He would eat well, <br />get plenty of good sleep, <br />attend the doctor, <br />at least annually. <br />He went for tests, <br />those colonoscopies, <br />the PSA and then the digital, <br />echocardiograms, <br />cholesterol and lipid tests, <br />urinalysis and Radiographs.. <br /> <br />Then, on a gloomy day, <br />he felt a bit off colour. <br />Doc said it was the Flu, <br />or maybe just a virus, <br />dragged in from China <br />or some such place, <br />where people were so primitive, <br />and still believed in <br />what we know as witchcraft. <br /> <br />He took the pills, green ones, <br />500 milligrams four times a day, <br />before his meals, with water. <br /> <br />He felt worse when the sun returned, <br />a bit of nausea, vomiting, <br />later at night some diarrhea <br />and sweats that soaked the sheets. <br /> <br />He knew he had to wait, <br />the weekends were so inconvenient, <br />'til Monday, then, his doc had said <br />and that was water down the river. <br /> <br />They cut a thin red line down to the groin, <br />retractors held the flaps away, <br />the scalpel cut through living flesh <br />when from the depth a bleeder shot <br />into the light above the body, <br />a bastard of a big 'arterial', <br />four frantic hands now searched, <br />a blade from Solingen, so supersharp, <br />it cut into the tissue and went on, <br />through arteries and veins and through <br />pulsating life of such a normal man, <br />who should not ever have been ill, <br />but was, now, by the grace of God. <br /> <br />Contents of the duodenum and bile <br />dark blood and foamy brightness <br />of the fountain of his soul <br />all mixed into a mess of devil's colours <br />washed by the constant stream <br />still from the bleeder, only slowly now. <br />Not even arrogance could save him now, <br />he had been called to God, it was his time.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/it-was-his-time/
