I’m dying.

Excuse me?

I’m dying.

What do you mean?

What do you mean ‘what do you mean’? I mean, this thing I’m doing now, couple months time, I won’t be doing it anymore.

I don’t- why? What happened?

Fuck if I know what happened. Doc  ran some tests, turns out I’m not as well off as I supposed.

I…okay, what are you sick with?

The fuck would I know what it is? Didn’t care what it was, cared whether it was killing me or not, turns out it was. End of story. Well, mine anyway.

How can you, I mean, is it curable?

The fuck? Are you even listening? Course it’s not curable! Wouldn’t be fucking dying if it was. I’d just be, I don’t know, ill or something like.

So, you’re dying, but you don’t know what’s wrong with you?

I’m fucked, what’s the point in bothering? You gonna bother to ask the gunman what caliber of bullet he fancied putting in the chamber?

Did you at least, I don’t know, go for a second opinion?

Sure, I got another appointment on Tuesday. Maybe I’ll make a few more, make myself a choir of docs, all lined up singing me a fucking dirge. I really feel like you’re missing the point of all this,

I’m sorry, I just- What is the point? That you’re-

I’m fucking dying.

Right. So, you don’t know what you have, but you are absolutely certain it’s killing you. Did you get a timeframe?

Best guess was a few months, more if I went in on one of his medication scams. Not sure I’m keen on buying more time when it’s all gonna be spent in hospital.

If they think it can get you more time-

Time? What the fuck good is that going to do me? Honestly, life’s one thing, it’s indeterminate, forever if you’re living right. This, this fucking dying thing…It really…really takes the taste out of things. Been sitting here drinking…better part of a week. Can’t feel my fucking chin, but I’ll be a monkey’s tits if I can’t feel it hanging over me like a goddamn cymbal. Every goddamn second- tss, tss, tss. On and on and on. It’s…it’s the doctor- Look, it’s like I’ve been sitting here, right? Playing this game. And I’m nailing it- back of net, every time, amazing. But then, now, I look up and- for the first time I see the scoreboard. And it’s a fucking mess. See this bloke, this man I didn’t even know I was playing against. He’s got me. Obliterated me. Talking scores of scores.  And now…now it’s fifteen minutes until game over and they expect me to keep playing. Even knowing I don’t stand a fucking chance they want me to look at that, look at that fucking scoreboard and they want me to fight. They want me to pretend like I never learned to know when I’m beat, that a thousand breathes is better than a hundred even if the thousand comes at the cost of choking down blood on every single one. No. Look, mate, I’m sorry I called you out. Sorry, I pulled you away from that wife and little blond bastard of yours. You got a life, all that comes with. I just…burnt a lot of bridges making all of them goals. Figure, unfair as it is, I’d ask on of the few fucks dumb enough to stick around to bear the burden a little longer…

I…what do you need me to do?

Nothing. I don’t need you to do a goddamn thing. I want you to sit down in that chair and I want you to have a beer. After that, I don’t know. Whatever you want. I don’t care. I spent the better part of forty years putting off things I always thought I’d get around to later, say we do one of those. Darts, maybe? Maybe not. Maybe just another beer and a run to the chip shoppe. Fuck, I don’t know. Just, whatever it is, give me a poke every once in a while, yeah? Let me know I’m still here.