Ollie 'the not-so' Bright

In this world, there are numerous kinds of pain; both tangible and intangible. Like consequence, pain is unavoidable. Tis' something that cannot easily be slayed. Oliver Bright experienced 'the intangible pain' as he knelt by the deathbed of his neglected ailing mother.

After twenty long years, he regretted every crime he had ever committed against her; the time he emptied her bank account into his, the time he took her out of the Pensioners' Fund, the time he sent faeces in the mail when she asked for money, the time he wrote her the nastiest Christmas poem a son could ever pen. It said:

"Mother Dearest,
You speak like a bird,
Squawking.
Weaving in and out
of awrily-vocabularised tongues.

Mother Dearest,
You slurp like a frog,
Croaking.
Gurgling your soup
as if it were Mint Listerine.

Mother Dearest,
You snore like a pig,
Snorting.
Awaking each day
in a sea of mucus-ridden tissues.

Mother Dearest,
I've drawn out a list
Of your 'could be' Christmas gifts:
A hearing aid,
An inhaler
And a lovely wooden box."

Consequence showed again its grotesque face. In his thousand dollar Saville Row suit, Bright wept, as he did when he entered this world. Now a couple of a million pounds richer and a whole lot brighter (debatable), Oliver Bright continued to wail so loudly that the nurses scuttled in to check if they had to 'subdue a mental patient'.

"Ollie dear, hush now and come close," the frail lady said in a meek whisper. The truth was that she was still pertrified by the thought of hugging her 'rebelliously loaded' thirty year old son. "Why bawl your eyes out when you've hated my face all these years?" she asked, intrigued.

"You know I did love you," Bright lied.

"Liars don't go to heaven, Ollie."

"Mother Dearest, you know I don't buy life insurance."

"Oh shut up, Ollie. You know and I know that you're not the hard man you pretend to be. You're soft inside; you're afraid of something, afraid of lots of things."

"And you're an Epicurus."

The frail lady gazed into her son's teal eyes for the last time. She had given them to him, brought him into the world but without recompence. At her deathbed, she had hoped to help him but her invitation was stubbornly refused. As she closed her eyes and succumbed to eternal rest, she knew he would have to face his evils alone.

Reality struck Oliver Bright like a harsh swipe across the cheek. In a last ditch attempt to save an already dead woman's life, he tried everything possible in reviving his poor old mother who had died of a broken heart, from mouth-to-mouth resucsitation to throwing his stick-like frame at her. But to no avail.

As doctors hurried into the room to check for a non-existent pulse in order to pronounce his mother dead, Oliver Bright faded away as if a shadow in the room; a lone figure as he knelt by her bedside once more and admitted quietly, "I was afraid. I was afraid that I would live and die like you did."