Growth. Over.

I'm sorry.

Why is apologizing the first thing I did when I had to tell everyone I had a tumor?  "I'm sorry," I said, like I failed them.

This is how I die.

Some people fight, but why am I ready?  I haven't even felt sick.  "This is how I die," I told myself, before there was even a prognosis.

I haven't finished.

Regret?  Drive?  Or just a statement?  "I haven't finished," I told the universe matter-of-factly.

I'm sorry.

306

How creepy is it to have the heart you were born with thrown out and some dead person's slopping around in its place, waiting to be rejected by your ungrateful body?  Super freaking creepy, is what.  A stranger's heart is hiding in my chest, and I know it doesn't want to be there.  It wants to be back in its owner, a stupid twenty-three year old college kid with a motorcycle and a need for speed, but it can't go back because he smeared himself down a highway.  Luckily for me, they say, the road rash didn't go all the way through his body to damage his heart, which still beats ferociously, wishing to find the adrenaline thrill of a street race again.  Unfortunately, it's in my chest.  My stupid body wants my old heart back.  I want my old heart back.  I wasn't meant to be parted from it.  I was born with it, and I should have died with it, but since I'm only a few years older than that stupid dead motorcyclist hot rod, I'm alive and waiting.  I hate the sound of this heart which beats, traitor...traitor...traitor...  I'm a traitor to myself and I know I will pay when my body finally says, ENOUGH! and rejects this adrenaline-junkie's meat.

278

"You'll want to watch out for Jess," the thin young man offered Marta.  "She's different than us."

Marta watched Jess loping away towards the town, heedless of the dangers of entering uncharted territories.  Frontier people weren't keen on newcomers, even those who were passing through, but there Jess went, straight down the middle of the road, streamers fluttering off her pack.  Marta thought Umberto would tell her Jess was born soft or was touched in the head, but she politely asked anyway.  "How's that?"

"She's dying."  Jess' tiny figure, far down the road, waved her broad-brimmed hat back at them, hurrying them to catch up.

"Aren't we all."  Marta twitched the reins, and thought about what it might mean for their future.

249

It is my secret, and it's what makes me smile as I walk through crowds of people who don't know and can't tell.  Maybe they wonder why I'm so happy.  A person I knew from work called me "serene", which is a good word for it.  My secret is the same secret everyone carries with them, only I understand it better: I am dying.

235

The moon rose over the canyon wall, big and white and clear.  The rocks were still warm, but the air had been gathering a chill.  It was still, cloudless, the stars stretching out to forever and the start of the universe.  Cabe lay dying in his sleeping bag.  He had maneuvered himself so the fire was behind him and his head propped up on one of the low, warm rocks.  The additional heat from the fire warmed the top of his wispy-haired head.  Cabe shivered and stared at the moon, trying to gain perspective on his place in the world before he was gone from it.

220

The wizard was dying, and he knew it.  It was slow, but he could no longer ignore that it was happening.  On his knees in his workroom, the cold from the flagstone seeping into his bones, Cal wondered who would ever find his bones.  After some moments, he was able to heave himself up by the edge of the wood table and stood, breathing, Yes, I'm still breathing, till his heart stopped its murderous thundering.

"Help," he whispered.  "Who will help me?"  The wizard Cal could not find an answer.

197

That's it, she thought.  This is how I am going to die.  Tara was detachedly surprised at her own calm acceptance.  She was miffed by her lack of anger, denial, fight, determination, lust for life.  Down she went, arms raised, for the second time.  Once more.  We only ever get three.  Tara saw the sun, the sky, the distant palm tree line, and, most of all, the water.  Where before they had vibrant color, now they were shades of grey.  There had been the sound of waves, calling, laughing, a whistle, the breeze, but now there was nothing.  Up, arms outstretched.  Time became tangible.  Tara thought she should feel regret, sadness, sorrow, guilt, but she was fascinated instead by the new knowledge that a "moment" was real and could be touched and stretched and felt on the skin.  I should say something nice.  Down again, time's length shrinking into a width as wide as the ocean, and as deep.

(This was my try at "micro fiction", a.k.a. "flash fiction".)

196

The Universe is pleased to announce that Karen's mortal body has passed so her immortal spirit may inhabit the entire cosmos, that is, when she isn't performing her promised haunting of friends and loved ones.

Karen had a bunch of different jobs, but she loved performing improv comedy the best.  She also liked to write, play and listen to music, read good books, draw, create, occasionally vacuum, and eat chocolate.  The chocolate eating she managed to do every day.  Karen also managed to have fun every day and would like to remind you, from beyond the grave, that fun is all we should have in life.  If you're not having fun, cut out whatever is dragging you down and go have that fun.

Speaking of fun, please join Karen, her friends and loved ones at her memorial service.  You may certainly dress up if you like, but you can also wear an awesome t-shirt and your favorite jeans or even comfy jammies.  Required is that you bring your slippers no matter what else you're wearing.  A few flowers are okay, but maybe bring toys or books instead.  They will all be donated to needy kids who could use more of the aforementioned fun.

The next time you find an odd piece of cool junk or have a ridiculous thought for no apparent reason, perhaps Karen has chosen you for haunting that day, so you should pick up the cool junk and laugh your fool head off.

191

It was like time traveling, helping her grandmother into a fresh shirt; an out of body experience, watching her future self get groomed for the day, helpless to lift her own arms.  Glenna brushed her grandmother's hair and pictured the thin, grey tangles as her own.  This is what my nose will look like.  These are the spots that will form on my hands.  These are the wrinkles that I am already beginning to see on my face.

185

Celia worked for minimum wage in a relatively new nursing home, serving and clearing meals.  It was tiring, on-your-feet work, but more than that, it tired her brain.  She didn't like thinking about death, and it hung about the place like cobwebs on forgotten boxes in the corner of an attic.  Celia thought she didn't like death, but, in truth, she didn't like the ruin of the body and the draining of the mind.  It made her remember her own grandmother, which always made her sad.  Every day she wondered why she ever went in to the place, and every day was another day still there until weeks and months had passed.

She found the residents simultaneously frightening, pitiful, and unbearably strong.  They stayed alive in bodies she would have abandoned long ago.  They lived on without hope, which Celia thought would have killed her in itself.  Perhaps she had it wrong, though, and a knock on a dinner table hinted at her misconceptions.

127

It's been two years since I've seen another human. I've given up hope that I ever will. My bones will rot in this squishy soil or be eaten by god-knows-what. I hope I'll kill whatever it is. I hope my decomposing body makes a spot that won't grow these putrid plants again. I think it will be my only vengeance on this planet that has taken so much from me.