The ceiling looked a little too clear, a little too bare for how long he had been staring at it. Any man, including himself, in different circumstances, would have gotten up and paced around. There was a pattern he couldn�t quite catch in the termite-like holes of the tiles, and it bothered him.
He could feel a little pull at his left breast, but he couldn�t tell exactly what was being pulled out. Impatience. Actually, it hurt like hell, but he couldn�t admit that, expect in the grimace that would escape him at unexpected yanks and tugs. Just like the damn old man, thought his son Cy, waiting in the lobby. Cy's thirty years showed on him now. The old man tried to release himself from the room and from that uncomfortable and unfamiliar pressure inside his chest. He let his mind wander back to his home and his land, back to what was all he had now that Cy had moved off on his own. Had it been a whole decade? Jesus. Now, it seemed as if he would not have even that for too long.
As Esau tried to imagine anything he had done to offset his earned right to die at home, the surgeon clouded his thoughts in a haze of intravenous sedative. He realized that he was slipping away too late to be glad that the boredom of staring at the ceiling and the uneasy feeling of not knowing what was tugging at his chest was all about, was finally over. |
