sdemise

So this is what it feels like the moment before you die? Everything, and I mean, everything is coming back to me now. I’m remembering things that I really have no business remembering. I’m remembering the flavor of the first piece of gum I ever popped in my mouth, remembering the first swig of soda pop outside Parker’s house, remembering the color of Sheila Daubin’s panties. That was the first time I had touched a boob. I’m recalling her sweet smile and the smell of baby’s breath in her hair. I’m remembering the sting of her knuckles against my chin. I was too young then to know that you don’t put your hand there until you’re told.

“He’s not gonna make it,” the paramedic says to himself as he tries to bring me back to lucid reality. “Dammit, he’s not gonna make it.”

Don’t be so fucking negative, I hear myself saying, but the words never come. Think positive, man. Should be part of your job.

“I can’t believe this,” the driver of the BMW moans. I can’t tell if the words are coming from a man or a woman. All I know for certain is the last thing I saw; and that was her car coming at me at 80 miles per hour. “Please God, don’t let him die!”

There you go, I try to say, but the words are still muted. Don’t give up on me just yet. Now that’s positive thinking.

“He’s smiling,” one of the accident site rubber-neckers mutters. “I swear to Christ, the guy is actually smiling.”

I am smiling, I realize. I’m smiling with every ounce of my soul. I’m smiling because Sheila Daubin’s panties are still clear in my mind. They are the clearest memory I can muster at the moment. I’m sixteen again, in the back of my dad’s station wagon. I’m proud of my Flock of Seagulls haircut and I’m happy to be alive and young. Sheila is smiling across at me, her fingers seductively tracing the neckline of her blouse. This is round 2, the second encounter with pink sating panties. This time, I grope her boobs and slide my hands slides over almost every inch of her body as my tongue slides in and out of her mouth. I haven’t touched the panties yet and I’m not going to until she gives me the orders to do so. It comes in the form of a smile and a nod as my hands venture across her backside and across her thighs. I’m happy and my fingers are happy to feel the joy of soft satin panties.

“Sheila, my balls are throbbing,” I whisper in her ear, expecting her to respond to my statement with an impromptu hand-job.

I’m lying there on the side of the road again, the pain of her knuckles against my chin still vivid in my mind. That had been the last time I saw Sheila Daubin and her delightful pink satin panties. I remember clearly the rumors she spread about me. She told everyone on the cheerleading squad that I had what is called in urban folklore a baby dick. My high school like had been ruined because I let my dick speak for me. I let my balls guide my words. I let too much pornography influence my thought process.

“Holy shit,” the paramedic is saying. “I’ve got a pulse!”

“Thank God!” the driver of the BMW is screaming.

“Let me die, let me die,” I find myself saying, the words actually slipping out of my mouth this time. “I want to die! Everyone says I have a baby dick!”

My eyes are closing now and I can feel my life returning to me bit by bit. I’m not going to die, that much is clear now. I’m alive and probably will be for a long time. I feel my body being lifted into the ambulance and I hear people snickering around me.

“Baby dick,” is what they’re saying. “Baby dick.”