Peter Jalesh 
The Death of an Actress 

Dana: it’s like her whole life is still swirling around. She was my dear ex-wife. A beautiful portrait was propped on the wall besides the hospital table. Everybody has reasons to see her walking and talking again. Kind of she is still alive. Everybody is waiting to see her waking up from her seizure. The doctor talked to my daughter yesterday and told her that the seizure didn’t wipe out any additional spots of her brain besides what the first stroke did already. It is encouraging. I look at her as she is lying on her back with her beautiful head propped up on the raised pillows: she looks relaxed though there are lots of tubes and wires connecting her to devices that trace her body’s work. “She may be able to see you and hear you but her mind would not be able to interpret… People who had seizures could get back sometimes to full consciousness unaffected. Not though people that had a stroke on each side of their brain. They’d linger on bed for a while and cling to a thin string of air before passing away. They’d slowly get breathing difficulties. Some would begin coughing and die. The diaphragm would press their heart. There is nothing to do about that. If you wish you could go and talk to her. Some pleasant words… It would sooth you”. The unhappiness I gave her comes back into my mind. No forgiveness. I sit on her death bed watching her heavily breathing. That’s the way she could live forever, I think. Her face and her forehead are reddish and hot. I am determined to ask her to live one more day. Sometimes her breathe seems to be lost. I panic; I squeeze her hand and urge her to breath. We are attached to our breathing or our breathing is attached to us? I tell her not to be afraid. What do I know? Nobody would understand that seeing her breathing makes me feel happy. I massage her toes. When I touch her sole it looks like she opens her eyes. “What are you trying to do?” my daughter asks. I’m still trying to revive her.