tales of Suchita

I’m dying – let’s get that out of the way right from the outset. And before we go any further, let’s set some ground rules. A. I don’t do pity. I’m dying, get over it, I know I am. B. Don’t start a sentence with ‘have you tried…’ I don’t need no saviour. If the doctors can’t help me, what hope can you have? C. Well if you can follow rules A and B, then we can be friends.

What I’m dying of is irrelevant – sorry for not satisfying your morbid curiosity. I was given my final diagnosis 6 months ago. I have about 6 more to go. When the news came, I didn’t feel like the floor had been yanked right from under my feet. When I came to know, it felt more like a relief. The spirituals say you don’t know your end date because the burden will destroy any happiness. I think each of them should get the news of their impending deaths. Maybe then they’ll realize that knowing your expiration date can actually be a good thing.

I had to go for 12 sessions of therapy to help me “accept my truth.” The only fruitful thing that came out of it was this bucket list. I have travelled to the most exotic places, dined with the handsomest of men, been kissed and more by some…all those normal bucket list type things that Google threw at me, I did it all.

Once I had satisfied society’s definition of what “living my life” means, I took my therapist’s advice and made a list of my own – a list that would exist for only my pleasure, as selfish as that sounds. But the surprising bit was it had only 10 items. It made me happy thinking that I had perhaps fulfilled everything except for these 10 things. It made me sad to think I had waited so long to get to this list.

So I bought that red dress which was inappropriate for a woman my age. I ate 500 gms of ice-cream just to see how that would feel. I bought a car, drove around for an entire day and then returned it. I told off that bugger from the fourth floor – oh he got an earful – the best 1 minute of my life spent – even better than the warmth of Seeley’s embrace.

Now I am onto my last wish. It’s a silly wish but I hesitate to cross it off my list. You see I still have 3 more months to live – doctors tell me from the outside I may look fine but internally my body is shutting down. If I cross it off now, what am I going to do with the rest of the 3 months? It’ll be bonus time and no one, not even Google can help me decide what one is supposed to do with the bonus time.

If you have lived your life and have time to spare, did you win because you beat life at its own game or lose because you didn’t demand enough from life? But I think I will go ahead and cross off that last wish, silly as it may be for I know what will happen if I don’t and die before my time like in the movies. And so I make my way to the grave of the man I once loved but who could never be mine.

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Written for the Write Tribe Festival of Words – June 2018 prompt: Write a story about a character who finds out that he or she is dying and has been knocking things off his/her bucket list and has finally reached the last item.