SAYING FAREWELL

 

Maybe I’d been glooming over the fact that I would not be here for the federal election or maybe I’d been asleep and missed his arrival but suddenly there he was.  “Hey, Newshawk Old Friend! “ I said, “ Where’ve you been?”  I’d insulted him awhile ago and was a little worried.  “You been sulking?  If so, I’m sorry.”

He just shrugged and did his little keyboard dance.  “No. Just sleeping I guess, same as you.  It’s those pain killers you’re taking.  You sleep, I sleep.  That’s what an alter ego does.”

“You! My alter ego?  My other self!  You!  An insect!”

“Of course.  Older, tougher, better organized, smarter – and hey, it’s time for some straight talk.”  He stamped on the shift key to inflate what he wanted to say. “Something’s bugging you – other than me.”

“You’re right, Old Friend.  I’m trying to figure out how to say ‘good bye’ – or if to say ‘goodbye’.”

“You can’t say ‘goodbye’ to an alter ego! I go where you go!”

“Not just to you.  To everybody.  To everything.”

Suddenly he looked depressed and, stepping off the shift key, did a slow hop-n-shuffle across the keyboard.  “Oh, oh,” he typed, “ I knew this was coming.  A couple of years ago when you found you were not only a nonagenarian but also way in deep with prostate cancer – top of the Gleason scale – those philosophical talks with your doctor about quality of life being far more important than extending it?  Remember?”

“Yeah.  That could have been a dilemma.  To go for surgical or other heroics or slow the cancer down by the anti-testosterone route and simply delay the almost inevitable bone cancer.  In my 60s that might have been a no-brainer but, hey, the 90s looked terminal all by themselves.”

“So that’s why the doc’s been upgrading our pain pills?”

“Yeah.  You weren’t paying attention but a bone scan just before last Christmas showed those little coloured spots.  Osteoblastic metastasis they call it.  The bone thickens in places. Hardens.  Swells.  Causes nerve problems.  Pain.  Anywhere in the skeleton. Mostly at night.  Hard to sleep.  The knack is to get the right drugs to subdue the pain without wiping a guy out for the next day.  Maintaining quality of life, see?  The doc’s been a genius.  But that recent weekend.  Remember, Old Friend?  You were feeling we should be writing something about today’s bizarre politics and I told you to get lost.”

“You told me to – “

“Never mind. The point is, that weekend – my god, why on a weekend of all times! – the blasted Osteoblastic did a blast off.  Launched a surge to overwhelm the pills.  The bad against the good.  It was two nights and a day of – well, it’s hard to describe – one shin bone, across the pelvis, from centre of  back out to a hip, across the rib cage and in one arm, even my jaw – it was like a tourist’s sample cocktail of Hell’s torture.  After all, the pain killers were still in me and this could happen!  Then the genius doc got me back on track – palliative they call it – without blowing my mind. Which is not easy and is the point of it all. And of course can’t last.  Doesn’t last.  Get a pain hit every now and then.  Up the pills. Eventually – well – Sayonara – and not nicely.”

Newshawk did another slow shuffle-hop on the keys. “So where does that leave us?”

“Well, like I said, trying to figure out how to say ‘goodbye’.

“Sounds to me like you’re planning on using that new law?”

“The MAiD ? Medical Assistance in Dying? Yes. You bet. And with heart felt thanks to Jody Wilson-Raybould, our ex-Minister of Justice who managed to create it.  Lots of glitches, gremlins and paradoxes in it for future fine tuning but even now, what a blessing.  May she be re-elected. I’ve already signed the MAiD forms and, well, you know – every journey has that first step.”

“And soon ‘goodbye’ is for real.”

“You bet. No ‘Be seein’ ya’ or ‘Hasta la vista’ or ‘Au revoir’.  Just ‘Farewell’.  Except for you, because we’ll go together.  My alter ego and I.  Been fun, pal.”

“Yeah.  And I’m sorry. I’ve been sleeping even more than you.  You’ve been so blasted busy writing and I can’t figure what or why so have just been going back to sleep.”

“My fine little alter ego, good for you. And soon I’ll sleep, too. But during what time may be left I’m writing a play to explain to other geezers how this all goes down. This cancer’s scary, but we imagine it into being scarier than it has to be.”

Newshawk look bemused for a moment then suddenly brightened.  “Hey,” he typed, “that’s a grandly useful idea.  Have we got a publisher?”

“More importantly — no publisher has us.”

He appeared bemused for a moment then shuffled over a few keys. “Okay my guru, my mentor, my master. I hope you can figure out how to say that goodbye.  You’re not one for that God-be-with-thee.”

“Come off it, Newshawk Old Friend.  What to say is one thing.  Simply ‘farewell’.  But we writers feel there should be a final message – you know, a little wisdom.  Hey, don’t gag.”

“I’m not gagging. I’m laughing.  You!  Wisdom!  Have a go at it.  I can’t wait.”

“But Newshawk, Old Friend, I have no words of encouragement in the midst of the shambles our species is creating for itself.  Homo Stupiditis, for sure.   But there is an election coming with slogans all over the place —  so all I can propose is to harken back to a phrase from World War Two and put our faith in it.”

“And that is?”

“Carry on Canada!”

“Hey,” he typed, “let me do it.” He took a deep breath and almost threw himself onto the “SEND”.

 

Copyright©Munroe Scott 2019