michael-dean-k/

I am skeptical of dentists, but maybe that stems from a teeth paranoia? I just found myself questioning all these little things: are 5 separate people really needed for a cleaning? It’s “most likely” covered? Why does this need to happen over 2 sessions? Because I’m not an educated periodontist, they can show me any scan and say anything and I just have to trust them. They say “for my health” but are they operating under wicked incentives? I broke up with my last dentist because I heard rumors that they were financially hurting and then when I saw them they were insistent on me getting braces (for my health).

• 05:53 PM – It’s pouring outside the hospital. I’m looking out a floor-to-ceiling window and the halogen lights near and far show small patches of fast-falling white speckles. I wouldn’t say it’s “torrential,” but it’s hard, and there’s something about a death shelter also serving as shelter from the elements. The living and dying have a shared vulnerability: at least we’re inside.
• 07:44 PM – A bed that adjusts itself. The sound of bubbling water. Outlets labeled A4BEC-14. An LG-TV with loose wires. An analog clock down to the second but the blinds are closed so you can’t tell the passing of days. It’s been 3 and could be another 7, but time stops on the deathbed. Consider what you're last 15,000 breaths might be like.
• 09:55 PM – Talk of pillows, Boca, skiing in Vermont, TV dinners, and William Defoe. Normal, goodhearted chitchat. How does this register to someone in critical condition? Are they unconscious, quietly listening and mildly interested, happy to hear voices, or is each mention rendered into a full-blown immersive scene?

I've spent the day in a semi-modern hospital in what seems like my father-in-law’s last days. Communication is barely possible. Some yes’s and no’s come through, but maybe not for long. He left some signed notes from his past self about not wanting to live off feeding tubes. But there are all sorts of decisions (ie: who does he want visiting or not?) that he can’t communicate because he’s too weak to speak. People don’t like writing, let alone writing about the ideal conditions for their death, but considering it must be the most disorienting and climactic of experiences, it could be worth doing a lot of writing to help you and your caretakers in the future.

Through my childhood, all my waiting rooms experiences have felt like hospitals, but this one is a Starbucks. I imagine 50% of the 20 patrons are thinking about death (ambiently, at least). Of the 2 nurses, maybe one saw it today. Maybe I’ll see it today (we haven’t gone up yet). It’s just odd to me that a very familiar, very commercial Starbucks aesthetic, with Chuck Berry on the radio, is brooding with death in the subtext. This is no doubt better than sterile dropped ceilings, but it’s still uncanny. I don’t think our culture has quite nailed our environments that are adjacent to death. I will be very particular about the ceiling I die under.