[ TT ] The smell of death is that of sterilized metal and clean white sheets .

I've always hated the smell of hospitals. Everything's too damn clean to smell natural. You know as soon as you enter one, that something is n't quite right. You know someone's either close to death, or has just died, or would in a couple weeks. I'd prefer anything else -- hell, I'd take shitty body sprays or flowery perfume over this scent. I would n't do much for a Klondike bar, but I'd do *almost anything* to never have to enter a fucking hospital ever again. 
 
 Because whenever I enter one, someone in my family is in intensive care. 
 
 He looks worse than he did a few days ago. My grandfather, I mean -- his condition's been slowly getting worse since he was put here. Sunken eyes, droopy skin, bruises on the hands... He's got it all going on right now. And I know that he wo n't be leaving the hospital on anything but a gurney. Hell, maybe they'll cremate him here and he'll get to go home in a *fucking pot*. 
 
 `` Richard, my boy... come here.'' 
 
 His croaked-out words draw my attention, and I step in a bit closer. Richard's not my name. It's my father's name. He always said we looked similar, and I guess my grandpa's mind is so far-gone that he thinks I'm my dad. I really wish I was n't here. Not because I do n't want to be here for my grandfather, but because I *fucking hate hospitals*. 
 
 `` Your mother left us. I do n't know what to do, Richard. I'm alone. I should have had more kids when I was young. You're the only one that visits me, now.'' 
 
 My grandfather had four children, so I do n't know what the hell that's about. It really hurts to see him like this. If there was a God, he would n't let intensive care exist. People would just die when they're ready to die. Why the *fuck* do they keep people alive like this? It's sick. The smell's making my stomach turn. Disinfectant and suffering are a bad combination. 
 
 `` Rich, I've got something for you. It's not worth much, but I want you to have it.'' The old man reaches his hand over to the bedside table, grabs a cloth-wrapped little bundle, and hands it over to me. 
 
 I slowly unwrap it, and there's a ring inside, as well as a pendant. More confusingly, the cylinder to a revolver -- God knows where the hell the rest of the gun is. Tilting the cylinder around, I spy a little piece of paper stuffed inside one of the chambers. 
 
 `` They took everything I have, but not this. That ring was your mother's. She left it when she moved on. The pendant and cylinder are mine. The gun belonged to my great-grandfather.'' 
 
 I slip the note out of the chamber. To my great surprise, the handwriting is pretty stable. Probably was n't my grandfather who wrote this, actually. Or maybe he did, before his mind went to shit. 
 
 *Dig in my back yard. I've hidden a box where they'll never think to look. The gun is there. * 
 
 `` You were always so interested in that gun when you were young. Now, it's yours.'' 
 
 Nodding, I put the items in the cloth bundle into my pocket. I reach out and pat the withering man's shoulder. `` Thanks, Dad. I'll take good care of it. Eventually, I'll pass it down to Jack, and tell him to give it to his kids,'' I say, trying my best to sound like my father. Fuck. I hate hospitals. 
 
 `` Thank you, Richard, my boy.'' His voice fades, and he seems to lapse into unconsciousness for a moment. Things like that just happened sometimes. Taking that opportunity, I slowly walked away. 
 
 -- - 
 
 Later on, I found the rest of the revolver buried in my grandfather's back yard. The thing was in spectacular condition given its age, but I wo n't sell it. You do n't just *sell* something like that. 
 
 The old man's funeral was held about a month later. He held on like a prize fighter in the ring, I'll give him that. Like any good boxer, he eventually lost, but at least he took life to the thirteenth round. He was buried next to his wife, a row down from my own father and two of my uncles. 
 
 The men in our family seemed to have a habit of dying young, but my grandfather lived to be ninety. 
 
 -- - 
 
 ( A little bit of a somber piece for once, tangentially based on something that happened to me last year. Also in first person, because why not, I do n't do it very often. Might have some weird tense issues but hopefully it's not glaring. )
