There is something I gotta do and it’s something bad. I don’t even know how I’m gonna do it, or when, but it’s gotta be soon and it ain’t even an option. It’s just one of those things that needs doing. There ain’t no way around it, it’s just the way it needs to be. I mentioned it to Saffron, didn’t exactly come right out and spell it out for her but I kind of hinted at it. She looked at me, real serious, looked down at her hands on her lap, her twisted, churning hands and nodded. She didn’t nod real strong but it was a small nod, and I knew she was in agreement.

See, I’m sick, real sick. Not the kind of sick that goes away either. Hell, I’m as good as dead. Dr. Goldwyn said I’ve got about 3 weeks to live, a month tops, this cancer’s gone and just about eaten all my insides and there ain’t an ounce of hope. Told me I need to start making arrangements. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, that’s for sure. Gotta figure things out, fast, before this cancer takes over. I dreamt last night I had a lizard inside me, crawling around, eating my organs all up. I could feel its feet, ticklish sort of, scratchy and a little heavy, it was walking around like it was at home in there, stopping here and there to munch on my stomach or my lungs, whenever it got the urge. I was scared, and I went to Dr. Goldwyn’s office, riding a bicycle, the same red Schwinn I had as a boy, with the bell and everything. When I got there, I tried to explain to the nurse that there was a goddamned lizard inside of me and she tilted her head, smiled real sweet and condescending and said the doctor wasn’t in.

"I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do for you at this point, Mr. Paulson. The lizard is full-grown now. You need to go home and make your arrangements." I woke up just then and I could swear I still felt that lizard walking around in there. But it was probably just the cancer. I don’t feel it, except at night. And when I cough, it hurts like death. But at night, I swear, when I’m laying real still in my bed, Saffron sleeping next to me, breathing softly, I can feel it spreading. It feels like warmth, rolling over my insides slowly, like storm clouds moving in over a September sky. I can actually feel it moving in, just like a storm, spreading all over me, black and poisonous, eating me up. Saffron says I’m crazy, says there’s no way I can feel the cancer spreading, it doesn’t spread like that, and its just my imagination, and she’s probably right.

I don’t know why the good Lord gives us an imagination. It does nothing but make things worse. Sure it serves us well as kids, we can pretend things up like they were real, become a superhero by tucking a towel in the back of our t-shirt or be a fireman by pulling the garden hose behind us, spraying make-believe fires and saving pretend babies from pretend flaming nurseries. Then as we get older, our imaginations help us into thinking we can get the prettiest girl, a girl like Saffron, and we think about it and imagine it so many times, we trick ourselves into believing we actually have a chance, and we imagine it so well, that we actually get the nerve to ask her to a dance. Our imagination gives us the balls we need, to pretend that we are men, not scared little boys. Brave and fearless soldiers that can go off and fight Korea and come back alive when most all our friends came back in body bags. But see, we were silly enough to believe we were immortal then. Then we get old and our imagination just goes and turns on us. Our imagination keeps us up at night thinking a burglar’s scoping out the house, just waiting for us to fall asleep. Or we feel Death hiding in the shadows of our old creaky houses and smell it behind us when we’re just starting to doze in our chairs after supper. Our imaginations turn cruel and spiteful and start us thinking we can feel the cancer spreading through our bodies when we lay still in the dark. Evil. Nothing but pure evil. Sometimes I wish I was losing my mind, like Saffron. I bet things would be a lot easier, if I was just losing my mind. Funny, ain’t it? Thinking I’d rather be going batty than having my insides eaten alive by carcinoma. Sure there are terrible things about Alzhimer’s and all, but what I like best about it is the not knowing part. Hell, Saffron may not know where she is or what she’s doing half the time. But she doesn’t know she’s dying either.

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