His Name is Michael

His name is Michael. He asked me to call him Mick. His name is the same as a fictional serial killer, and we shared a laugh over that. He promises he isn't that bad. I believe him. He couldn't be if he wanted to. Not anymore.

...

If death is a business, then I work in the collections department. I work in a real-life collections job, but not souls or money. My trade is equipment. I have no control over death, but I can help make it as comfortable as possible. My clients are unseen. I know their names, their voices, their family, and their needs, but not their faces.

Each of my clients is facing a death sentence when I meet them. By the time they need my intervention, all I can do is make the next few months smooth. My clients have a fatal and physically debilitating disease. Their bodies fail, trapping their fully aware minds within, until they can no longer breathe for themselves. My company keeps a massive warehouse of equipment, ready to be issued at a moment's notice as the client's needs change.

• Wheelchair - their legs are failing them.
• Hospital bed - they can no longer walk long distances or upstairs.
• Ventilator - their lungs are weakening.

With each issue of new equipment to a person, I watch them move closer to death.

The Farmer

He apologises for the wind howling around him on the phone. I promised it wasn't too bad and asked where he was. He replied he is a farmer, out in a paddock, the only place he can get good reception. I asked if that meant he was 'out standing in his field'? We laughed. His laughter trailed off into an uncomfortable silence. I knew that silence. It was those silent heartbeats before a person speaks words they don't want to. When they know what they need to say but can't make the words escape them yet. Saying the words makes them real.

I search the phone number in my database while he is working up the courage to speak. I can see the equipment we have sent to his address. He has the ‘full load’ - pretty much one of everything. There isn’t anything we can issue more than what he has. So there can only be one reason for the call.

“I need a collection.”

“Of course. Would you prefer it as soon as possible, or do you want us to wait?”

Some families want to clear the equipment before the funeral. They need the space for the family to gather and grieve. Some people aren’t ready to push away all signs of their loved ones until after the funeral. We don’t mind.

“I’m sorry about your wife. And the joke before.”

“Thank you, and don’t be. I needed a laugh.”

The Friend

My husband told me on the weekend that a friend he used to work with has the disease. He’d heard that on the grapevine. His surname was unique. I knew it. His file had come across my desk recently. I couldn’t tell my husband that. My duty of privacy to my clients ensured my silence.

I couldn’t tell him that his friend was not doing so well. I couldn’t say that his disease was progressing faster than anyone I had seen in my years of working this job. I had to keep to myself that he would be dead soon. I arranged a delivery for the upcoming Monday to send a hospital bed to this friend. He could no longer climb the stairs in his home. He couldn’t sit beside his toddler's bed and read her a bedtime story. Reading her a story at all was nearly impossible. The muscles controlling his speech were failing.

I called the family on Monday to confirm what time the bed delivery would arrive. It never arrived. I turned the driver around and told him to return to the warehouse. The bed was no longer needed. My husband's friend went to sleep on Saturday night and did not wake up again. Less than 3 months after they diagnosed him. Hardly time for him and the family to come to terms with it. But better than having him gasping painfully for breath in 12 months time.

The Family

I recognised the surname on the new file because it was my own.

No one knew.

Her daughter didn’t want the family to know.

I carried the secret until the end.

...

I can’t do this anymore.