I've made my first attempt at story writing, and presented below is the draft opening for a story that's building inside my head.
I am going to die tonight. There is a snowstorm building up outside - I can see it beyond the frosted windows. The pines planted along the sidewalk are struggling, bending their backs against the furious winds. The wooden bench across my driveway will soon be buried under the white snow. Inside the house, though, its snugly warm. Isn't it strange how we never call a house a home while inside! Rob, my younger brother and his wife are here. Their little kids are fussing about in the living room with the New Year gifts I had the house-help buy for them. The three of us, we're in the study - Rob and Sheila nestled on the sofa and I in my creaking rocking-chair.
......We are discussing the art-work that I like. Not that I was ever a huge art-lover, but I like to keep myself interested. We mull over how I'd always wanted to buy something contemporarily reflective - both new and old in theme - but had always ended up with pieces reflective of only the past. In a way it's me all over - always trying to be chic and updated and at the same time rooted to the histories, but really always stuck with, and in, the past. The new and the hep was forever the elusive star attraction. Anyhow, this was not the place to rue for ours was a shallowly pleasant conversation made in the knowledge of the impending. My death, of course.
......I never hid it from anyone - everyone knew from the time I found out about it. That was when after days of spluttered coughing some blood finally spurted out. Only then I suspected for the first time what others had been worrying over for some time then. Even so I quickly pushed it to the back of my mind to attend to the daily rut, and instead of seeing a doctor immediately went to work. It was only by the lunch hour between my clinic hours and consultation rounds, when amazingly there was nothing for me to immediately attend to, that I went up to pathology and asked my favoured nurse there to run my blood samples through the screens, masquerading it as just another routine check-up. As soon as she had my blood I rushed out of there, partly to catch my usual lunch group in the cafeteria and partly to allay the fears which had suddenly started gripping me. I did not go back to collect the report. I threw the whole thing out of my mind and got busy. It was the nurse - who held a certain favouritism against me - that knocked on my door two days later. She asked if I had some free time. She had a sombre look - but at the time I put it to her chosen profession rather than anything sinister. Acting busy I deflected any eye-contact and didn't answer. She said she'd wait for me outside - I made her wait. Her lunch hour must have eventually run out when she came back in, and without saying a word placed a report on my in-tray, turned about and went off. By the time I waved my hand in acknowledgment the door was already closing in.
I kept at what I was doing - writing a case report. I found myself adding details which I would have normally left out, and when there was nothing more I could think of adding, I pushed back the cold metal chair, walked to the door and locked it shut. Walking towards the long window on the opposite side I picked up the brown report envelope on the way. Standing by the huge window leaning against the window-frame I pulled the curtains back. I was surprised to see it was raining outside - pouring in fact. After examining the pelting rain for a minuter I finally pulled the single leaf of paper out of the envelope, adjusted my glasses and went straight for what I'd thought was the culprit of all this discordance. But I didn’t find anything unusual there. I let out a sigh of relief - well, almost - for something in me hesitated. To my trained doctor's corner-of-the-eye there something was amiss. I started reading again, looking at places I hadn't bothered with earlier. There it was at the bottom of the lot - almost too shy to reveal itself, printed badly as if hiding - a silent positive sign.
