Before I Die

by Jenny Downham

‘It’s OK if you’re afraid,’ Zoey says. ‘It’s not.’ ‘Of course it is. Whatever you feel is fine.’ ‘Imagine it, Zoey – being terrified all the time.’ ‘I can.’ But she can’t. How can she possibly, when she has her whole life left?

If I use up too much energy, I always pay for it later.

On the inside of my arms are the ghosts of needle marks.

Dad takes my hand. ‘Give me the pain,’ he says.

Pinpricks of light like fireflies bat against my eyelids.

It’s not fair. I don’t want to die like this, not before I’ve even lived properly. It seems so clear to me. I feel almost hopeful, which is mad. I want to live before I die. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Maybe if I swing high enough, the world will be different.

Our words sound very loud. They take up all the room in my head and sit there echoing back at me.

The gloom has movement to it.

I’ve always wanted to be a cat. Warm and domesticated when you want to be, wild when you don’t.

I’m half robot, with plastic and metal embedded under my skin.

It’s such a waste, that first syringe tainted with saline. Over the years, nurses must have thrown a body-full of my blood away.

All the best poets had TB; it’s a mark of sensibility. Cancer’s just humiliating.

People think if you’re sick you become fearless and brave, but you don’t. Most of the time it’s like being stalked by a psycho, like I might get shot any second. But sometimes I forget for hours.’

I watch them understand. It starts in their eyes and spreads down their cheeks to their mouths. It’s all so predictable. They won’t ask any more questions, because there are no polite ones left.

I get lost in remembering this place instead.

‘Even if we never come back, we’ll always be here.’

‘Every few years we disappear, Zoey. All our cells are replaced by others. Not a single bit of me is the same as when I was last in this room. I was someone else when I wrote my name in there, someone healthy.’

I realize that life is made up of a series of moments, each one a journey to the end.

My brain feels tidal.

I used to believe that Dad could do anything, save me from anything. But he can’t, he’s just a man.

I mostly believe in chaos. If wishes came true, my bones wouldn’t ache as if all the space inside them is used up. There wouldn’t be a mist in front of my eyes that I can’t brush away.

The universe might be random, but I can make something different happen.

‘What’s the worst thing that can happen?’ ‘It’ll hurt,’ he says. ‘It already hurts.’ He nods very slowly.

I press myself closer, but it’s not close enough. I want to climb inside him. Live in him. Be him.

death surrounds us all. And it tastes like metal between your teeth.

There’s not enough water in the ocean to wash away all the blood.

antique music about sleigh bells and snow drift over us as we eat.

I never knew I could be so brave.

To find love just as I go and have to give it up – it’s such a bad joke.

I find the layers of a hospital strangely reassuring. This is a duplicate world with its own rules and everyone has their place.

Day after day it was as if someone had taken my life apart and polished every bit of it really carefully before putting it all back together.

The sun grinds into my brain and everything aches.

I hear only the fraction of things. Words fall down crevices, get lost for hours, then fly back up and land on my chest.

Moments. All gathering towards this one.