator and cannot leave his room. Suddenly I feel I want to meet him.
I read over what I’ve written. It’s pretty terrible.
“It’s getting late, you should go to sleep”, says the night nurse peaking in through the doorway. “I’ll bring you some sleeping pills”. No one on the ward falls asleep naturally.
I sat upright in my bed while I waited for the little blue pills to be absorbed into my blood stream and carry the drowsiness to my brain. I waited. Lay down. Closed my eyes. Opened them quickly. Kept them open. The collective breath of my fellow patients was the sound of suffering from a pile of overweight sparrows whose wings have been broken unintentionally by a curious 12 year old boy. I imagined us mangled together as a forgotten pile of infectious body parts. “Shutup”, my brain said to itself. And then I fell asleep.

6 ) Everyone is given a needle first thing in the morning. Everyone would keep on sleeping if they had a choice. The ambulatory nurse this morning is a Filipino woman who pushes my head toward her breast as she waits for one of the four required vials to fill with deep red blood. I watch my life flow into a little glass container. She doesn’t speak, alternating between smiling at me and looking out the window. “All done”, she says, and smiles at me again before she leaves. Those vials of blood will be taken to the lab downstairs where the blood spins until it separates. Many things can be found by analyzing the blood’s composition, but ultimately we find out at what rate the body is being taken over by infections.
In the morning, each patient receives physiotherapy treatments where someone comes to beat out the fluids in lungs that have accumulated overnight, taming the fish so they hang on for another day, until the next day where there is new fluid get rid of.

MAYBE HERE YOU WANT TO PUT IN A BIT ABOUT HOW YOU DECIDE TO SPEND YOU DAY – HOW MOST PATIENTS DECIDE TO SPEND THEIR DAYS. I am writing but I don’t know why. That’s not true. I know why. I am writing because writing won by default. I really don’t know what else to do. During the first couple of days, time becomes the ultimate commodity – activities are measured carefully against one another, time is spent trying to preserve time, leisure activities are ranked in terms of the amount of happiness they will bring. And the, you begin to question your standard of happiness. It is inevitable that all this questioning and supposed logic will only lead to the ultimate question: is this all there is?
Today I answered yes. Yesterday I answered no.
I hope I will live long enough to become comfortable with, “yes, but that’s all I could ask for”.

7) In the morning, each patient receives physiotherapy treatments where someone comes to beat out the fluids in lungs that have accumulated overnight, taming the fish so they hang on for another day, until the next day where there is new fluid get rid of.

And wait for the readers to give me a name.

9) I tried to do some writing before I went to bed. I looked across the hall to Alex’s room. One of his daughters was helping him sit upright in his bed, while the other was flipping TV channels. I began to re-read what I had just written, but the phone rang. Lindsey called and I was happy to hear her soft voice and gentle breathing. She asked me the usual, boring questions about how I was feeling, what the doctors said… Her soft voice was an incompatible narrative to the scene across the hall in Alex’s room. One daughter was putting her hand on her father’s forehead, as if to comfort him, and the other was clicking the call button for the nurse. “You know we’re all thinking about you”, Lindsey said, as I watched both daughters hold their father, their faces shift from pretend heroicism to the stark pain of grief, which slowly began to take over. I remembered an explanation of Einstein’s relativity theory from high school where…. The man’s daughter’s knew he was about to die and I watched their faces. I was observing the drama, hearing my wife’s breathing on the phone. Lindsey kept talking but I didn’t care for her words, I wanted to hear her breath. Her breath reminding me of life and of the forward flow of time. The characters around the dying man – the nurses, a resident doctor, silent tears of his family – their actions seemed much slower, like a rapidly freezing river, as if time relative to them was moving much slower, not in the same pattern as the life in my wife’s breathing on the telephone receiver that I pushed hard against my ear.
“I am watching him die”, I told her.
“I’m sorry you have to see this dear. Close the door. It will only make you feel worse.”
“I can’t. I knew him”, I said.
Even if his youngest daughter did not begin to sob, I would have known that he died. As I looked into the room, I knew there was emptiness where a presence had been. I felt something immense, strange, but I did not know what the feeling was. The movements of the nurses as they covered his body, of his daughters consoling each other, began to move a bit less slowly, more in time with the breathing of my wife that had become calmer, gentle, but remained at the pace of life.
“Are you still watching?” There was a hint of disapproval in her usually soothing voice.
“He’s dead”.
“I’m sorry dear”, she said. “You shouldn’t have watched. How are you feeling?”
I didn’t say anything for a long time, just listening to the pace of her breath. It was selfish, my ear pressed hard against the phone until her breath seemed to be apart of the air in my hospital room.
“Your breathing is very shallow,” she said. “I know you are there, but I can barely hear you. I am worried. Maybe you should call the nurse. How do you feel?”
“There is nothing I can say,” I said. “Nothing that will be able to communicate to you what that was like. I know he died, probably his lungs finally failed, but it was like nothing happened. It’s so strange. An event that can only be marked by the presence before and the lack of presence after; the actual death I can’t understand. It was like nothing at all. I feel something, but I don’t think this language has developed words able to communicate it.
“Do you feel sad”, she asked.
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“It’s ok dear. Don’t be sad. I’m here for you.”
I closed the door of my hospital room. I didn’t want to see them bring the body out. I didn’t want to see his malfunctioning daughters, crying on and off, on and off. Seeing those things was sad. But what I just saw wasn’t sad. It was something to which I was having a lot of trouble deciding whether it fit into the categories of good or bad. Maybe value judgements were useless. Maybe it was free.
WHAT IT’S LIKE TO KNOW YOU”RE GOING TO DIE: Sometimes people ask me what knowing that I’m going to die is like. It’s like something we’ve all experienced, except that there is no future for the dying. They can only look behind. Right now you’re reading these words which means you’re not looking behind you or directly in front of you. But if you kept reading these words, and then in the back of your mind start to think about what if there was someone behind you, who was about to put their hand on your shoulder. You start to get paranoid and start to imagine what it would feel like to have their sweaty palm hover over your shoulder while you’re reading these words. What if they were right behind you? If they were so close to the back of your neck you could feel the heat of their body in the surrounding air you as your read these lines. You begin to imagine that air getting warmer. Now you might be tempted to look back and make sure there is no one there. If you’d like to do this, please go ahead. But remember that if it was death that was right behind you, waiting patiently, you’d look up from reading this and you wouldn’t be able to see him. And you’d get paranoid and look back again. But again he wouldn’t be there. And you’d keep looking back to see nothing, only emptiness where you were expecting something to be. This is what it is like to know that you are going to die: there is no forward, only looking behind to see an empty space.

FREE WILL: I don’t believe in free will. If you think about it, all your actions, life experiences, people you’ve met, have lead up to this very moment in which you’ve “decided” to pick these lines up and read them. If, however, you erase history, like watching a film backwards, destroying the images as they are played, you’ll find you won’t ever be able to come back to this moment. You can stop reading this right now, but it really isn’t up to you. It’s up to those forces over which you have no control – your bladder, your partner, your child, your judgment. If you haven’t left to watch porno or clean the kitchen, and have stayed expecting some answers about death and the authenticity of stories, I’m sorry, but there aren’t any. Kant cannot be proven to be true anymore than porno can.
There is a fly trapped in the overhead lights above my bed. He has been buzzing around my room for the last 3 days, prevailing through several attacked by various nurses. I have prevented myself from giving him a name. But secretly I call him Chester.

BEGINNING OF TERRY’S DEATH

By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: July 11, 2005

Sometimes people ask me what knowing that I’m going to die is like. It’s like something we’ve all experienced, except that there is no future for the dying. They can only look behind. Right now you’re reading these words which means you’re not looking behind you or directly in front of you. But if you kept reading these words, and then in the back of your mind start to think about what if there was someone behind you, who was about to put their hand on your shoulder. You start to get paranoid and start to imagine what it would feel like to have their sweaty palm hover over your shoulder while you’re reading these words. What if they were right behind you? If they were so close to the back of your neck you could feel the heat of their body in the surrounding air you as your read these lines. You begin to imagine that air getting warmer. Now you might be tempted to look back and make sure there is no one there. If you’d like to do this, please go ahead. But remember that if it was death that was right behind you, waiting patiently, you’d look up from reading this and you wouldn’t be able to see him. And you’d get paranoid and look back again. But again he wouldn’t be there. And you’d keep looking back to see nothing, only emptiness where you were expecting something to be. This is what it is like to know that you are going to die: there is no forward, only looking behind to see an empty space.
“The page is so white”
“So fill it up with words”
“But underneath it is still white”

————-

I had never spoken to him except for the occasional wave from across the hall. I remember talking to my wife on the while I watched the silent drama unfold from across the hall. I remembered a layman’s explanation of Einstien’s relativity theory from high school where…. The man’s daughter’s knew he was about to die and I watched their faces shift from pretend heroicism to a stark pain of grief, which slowly began to overwhelm them. I was observing the drama, hearing my wife’s breathing on the phone. Her breathing reminded me of life and of the forward flow of time. The characters around the dying man – the nurses, a resident doctor, silent tears of his family – their actions seemed much slower, like a rapidly freezing river, as if time relative to them was moving much slower, not in the same pattern as the life in my wife’s breathing on the telephone receiver that I pushed hard against my ear.
“I am watching him die”, I told her.
“I’m sorry you have to see this dear. Close the door. It will only make you feel worse.”
“I can’t. I knew him”, I said.
Even if his youngest daughter did not begin to sob, I would have known that he died. As I looked into the room, I knew there was emptiness where a presence had been. I felt something immense, strange, but I did not know what the feeling was. The movements of the nurses as they covered his body, of his daughters consoling each other, began to move a bit less slowly, more in time with the breathing of my wife that had become calmer, gentle, but remained at the pace of life.
“Are you still watching?” There was a hint of disapproval in her usually soothing voice.
“He’s dead”.
“I’m sorry dear”, she said. “You shouldn’t have watched. How are you feeling?”
I didn’t say anything for a long time, just listening to the pace of her breath. It was selfish, my ear pressed hard against the phone until her breath seemed to be apart of the air in my hospital room.
“Your breathing is very shallow,” she said. “I know you are there, but I can barely hear you. I am worried. Maybe you should call the nurse. How do you feel?”
“There is nothing I can say,” I said. “Nothing that will be able to communicate to you what that was like. I know he died, probably his lungs finally failed, but it was like nothing happened. It’s so strange. An event that can only be marked by the presence before and the lack of presence after; the actual death I can’t understand. It was like nothing at all. I feel something, but I don’t think this language has developed words able to communicate it.
“Do you feel sad”, she asked.
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“It’s ok dear. Don’t be sad. I’m here for you.”
I closed the door of my hospital room. I didn’t want to see them bring the body out. I didn’t want to see his malfunctioning family, crying on and off, on and off. Seeing those things was sad. But what I just saw wasn’t sad. It was something to which I was having a lot of trouble deciding whether it fit into the categories of good or bad. Maybe value judgements were useless. Maybe it was free.

By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: July 11, 2005

I thought that I’d write stories in the time I have left.
“There is something intrinsically valuable about writing. The urge to create does not need to be rationalized,” said Terry. He looked at me gently through his small eyes. I listened to his shallow breathing, which blended with the sound of forced breaths of other patients in the background. The night had freshly descended, and I looked out the window while I figure out how to respond. Terry is much older than I am. He claimed to like cars when we first met, which made me suspicious. But eventually I saw that it was a kind of affection for a machine built by the hands of the common man. There was something noble in that. He claims there is something noble about writing stories, although I can’t imagine what he means. I don’t really know what nobility means either.
“Yes, I agree. Stories tell us who we are. But that’s not going to help me become a writer. Writing is like sitting through rush hour traffic”, I say, as I begin to think that constipation is a much better analogy. “I think you’ve bought into that romantic ideal of the artist who is merely a vehicle for language to flow through. It’s all just a myth.” Terry puts down his mug, takes a long breath of air, and leans forward.
“There is something you have,” he paused, “I see it in you. A conflict between what you are facing and who you want to become. Write about that – it’s in you, it’s authentic.”
“There is something in everyone Terry. What I have isn’t special. I have to stop pretending to be the victim.”
“Then stop. Stop complaining and just write something. Stop thinking about living up to the entire canon of English literature. Remember the first words Gabrielle spoke to Mohammed?”
“God said ‘read’, not write!”
“To read is to write. Both search for and construct meaning in a system of reality made up of the words on the page. Every man is born a scribe. It is already in you.”
“But Mohammed couldn’t read.”
“He didn’t need to know how. He just read. God taught mankind by the pen (INSERT SOMETHING HERE FROM THE TORAH?).” Terry had been studying the Abrahamic religions in order to prove some theory of interconnectivity. Doctrines were meshing together in his brain and he would often quote from the Torah and claim is was from the Quran. I had given up on religion. If they were all the same, it all became so arbitrary. I wanted to change the subject, and I thought of something that would still keep him appeased.
“Some people ask me what it feels like to know that I’m going to die.”
“What do you tell them?” asks Terry.
“I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it”. Terry continues to look me in the eyes, not saying anything. I know he doesn’t believe me. The silence between us feels very awkward, but he seems comfortable like he always does.
“I think question is absurd”, I say quickly, “Death is an absence. It is an empty word we give to a concept that we know nothing about. Once dead, you cannot think “this is what it is to be dead”. Therefore, how can I say what it feels like, when really, it isn’t anything at all?” I felt a bit relieved. Terry looked out the window. The street was very still, patient. I think Terry was getting a bit restless.
“Is that what you say to yourself when you put on your pants in the morning?” he asked.
“You put on your pants the same way I do, one leg at a time.”
“That’s not what I meant. (HERE, MAYBE LOOK AT SOME OF TERRY’s COMMENTS)
“Stories are born with a beginning, and end like a death.”
“I’m not so sure. Stories resemble reincarnation. They can be read over and over, interpreted differently at different moments in time. They exist beyond us”, says Terry.

“How can you say that?” my voice is rising. Terry, understand that one day you are going to die! And when you do, none of this is going to matter. Do you want answers from me? There are no answers. Go home and watch porno. Kant cannot be proven true anymore than porno can.” Terry looked like he was holding his breath.
Have you ever seen someone die, asks Terry.
Yes, I have.
What’s it like? I pause for a very long time, trying to remember.
I really don’t know.
“I watched my friend die. He had only a couple of hours left. I helped him sit in a comfortable chair. It was midnight and the hospital was very quiet. Talked to him a little bit, trying very hard to fake a calm, peaceful environment. There were so many emotions raging inside me all I could to be quiet. Then he started to die: he stop breathing, paused, started again. Stopped, longer pause, started again. For about 5 minutes, until a long enough time had past when he didn’t take another breath. I sat staring at his body, partly because it was possible he was still playing the game, party because I didn’t know what else to do.”
Terry laughs quietly when he talk about his friend’s breathing game as if a chuckle is the only way he can get his mouth to speak the words.

I’m really sorry Terry.
Why? It’s sad that he’s gone. But watching him die wasn’t sad. I don’t know if I can explain to you what it felt like.
What should I write about?
What about what it feels like.
But I already told you that it doesn’t… Terry looked at me in the eyes, a gentle but firm look.

Sometimes people ask me what knowing that I’m going to die is like. It’s like something we’ve all experienced, except that there is no future for the dying. They can only look behind. Right now you’re reading these words which means you’re not looking behind you or directly in front of you. But if you kept reading these words, and then in the back of your mind start to think about what if there was someone behind you, who was about to put their hand on your shoulder. You start to get paranoid and start to imagine what it would feel like to have their sweaty palm hover over your shoulder while you’re reading these words. What if they were right behind you? If they were so close to the back of your neck you could feel the heat of their body in the surrounding air you as your read these lines. You begin to imagine that air getting warmer. Now you might be tempted to look back and make sure there is no one there. If you’d like to do this, please go ahead. But remember that if it was death that was right behind you, waiting patiently, you’d look up from reading this and you wouldn’t be able to see him. And you’d get paranoid and look back again. But again he wouldn’t be there. And you’d keep looking back to see nothing, only emptiness where you were expecting something to be. This is what it is like to know that you are going to die: there is no forward, only looking behind to see an empty space.
Terry looked behind him while he waited for me to respond.
Ok, I said. I’ll write about it.

By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: July 10, 2005

1)Trying to understand the connection between writing/story telling and death – the story becomes an interplay between metaphors, motifs and situations in which the Terry character dies first.

2)Death is one of the most difficult things to write about. That’s because we don’t know anything about it.

OUTLINE

1)conversation with doctor – establish symptoms, and expected life span
a.bring in the breathing motif – doctors asks how the characters breathing is
b.doctor asks “I heard you’re writing a story, what’s it about?”

2)Motif – there is no time for death in hospitals
a.Explain what happens when someone dies – how the nurses are forced to act, how the doctors are forced to act

3)as I walk back to my room, I see Terry. Describe him, his breathing, that he is a friend, how long he has been in the hospital. Terry asks about the story I am writing. He asks what it is about. The character expresses some frustrations about his writing. The character says that he wanted to explore the connections between writing and death – but doesn’t think there are any. (later on in the story, he might describe a story Terry tells him about storytelling and death). Terry says that at least the character is thinking and being reflective about his experience instead of just trying to ignore it.
4)Discussion of “lobotomy” and two types of dying people.
5)When the character gets back to his room, he tries to work on his story. He mentions the man across from his room, and mentions his daughters that come to visit him. They watch the hockey game together. He is fustrated and raises some doubts about the story he is writing. He is honest with the reader about his selfish intentions – he believes that writing is the only intrinsically valuable thing left to do. He also describes (somewhere) the sound and experience of hearing all the patients at night breath together – as if one breath, soft and shallow, but trying to hang on.
5)In the morning, he is woken up by a phillopino nurse stabbing him in the arm to draw blood. He briefly explains what the bloods tests are for. And then describes the sound and experience of everyone receiving therapy, coughing, and breathing faster, at the same time.
6)Terry comes by the character’s room and tells him a story. The character notices some changes in Terry – his breathing patterns seems to reflect a more sombre mood.
7)Some go-between paragraph that is either about writing or deathing, and their possible connection. Something clever and well written. Perhaps a reflection on whatever Terry has said.
8)The scene with the man dying at night and one the phone with wife.
9)Doctor comes in the next morning with good news (?). Brief conversation with the doctors. He asks how the characters writing is going.
10)Terry is taken to intensive care.
11)Some go-between paragraph that is either about writing or deathing, and their possible connection. Something clever and well written. Perhaps a reflection on whatever Terry has said.
12) Terry dies.
13)

* in this story, you must find some commonality between all those patients in the ward. Something, something they do – whatever they are searching for – that links them and links storytelling and death. Perhaps in a way each patient is just a story teller. Or a character. And they are trying to mould their story, trying to have the most control, until the very end. But then the story begins to write itself. And that’s where it gets interesting.

Those who are sick and dying finally realize the truth that everyone else chooses to ignore: that there is no free will. There are no more choices for the dying, for they have lost their future. – from here, you can entire into a discussion of what it feels like to die, and the bit about free will.

By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: July  8, 2005

Dear Lindsay,

You wrote a story in your last letter, so I want to make my letter a story as well. All stories are true.

“I want to be in love”, she said. “I am scared. I do not know what love is. All I know is that I want it.”
She thought she was in love with him (even though she didn’t know what love was). He was just like her. Closing his eyes, he thought about her sharing his bed, misunderstandings in art galleries, uncomfortable pauses and a brief, gentle kiss. He was just like her. He too often put himself in a kind of self-inflicted internal isolation where the walls scream and everyone’s lives were suddenly.
“You’re lucky”, she said. “You have someone”.
I do, he thought? Who?
“I want to be in love” she repeated.
But she was. In love with this image of herself as the melancholic princess who believes firmly that true love is utterly impossible, and yet everyday comes to her window and watches princes go by on the street. Many sighs. She was in love with him, but he too was a sort of princess, in the next castle, sighing just as she.

I want you to touch me, he said. There was an awkward pause. I don’t think I can, she replied. He put his hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes. I am touching you, she whispered. I am touching your body with my mind.
He looked at her. She had built a wall of words to protect her. It prevented him from touching her back. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. These words surrounded her. The light of his touch was being blocked by what she thought was love.

I want someone to love, she said.
No you don’t.
Of course I do. It’s all I want. I would give up everything.
Would you give up yourself?
What?
Would you give up yourself for someone to love? She knew this question didn’t make sense yet she thought she understood it. I use to say that all the time, he said.
That you’d wanted someone to love?
Yes.
And now that you have someone?
I’m finally starting to find myself. I always had someone to love. I was blind. And when you love someone, then what? He asked. Love is fundamentally good. But it occurs only in moments, so waiting and precious. What will you do while you wait?

There was a paused. They waited together. But as individuals.

Why do you want to be with me, she asked.
I want those moments, he said. Those moments without judgement, that somehow seem so much more important than war or time.
Do you want to touch my body, she asked.
That’s secondary. But yes, I do. Why do you want to be with me?
I want to be loved.
You already are.
I want to be touched.
I can touch you.
I can’t…
He closed his eyes, very slowly reached out his hand and felt for a gap between the words of LOVE. He touched the end of her nose. At first she cried silently a cry of pain. But as he began to rub her nose she started to moan.

On paper, everything looked so easy, she thought.
It’s ok, he said. (He could sense what she was thinking)
Our moment exists as a story. Even if my hand never feels your nose, I have still touched you. And you have touched me.

A story is as real as it might as well ever be.

Your companion and fellow victim in love,
Jehangir

PS. I didn’t do much editing, so please forgive. I really hope you’re doing well.

Dark and Silence
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 28, 2005

Gabrielle ordered Mohammed
to read
in the name of his Lord
in a cave, full of dark
and silence, on top
of Mt. Hiira

Mohammed could not read
at first
he did not answer

Khaadjida, he said after,
I was scared
it seemed like a dream

you and I were made
from the same clot of blood
the brightest light

if you are weak, human
it is because your dreams
blossom
like cancerous tumours

if I am weak
it is because I believe
what I hear
lying in the dark
and silence
blind
deaf
beside your still body
as you whisper me your dreams

By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 22, 2005

Terry looked like a warm, comforting eel. He claimed to like cars when we first met and I was quite turned off. But eventually I saw that it was a kind of affection for a machine built by the hands of the common man. There was something noble in that. We were having an argument about what it means to write authentically. He is much older than I, but still holds on to his dreams. He told me everything I already knew about epic poets from antiquity, who invoked the muses and through them the words just flowed. I have become much more disillusioned. Writing, I proclaimed, was like driving through rush-hour traffic, trying to assemble furniture, picking up litter on the highway. In short: it was a bitch. Even so, he insisted I sit down and just “write” to see what came out. So really, I’m sloughing through this for his sake, out of respect for his advice. I apologise, dear reader, for whatever inconvenience I cause you as I subject you to this experiment. Don’t blame me. Blame my gentle friend Terry who is convinced of the beauty of myths and stories, of their ability to touch the lives of shmoes like you and me. He is old and illusions make him happy. Let it be.
I, on the other hand, know much better. As I’m sure you do as well. This is the part of the story where I stop caring and when you start questioning. I’m trying to be as efficient as I can. But let’s see where this goes. Perhaps that’s what Mohammed thought after the first revelation, “Gee that was totally unbelievable. But ok, I’ll see where this goes…” But unlike Mohammed, no one is commanding you to read.
I should begin by telling you that this story is about a paradox. A contradictory dichotomy. You see, I have this killer disease and probably have only about 20 more years to live. Perhaps you do too; I guess you’ll have to wait to find out. Maybe you should write a story about it like I am just in case. But anyway, I have this killer disease. And unlike other killer diseases that lay silent and then spring into action in some dramatic, unexpected moment, I already well acquainted with mine. I have named him Roger. I have to walk around town being reminded that sooner than later, I am going to die. It’s like having a post-it note stuck to my brain that says: DEATH. Roger is going to be gross and uncomfortable, or so I’ve been told. But I mentioned this paradox, didn’t I? Right. Well, I’m still quite young you see. Only 20. At that stage of my life when I’m trying to figure out what I want to do, what I value, you know that semi-anomic post-teenager stuff. And yet, while I’m trying to figure out what I want to do what my life, I’m being reminded that soon I am going to die. Herein lies the paradox, which is going to be the central theme of my story. It’s supposed to touch you and make you keep reading, or so Terry says. He’s quite smart, so I’m sure he’s right. When he reads this he’s going to either be amused or disappointed that I wrote that.
At this point I’ve already told you my central theme. So if you’re getting really bored, or need to do something more important you’re welcome to go do that. The rest is kind of just filler. Although to be honest I’m not sure what you could be doing that’s important. I use to think that things like philosophy, ideas and yes, even writing, like this thing that you’re currently reading, were terribly important. But then I thought about it much more carefully. Consider that you’re reading this thing I’m writing, and you’ve kept reading. Now although I don’t believe in free will – because if you think about it, all your actions, life experiences, people you’ve met, have lead up to this very moment in which you’ve “decided” to pick this thing up and read it, but if you erase all those other things, like watching a film backwards, destroying the images as they are played, you’ll find you won’t ever be able to come back to this moment – let’s assume you haven’t been forced. I suppose if you think there is some value in reading this thing. Ok, very well, what do you think that value is? Please, none of that “stories give us a common humanity and create the thread of our society” bullshit. (ELABORATE HERE) I’ve heard it enough from Terry. He keeps looking at me, in his gentle prophet/eel -like way and talks about the importance of stories. Writing and creating as wholly human acts. (ELABORATE HERE) But dear reader, you are going to die! And this little ditty that I’m writing at 1:12am on whatever the date today is isn’t going to matter at all. All that will matter is one very simple, very basic, but utterly impossible to answer question. At the last moment of your life, one giant thought bubble will pop up above your head: Have I lived a good life? And then you’ll have a very small moment, quicker than the pulse, to answer with a yes or a no. I suggest that you take the time to think through your answer beforehand, just in case you forget or are too hopped up on pain killers to understand the question. I guess one of the things that I want to do with this story is to get you, dear reader, to think about this question. After considering it for some time now, it seems to be the only thing left that is of objective importance. Everything else can be deconstructed back to language or machines. I suppose thinking of this highly objectively important yet thoroughly depressing question is one of the so-called advantages of knowing that you’re going to die. I’ve been asking people what they think, reading various scholars and theologians. The responses are often conflicting, although all seem to agree that you must, as I think Rumi noted, “unfold your own myth”. Basically means that you choose the answer to that question according to your own values. Seems like a bloody cop out to me. It’s the preachy, quasi-intellectual way of saying “I don’t know”. I don’t know either. So if you haven’t left to watch porno or clean the kitchen, and have stayed expecting some kind of answers about death and the authenticity of life, I’m sorry, but there isn’t any. Actually, I have to pee. So hold on for a sec.
Sorry. Like I was saying, you might as well go watch porno. Kant cannot be proven to be true anymore than porno can. But in case you have nothing else to do, which is often the case with me, I better continue my story. Now that I think about it, it’s kind of ironic: I am going to die, and yet so often I have nothing to do. Or if I’m doing something, it really feels like I’m doing nothing, like I’m just kind of floating around. Terry said that the idea of nothing was invented. This seems totally strange to me. What were they doing before they were doing nothing? It’s like they’re doing nothing and not even knowing it until one day, some guy got sunstroke and starting to think about nothing, and realized that he wasn’t thinking anything and decided to call that “nothing”. Nothing seems more like a feeling to me. It’s deep, dark, and full of silence. Kind of how I imagine death to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally hoping for the heaven/hell scenario. But if that doesn’t work out, then I suppose death is like when you close your eyes and it’s so quiet that you don’t remember where you are anymore. It’s like that, just you’re dead. So you won’t be able to say “this is how death feels”. It will be nothing. Truly. Nothing.
I thought that I’d write stories in the time I have left before I die. Terry says that stories stop time, capture something and save it from being destroyed. But as I already told you, I can’t see any point to writing stories. Plus they are so hard to write, and I’ve already told you about porno and Kant. And the only people who really appreciate stories are the ones who don’t think too much. (ELOBORATE ON WHY) Everyone thinks too much. It’s like the way a lot of other people I know with a similarly killer disease approach death. They don’t think about it, sort of a self-induced lobotomy where they remove the part of the brain that’s able to realize you are going to die. I think most people do that, it’s easier. But I don’t want that. I know people who are dying like me who don’t ever think about it and neither do their families so that even when they are about to die they don’t let go. They hang on, but their body is dead, so it starts to decay and stink up the room with their family around them who are usually weeping like severely damaged robots. It’s a very sad situation. I don’t want that. I want to answer my question, YES, and then die.
I am starting to question if this is authentic enough, or if I’m starting to “sell out” by being mediated by my so-called intellect. Maybe if I mention that I pass gas it will make it more authentic. There, I said it. I fart, Terry, are you happy? Have I finally touched my readers? Actually my killer disease means that I fart a lot. I don’t die from it or anything, but I have some bowel problems. Quite painful actually and passing gas makes me feel a lot better.
Sometimes people ask me what knowing that I’m going to die is like. Which seems silly, because you dear reader, I’m sorry to say, are going to die too. But it’s like something we’ve all experienced, except that there is no future for the dying. They can only look behind. Right now you’re reading these words (if you’ve stuck around that is) which means you’re not looking behind you or directly in front of you. But if you kept reading these words, and then in the back of your mind start to think about what if there was someone behind you, who was about to put their hand on your shoulder. You start to get paranoid and start to imagine what it would feel like to have their sweaty palm hover over your shoulder while you’re reading these words. What if they were right behind you? If they were so close to the back of your neck you could feel the heat of their body in the surrounding air you as your read these lines. You begin to imagine that air getting warmer. Now you might be tempted to look back and make sure there is no one there. If you’d like to do this, please go ahead. But remember that if it was death that was right behind you, waiting patiently, you’d look up from reading this and you wouldn’t be able to see him. And you’d get paranoid and look back again. But again he wouldn’t be there. And you’d keep looking back to see nothing, only emptiness where you were expecting something to be. This is what it is like to know that you are going to die: there is no forward, only looking behind to see an empty space. I’ll give you a moment to look back.