[prelude]

I had never allowed myself to think about watching somebody I loved die. I didn't have to stop myself anymore, instead it had become a painful reality. I couldn't even force my mind to try and recollect what had happened, or how I had ended up here.
My body ached all over as I tried to reject the unbearable amount of pain that was surging through me; pain that was combined with shock, disbelief, and anger. I couldn't stop imagining my life without the person I loved , without my beloved. This endless train of thought tormented my whole body - it haunted me to the point where I had lay awake for hours, in constant tears, stuck in a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from.
I had always believed that death is easy, peaceful. Life is much harder - a constant struggle to perfect the balance between moments of inescapable pain - just like this, and moments of unbelievable happiness, to the point where you almost start to believe you could lose yourself in your happiness for an eternity.
My legs were frozen in place as I stood at the door, looking across the large room towards the bed in front of me. His body lay motionless, with every feature frozen on his perfect face, as if I was looking at a real life snapshot of him, stunted in place and unable to move forward.
I am constantly subjected and left alone with nothing but my haunting thoughts for company, and my mind is in limbo about what to do and what to believe in, and these mindsets have become largely omnipresent in a short space of time.
The larger, more dominant part of my mind convinces me that he won't wake up from any of this, he will slip away from me and I will look into his face and realize that things will never be the same again. A part of me wants this to happen - even prays for it - for both of us - a cruel kind of closure that will be something definite and irreversible.
Everybody around me has alluded to this same mindset - their voices and expressions filled with lost hope, sorrowful smiles, and sympathetic sighs, all of them wanting to tell me what I have been used to hearing a hundred times a day inside my own head.
Everyday that I'm here, I pause to take it all in, to look at his face and study it as the minutes pass by, wanting to commit every part of him to memory before its too late and there isn't anything else to help me relieve my pain.
There is another part of my mind - the significantly smaller part, that silently hopes and wishes for a different outcome. This tiny little part of me is often overwhelmed, its small voice silenced by my own larger, negative one, but nevertheless wants to assure me that everything will be OK and something will happen to end my constant turmoil.
I walk over to the bed, my steps quickening now, as I stand over him, wanting to believe, and hoping that he might wake up once I've touched him; once I've kissed him again after spending such a long time without him.
I am constantly all too aware of the pervading pain that is wrapped around every bone in my body as I look at him, shivers running down my spine as I refuse to leave his bedside now I'm next to him. A smile slowly pulls at the corners of my mouth as I shake my head quickly, my face wet with tears as I stand there, wanting and waiting for a reaction, a response.
I lean over the bed towards his face, bending my head towards his as I place a small kiss on his lips, my lips finding his again, my eyes closed. I gently touch his hand, interlinking his fingers with my own, palm to palm, my hand wrapping firmly around his. Seconds pass by without any change, and my eyes finally tear away from him; glancing upwards instead towards the large window, where the natural sunlight pours into the room, as I look outside and watch how life manages to continue.
The smell and atmosphere of the room is clinical, the smell of bleach matching the whitewashed walls, and I started to feel claustrophobic as my throat began to tighten and my breath started to constrict in my lungs.
As I looked at him, reliving every moment, every emotion, and every touch as I fell in love with him all over again, something stirred inside of me, and instinctively knew I only had minutes left before my life would alter and change forever.