Doctor Amin was sitting at her desk with both hands clasped together. Long, black hair with new pops of gray framing her brilliant oncologist mind.
“Suze, I need to show you these,” she said, opening her laptop. She had scans on her screen and bad news on her lips. She wasn’t looking at me. I asked about time. Months, she said, eyes averted.
I was thirty. I had spent my twenties so focused on survival that I barely glanced at living. My options had run out. All I could think was how intimately I knew each ceiling tile in the chemotherapy suite. Pathetic. Mine was a life not lived. I picked up my longtime doctor’s stethoscope from her desk and fiddled with it while she droned on.
I placed the stethoscope over my heart and listened while Doctor Amin spoke words like “hospice” and “comfort.” I marveled at the incessant thudding in my chest, my heart insistent on doing the useless work of keeping me alive—the dumb, oblivious thing. I thought of my neighbor sweeping the dirt off her sidewalk after her house had burned down.
I removed the stethoscope from my ears and placed the tips in Doctor Amin’s. She listened and looked at me, finally.
I pointed to my heart, “I’m leaving, doc. I’m going to use this thing up.” I carefully placed the stethoscope’s cold silver diaphragm against Dr. Amin’s chest, the sound of her heartbeat filling her ears as the door closed behind me.
*NYC Midnight hosts some of the best writing contests I’ve done. This story placed 3rd which earned me a spot in the final round. We started with 5400 writers in December and are now down to the final 150. The feedback from the judges is why I do these and NYC Midnight offers some of the best I’ve received. I enjoyed it so much, I entered the short story competition as well.