1/25/47

"The majesty of my thoughts this evening! Do all these things read alike as they seem to to? They all send a faint nausea thru me--albeit they were sincere at the time and I recant none of my articles of faith. This evening I picture theoretically myself at 70 saying it's done, it's finished, it's what it is, and being no nearer than I am. This moral turpitude at 70 won't be tolerable. I want a revolution now, a mild revolution, something that will put an even 20th century asceticism into me at least when I pass the grocery. The intellectual and artistic delights God gives us are visions and like visions we pay for them; & the thirst for the vision doesn't necessarily carry with it a thirst for the attendant suffering. Looking back I have suffered, not my share, but enough to call it that but there's a terrific balance due. Dear God please send me your Grace. "


4/14/47

"I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic flippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually-- like this today. The word craftmanship takes care of the work angle & the word aesthetic the truth angle. Angle. It will be a life struggle with no consummation. When something is finished, it cannot be possessed. Nothing can be possessed but the struggle. All of our lives are consumed in possessing struggle but only when the struggle is cherished & directed to a final consummation outside of this life is it of any value. I want to be the best possible artist it is possible for me to be, under God.
I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You."

--The ever so brilliant Flannery

Another Wednesday at work.

"Crushing pain. He is having radiating, crushing pain!"

"Who is he? What's his diagnosis?"

Get off me. I can't breathe. Anything, anyone...

"Call his primary team STAT. Get them up here."

Half-dimmed eyes, incessant quivering, a mask taut to his face--inspiration, expiration--muddled in ultimate exhaust. 

"He is having a massive STEMI."

"Yes, yes we're here. He was diagnosed with Stage IV adenocarcinoma this morning. Poor prognosis. No family present. He was boarded for a drain placement. Cath Lab declined intervention d/t poor prognosis."

Make it stop, please. Help me, for the love of God, help me. 

2 mg Morphine IV.

"Sir, I need to know what you want right now. We can put a tube down your airway which you may never wake back up from. Or we can make you comfortable."

Please help me. Make it stop. Make me comfortable. 

"Sir, you realize that if we don't put this tube down your throat you will die?"

YES. Please, pleaaaaase. 
 
2 mg Morphine IV.

Stillness rippled through the bodies in the room like a pervading epidemic with one last kick. No dyspnea, no flailing extremities, no indeterminate pleas.

Silence raged onward, for what seemed like, an eternity.

"Stop that, you've made your point. Wilbur! Gert over here you turkey, come on. Stop eating the leaves and sticks. Do you want your stomach to blow up and butthole to burn like hell? I know, i know you want to play and go running, but we don't have the time.You're pent up with an escapade of energy, a inexhaustible drive to discover, to explore-- how am I suppose to help you? I let you go, you wait for me. Stop that neediness, would ya? You're your own creature expelled into my limited forbearing abilities--and you just look at me, despondent and trivialized, as if I yielded you the rags of my undergarments. What do you want from me? I've almost lost you time and time again. And the old destroyed tennis balls will fancy you for just a limited time... but then what? What next? Your companionship and loyalty and albeit yearnings in the morning at the window.. and for what? You don't even know. You just are."

Not everyone has to be literate, there are some great reasons for resisting language, and one of them is love.