A Photograph Of You

A hospital volunteer offers to help when people want a photo taken of themselves with their dying loved ones. Written for the Eye See You contest.

Credit: Chat GPT

I like to lurk around Ward 24. It's where they put the terminal cases. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, someone will ask me to take a photo of themselves as they sit beside the patient. Is it Mum or Auntie Madge they want to remember? Or themselves and how they felt at the time?

They always tell me that I have strange eyes—unusual—they quickly add, though the damage (if there was any) has been done. My eyes are indeed unusual. They're violet. It's very rare. They stare, fascinated, at them.

They don't know about my vision. I can sense people's moods even when they're outwardly calm. I can also see souls. And ghosts. They are shades of other people's memories. Most of them are mere echoes of folk who lived long ago, doomed to repeat all the histories they never learned from. They rarely have personalities or agency. They're just trapped in a never-ending cycle and don't even know it.

I'm drawn to Ward 24 because of this. As a volunteer, I get to see the patients’ most intimate moments. The ones I watch for are those occasions when the patient is near the end, and a loved one comes to visit. They see my caring demeanour and hand over their phones, heedless of my motives. I stare through the screen, using kindness as an excuse to witness Death feeding. This is why I do it.

It's more of an impression than a sight. There's an imperceptible change in the air—a slight blurring around the patient. The temperature drops a little, not enough to be noticed, and it comes. It goes for the heart, reducing blood flow to the extremities, then the brain. That's a delicacy. Death takes its time with the most active ones because they taste better. Sometimes Death is greedy, working its way faster through the patients as it shuts their natural life-support systems down.

The loved ones always thank me, then scuttle away to post the photos on social media. I’ve asked them a few times why they do this. The most common answer is “It's a place to store it. You can't lose it in the cloud.” Of course. It still looks like virtue-signalling to me. I can't complain, though, it's the only way to watch Death at work without getting into trouble.

Ward 24 is like a chum bucket—Death just can't resist its scent. I view it at various stages of its work. It hovers near those patients who still have some mobility and can speak, waiting for illness to sufficiently tenderise them. Sometimes it will nibble at them, trying to speed things along. It's the ones who have finally lost their ability to will themselves to action that it battens down on.

I'm convinced that the ones with but a few hours left, who are still conscious, can see it. That they know and understand what's happening to them. I hold their hands to calm them if there's nobody else there, using the soothing words I've heard here so many times. At those times I can feel Death—and see it looking at me, sizing me up. Calculating the time I have left. I'm not bothered. I have plenty of time to enjoy my life, and believe me, I will.

Meanwhile, if you see a nice lady of a certain age with a volunteer badge on, feel free to ask her to take a photo of you with your loved one. It would be my pleasure.

The End.