Cross Roads by William P. Young

pleasure have value only if you can turn them into commodities? Nothing like damming a river and turning it into a swamp.”
    He realized how crass it had sounded and began to apologize. She raised a hand. “Anthony, don’t. I was making an observation, not a value statement. I don’t expect you to be any different than you are. I know you, but I also know how you were forged and designed, and I intend to keep calling that from the deep, from the lost.”
    He again felt uncomfortable, as if she had somehow unclothed him.
    “Uh, thank you, Grandmother,” he offered and again segued to another subject, hoping to find a safer one. “Speaking of food, in my state of being, you know, in a coma and all, is it necessary for me to eat?”
    Her answer was quick and direct. “No! You are being sustained in the hospital through feeding tubes. That’s just not my idea of a good meal.”
    Grandmother put down her bowl and leaned forward on her stool, drawing Tony’s attention. “Listen, Anthony, you are dying.”
    “Well, I know that, Jesus said that we are all…”
    “No, Anthony, that is not what I am talking about. Youare lying in a room at OHSU and you are approaching the event of physical death. You are dying.”
    He sat back and tried to take this in. “So, is that why I’m here, because I am dying? Does everyone go through this, whatever this is… this intervention? Is it to try and do what? Save my soul?” He could feel the hairs on his neck bristle as the blood began to rise with the flow of irritation now mounting. “If you guys are God, then why don’t you do something? Why don’t you just heal me? Why don’t you send some church person up there and pray for me so that I don’t die?”
    “Anthony…,” she began, but he was already standing.
    “I am dying, and you are sitting here doing nothing. I may not be much, and I have obviously made a complete mess out of my life, but am I not worth anything to you? Am I not worth something? If for no other reason than that my mother loved me, and she was a good religious person, isn’t that enough? Why am I here?” His voice was rising and his temper spilling through the cracks of his fears. He was desperate for some measure of control. “Why did you bring me here? So you could flaunt in my face what a worthless piece of crap I am?”
    He stooped and walked out into the early evening. Fist clenched, he began pacing along the edge of the stairway, barely visible in the flickering light cast from the fire inside. In an instant, he turned back, stooped, and reentered, this time with a purpose.
    Grandmother had not moved; she just watched him with those eyes. For the second time in less than hours he could feel another dam starting to collapse inside and with every ounce of strength he possessed, he tried to hold it back. It wasn’t enough. He knew he should run, but his feet were planted and his words emerged in spits of emotion. Hewas losing control. Suddenly he was shouting and waving his arms, caught between fury and desolation.
    “What exactly do you want from me? Do you want me to confess my sins? Do you want me to invite Jesus into my life? Seems a little late for that, don’t you think? He seems to have found a way to be right in the middle of my mess. Don’t you realize how ashamed of myself I am? Don’t you see? I hate myself. What am I supposed to think? Now what am I supposed to do? Don’t you understand? I was hoping…” He broke down as a realization burst to the surface, sweeping over him. The audacity of it drove him once more to his knees. He covered his face with his hands as new tears coursed their way down his face. “Don’t you understand? I was hoping…” And then he said it, voiced the belief that had dominated his entire life, so deep that he was unaware of it even as he spoke it: “I was hoping… that death was the end.” He was sobbing and words could barely find their way through. “How else can I get away from what