here's another thing that i'm writing. it's not much and i might just keep it, but 당신 never know where imagination takes you.


The Start Has Ended, The End Has Only Started
    I'm not too sure how it felt. One 분 I was in pain, and the 다음 I was floating. The 심장 monitor stopped except for the beep that told them my 심장 had stopped. Nurses ran into my room, my mom started crying on Dad's shoulder. One nurse tried to comfort my parents, for the last three days I'd had many close calls.
     None of it really mattered to me, I was free! Free from the pain and suffering that I had been going through for years. I was finally dead!
    Before now, I was afraid of death, afraid of leaving my 프렌즈 and family, but I had no fear now. Only joy. I knew Mom and Dad would be okay, and my little sister would have her 프렌즈 to lean on. As for me, who cared? I'd be safely tucked away -- who knew where -- in a week.
    The doctor brought in a machine that I'd only seen in the movies. She rubbed it together as the nurses put sticky stuff on my chest. I could feel it -- 또는 maybe it was an after feeling of death.
    The doctor set the metal on the sticky stuff and yelled, “Clear!” In a high pitched voice.
    I wanted to laugh, but instead of laughing I felt a bolt of electricity shoot through my body. The doctor then again put the cold metal up to my chest. I wanted to scream at her to stop, but I couldn't reach her. She couldn't hear me.
    The lightning rocked my body again. The pain never ceasing. Even dead I couldn't escape. I was trapped forever in pain. My lifeless body jumped ten 더 많이 times as they tortured me with the electricity.
    Mom sobbed even louder when they gave up trying to save me. I was saved from the pain! Only to remember that I decided to be an organ donor. All my organs still worked. I'd been in a car accident a few years earlier and it had damaged my brain stem. I'd still been able to think and plan and write, but I'd needed a lot of systems put in my body so that I could be alive for as long as I was.
    Breathing, my 심장 pumping, most of my organs had stopped working completely. I was lucky I wasn't dead, 또는 worse, a vegetable. Of course, I was dead, now.
    I screamed. My mom called my name 더 많이 than once, broken sobs the only thing that stopped her from yelling. Dad's eyes brimmed with tears and I wanted to comfort him, to say that I was going to be okay. I knew it would be a lie if I was shocked one 더 많이 time 또는 cut open without penicillin. Too bad no one could hear my screams.
    Mom didn't want Katie to miss school, but Dad should have gone to get her when they noticed that my condition was worsening. I would've asked dad to do it, only I couldn't feel anything and my brain had shut down to the point that I wasn't getting enough oxygen to speak. Dad should've known though, I was her big brother. I still am her big brother.
    “Joseph... Joe... be good okay, I 사랑 당신 buddy.” Mom kissed my forehead. I rubbed it and then felt my mother's warm tears.
    “Mom.” My voice trailed away... I was losing a lot 더 많이 than I was gaining. Well, gaining a lot 더 많이 pain and losing my best 프렌즈 and the greatest family a person could ever have. There was no winning for me, not ever.
    I had to leave, maybe if I couldn't see my body I couldn't hear the things around me, couldn't feel the 칼, 나이프 that would soon cut my skin. My soul -- I guess that's what it would be -- left the room, going straight through the white walls. I wished that I'd died in my room, with the TV on and my sister holding my hand. That would be the best way to go.
    When I was told that the crash had damaged my brain stem to the point that it only worked at 랜덤 times for 랜덤 periods, I became numb. I didn't really think about it, I didn't want to believe.
    After I was told I would be pulled out of school, I did the things I would've never thought of. Bombing an important test for fun, kicking the teacher in the knee when he told me no, jumping off the back of the bus, starting a 음식 fight in the cafeteria, starting a real fight with the school bully, and doing drugs. I wasn't too proud of most of my ideas, but I wanted to live before I died, like most people in the world.
    Dad understood, but Mom thought I needed help. I didn't need help, I needed a new brain. They couldn't give me that, so what could they give me? I was already dead to them. Why did I have to be in the hospital when I died? They only thought of me as a
    I felt the white sheet being placed on my body as Katie walked into the room with Aunt Lucy. Mom and Dad were talking, but I couldn't hear what they said.
    Katie wasn't as quiet. “Joe... wh... wh... why'd y.. y... 당신 lea... leave me?” Her eyes filled with tears and I floated back into the hospital room.
    “Katie... I didn't want to... I didn't... I couldn't control it... I wish that I could...”
    Katie grabbed my cold hand and kissed it, hot tears falling down her cheeks. This was too hard... too hard... I had never wanted to die, I never wanted to leave my family, they needed me.
    Mom and dad left the room, leaving Aunt Lucy, Katie, and the doctors alone.
    “Why couldn't 당신 save him?” Katie screamed as soon as the door was closed. “Why couldn't 당신 save my brother? What did he ever do to you? Why did 당신 let him die?”
    “Kat-”
    “No! Don't try to make me feel better! Why didn't 당신 save him?”
    “We did-”
    “No 당신 didn't! 당신 didn't do anything except for enlarge your pocket 책 with our money that was meant for someone that could save my brother! So why isn't he alive? Why is he cold on the 침대 while some man that was told he had the same problem get to leave the hospital twenty years later?”
    “Kathrynn, we did everything and your parents know that...”
    “My parents don't know anything!” Her tears came down faster and I wanted to hold her, wishing that I could wipe her tears away. “That's why they came to you! 당신 poor excuses for doctors! I wouldn't let 당신 touch a rat! 당신 might kill it too! We trusted you! We gave 당신 money and support and if we had the spare cash, we would've even given 당신 a Ferrari!”
    Aunt Lucy ran to Katie's side, wiping her tears away and trying to soothe her that they did everything that they could, she wouldn't listen.
    “I hate 당신 and I hope 당신 die! 당신 need to die before 당신 kill someone else trying to save them!”
    Katie ran out of the room, blind form tears and Aunt Lucy trailed behind her with Kleenex and a comforting arm. The doctors stayed back, dumbfounded.
    I would've smiled at the fact that Katie got her mouth from me, only her words had stunned everyone. I looked at the doctors, I could tell that they never expected a six-year old to blurt out like that. I was in too much pain to care about them.
    Katie needed me and I wasn't there to help her. Her 프렌즈 didn't know her like I did. I'd go through the fiery pits of Hell to talk to her again, telling her that I was okay and I was only happy when she was. The conversation would probably sound like something that two long 로스트 연인들 would say, not siblings, but we wouldn't care.
    I went back to my house, hoping that I could find something to cheer her up. I didn't, I found drawings all over the house, mainly hearts that me and her went through. She would draw them and then we would make stories about them. I would write the stories on the back of the paper.
    I remembered one time perfectly, my mind wandered to the memory.
    
    “Joe! Joe! I have another one!” Katie screams excitedly.
    I stand up and walk to the kitchen. “Then let's see it.” I yell back, digging my head in the fridge looking for a snack that my body won't reject. I give up soon, and settle for some yogurt that my mom had said was “Off Limits”.
    Katie runs into the kitchen. “Mom's gonna be angry at you.” She accuses.
    “So? I'm hungry.”
    She sticks her tongue out like a child, then her natural energy comes out again and she throws a new picture at me. “Here! I have another heart!”
    I look at it and laugh.
    “What Joe? There's nothing wrong with it!”
    “That looks like an evil person's 심장 that tried to sugar 코트 it!” I exclaim, looking at the black 심장 with glitter.
    “It is not! I worked hard on this one!”
    “Okay! He wasn't-”
    “She.” Katie corrects.
    “She wasn't evil, she was just a person that disliked little children. She would boil them in a vat of oil! I know, I met her. She says that this 심장 will make the person that has it boil little children too!”
    “Joseph! That's not funny!”
    “I'm sorry Kate, I'll be good.” I smile a truce and shove another spoonful of yogurt in my mouth. A chunk of 딸기 gets stuck between my teeth and Katie steals a bite while I try to pick it out.
    “So, what's the story on this one?”
    “Let's see...” I grab a pen and flip the paper over. “Let's name her Clara.”
    “She had a cat named Gerbil.”
    “And she's widowed.”
    “What's that?”
    “Her husband died.”
    “Okay, but that's sad...” Her voice trails off.
    I keep talking so that she regains her happiness. “Her husband's name was Charles and he worked as a coal miner.”    
    “She was a very sweet lady.” Katie decides.
    “Only, every night before Charles died, he brought dust 집 from the mine and over time, her 심장 and lungs became became covered with the black powder.”
    “She died from coal poisoning.” Katie concludes.    
    “Perfect!”
    “What does it say?”
    I read it, “Once upon a time, there was a very sweet lady named Clara, she had a cat named Gerbil and a dead husband named Charles. Before Charles died, he always brought 집 clothes covered with coal dust from the mines that he worked in. Over the years, Clara's organs were covered with a fine, black powder. She lived with the powder for years, but she never complained and was always kind to others. She died of coal poisoning in 1918.”
    “I 사랑 it!”

    I was brought back in the real world when the door opened. Katie was 집 with Mom and Dad now. A tear fell down my face as I felt the white sheet being pulled all the way up, covering my upper body and face. The distance hadn't helped the feeling like I'd hoped.
    “I'm never going into his room again. Mom, can 당신 put these in there?” Katie walked around the room and picked up all the 심장 drawings, the crayons I gave her, a 베개 that she gave me to lie my head on for Christmas, and of course, all the pictures of me.
    Mom took the stuff from her and with tears in her eyes, walked upstairs to my room. “Good bye Joe, I hope your happy.” A single tear fell down her cheek. She laid on my 침대 and broke down in sobs. I put my invisible hand on her shoulder.
    From the hospital I heard the doctor say, “We should get on with the operation, the family wants the funeral as soon as possible.” I screamed. The funeral! I didn't think about the pain! What are they going to do to my body? Cremation? 또는 burial?
    Burning in flames? 또는 being stabbed with a needle, getting my brains pulled out 의해 my nose, dressed 의해 some strange person, and get makeup put on? Which one would I rather have? I would rather rest in peace in a coffin, but a urn might not be bad. Maybe a little uncomfortable...
    “Yes Dr. T.”
    No! I thought, No, they can't do this. I'd rather be in a morgue for eternity than find out what my parents had decided to do with my body. I was not going to let them go through with this! But how would I stop them? I would just have to go through with it...
    Mom placed her 가장 좋아하는 picture of me on my pillow, left my last school picture in her hands, and the rest in my closet, never to be looked at again. A chill crept down my neck. The last time I had talked to Uncle Chester, I told him that it was his fault I was like this; his fault that I was going to die. He had been driving.
    Now I felt terrible. This time I felt the pain of the memory as I recalled it, three years ago.
    
    “So how was school, Joe?” Uncle Chester asks.
    I don't answer. I look out the window at the other kids my age, in the seventh grade and getting picked up 의해 their parents in Mercedes and Jaguars, while my parents are both working to keep us in a comfortable house and being picked up 의해 my looser uncle in a beat up '79 Chevy truck.
    “Joe, don't be like that.” Uncle Chester looks at me as he pulls out of the parking lot.
    My hands 옮기기 down to the littered floorboard to grab my back pack.
    “Joe? Did 당신 lose your voice?”
    “No! Now stop talking to me!” I pick my bag up and unzip it.
    As I take my homework out, Uncle Chester looks at me again. “Rough day, Kid?”    
    “You don't wanna know.”
    “Sure I do.”
    “I was told that I'm most likely to fail the seventh grade unless I step up to the plate and do my homework right. But I don't understand my homework!”
    “I'll help you.” Uncle Chester offers.
    “You can do Algebra?”
    “Sure I can, now let me see it.”
    I hand him my work and he looks at the numbers and letters that seem randomly placed on the paper. I look up at the road.
    “Look out!”
    Uncle Chester looks up and spins the wheel, trying to dodge a deer. The truck spins in circles, Chester drops my paper and the truck flies into the other lane. A semi-truck is coming at us, it's not stopping, why isn't it stopping? The truck is still spinning wildly out of control. I grab the dashboard to keep my head from flying off.
    We're hit from behind, the semi smashing the 침대 and sliding to a stop, smashing the glass. I'm not fast enough to cover my head, the glass flies into my neck. I hold the injury, my breathing is slowing, blood is flowing down my neck, my lungs are stopping.
    I make myself breathe, but I can't make my 심장 speed up. I can feel it slowing down. I hear the 구급차 coming, but my eyesight is getting cloudy from lack of oxygen. My will is waning, I can't make myself do anything anymore.
    I can't stay awake, I can't-

    I shudder away from the memory, after I woke up, I was told about what was wrong with me, why I had stopped breathing, why at times I couldn't feel my heart. “It made it hard to fix you, but 당신 now have control of all your organs again. When your 심장 stops, the little device that we placed inside 당신 will work as a heart, the same goes with your lungs.” The doctor had shuddered, “But, I don't know how long it will last, a few years, maybe, but it won't work throughout your life. I'm afraid that 당신 won't live to twenty.”
    He was right, I was only sixteen and dead because of a stupid brain. Why couldn't I die in the truck? Save everybody time and money? They didn't get to say goodbye anyway!
    Katie was at school, mom and dad had just stared at me like zombies, Uncle Chester hadn't come at all, I had stopped talking to anyone when he was around, so he just stopped completely. I didn't know where Aunt Lucy was half the time, the other half she was either drunk 또는 arguing with Uncle Chester. That 일 was the first 일 in years that I hadn't seen her do one 또는 the other.