Author's Note: This story is completely fictional and did not happen. All names of characters are fictional and were made up. Please do not copy and plagiarize my work.
This story is dedicated to a friend. I hope it brings you joy.
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New York City, New York
Sunlight beamed out of the large oval-shaped window on the right side of the room. Every morning, the blinds were raised and the white room in the high tower was illuminated. A heart rate beeped every few seconds in a steady rhythm. The monitor was attached to a pole containing an IV bag higher up. A tube ran from the bag, embedded in the right wrist of a man who had now awakened every day for the past month in this same bed. A hospital was the last place Mike wanted to find himself living in. Every day he had to awaken to those same boring white walls and fluorescent lights on the ceiling above. A crucifix ornament hung above the doorway as if a patient needed another grim reminder of the place they now resided in.
After his thirty-first birthday, Mike felt as if life was beginning to pick back up. Paying rent for an upstairs apartment had been a hard duty for the first few months of the year before the arrival of a roommate. An old friend from his college days was looking for a place to stay. Keeping up with bills became easier thanks to Nathan providing a second paycheck every week. The eagle flew on Fridays, as Mike recalled his father telling him many years ago. Since dropping out of college nearly a decade ago, Mike bounced his way through several nine-to-five jobs. He never thought he would find himself singing the working man's blues over time, but that had become his life after all the hard partying and smoking weed in his wild days. Those memories had been at the front of his mind for much of the past month.
Old memories were all one could sit and think about when they were stuck in a hospital bed. The days of wearing regular old T-shirts and blue jeans were also a memory at this point. For over a month, Mike had to look at his decaying body hidden in a white gown. A cancer diagnosis had turned his world upside down at the start of the summer. It all began when he noticed some strange lumps growing around the left side of his stomach. An emergency surgery removed the tumor, but the gastric cancer had spread throughout his chest. His day job was doing air conditioner and heating repairs. The company's healthcare package did not provide good enough coverage to pay the bills for his surgery. Medical debt accumulating was the least of his concerns with the need for chemo therapy treatments.
Nathan had kept Mike relatively sane for the past three years. The two men met in college, bonding over their love for video games and partying. Saturday nights were spent either at parties or in front of the computer playing Doom. It was refreshing for Mike to encounter another person on campus who shared his passion for a game from the past. He enjoyed playing Deathmatch rounds with Nathan, often on a server with players connecting from across the world. Life was much simpler back then. Even though he dropped out of college before he could earn a degree in marketing. Nathan had lived a different life far away from Mike until the past year. He finished college, got married, and then had a divorce a few years later that sent him packing across town.
Living in the city was not an easy adjustment those first few years. Mike came from a small rural town in Suffolk County. His dream had always been to get out of there and move into the big city. The high cost of living and busy streets had given him a quick reality check after leaving the university. Laying there in a hospital bed with his life on the line, Mike had plenty of hours and days to think about life in reflection. He missed those days of college when nothing seemed to matter. To be able to sit back and get high while listening to old music from the 2000s and lusting over pop singers from videos of a bygone era. His love life had mostly been hit and miss. A few girlfriends throughout the years, but never anything to build a commitment around. Some had come and gone from one night stands, apart from the one time he blew a few hundred dollars on an escort.
That was life, or so they say. With his current situation, it was easy to lose hope and give up. Mike could not help but think of the other patients in the cancer wing who had the same thoughts as him. No one wants to die suffering while staring up at the florescent lights. Sometimes he still thought of giving up. Going into the treatments, Mike knew he would likely lose his job as well as the strength in his body. Nathan had reassured him not to worry about it. In the end, his hair would grow back, and he would have plenty of time to ride his bicycle to regain the strength in his legs. A membership to a local gym would help regain the lost muscles in his arms. It did not take long for him to feel his body weakening in the first week alone.
His parents had made the long drive to the city to visit him after the initial surgery. Mike had rarely spent much time with his family, apart from the holidays when he traveled back home. The sense of pain on their faces was enough to break his heart, regardless of his own suffering. His mother would come up to visit him again in the following week before the chemo treatments could take away much of his hair. The hospital gown he wore at least hid much of his weight loss. After two weeks, he dropped below a hundred and thirty pounds. Several doctors would check on him with routine care. Apart from his main doctor, another was a cardiologist who consistently monitored his heart rate and blood pressure. Getting to know these doctors was the closest Mike had come to developing any new friendships all year.
Two months ago, he remembered standing in front of his bathroom mirror and measuring the length of his long dark brown hair. Any time it went an inch further from his ears, that was a sign that it was time for a hair cut. He shaved every other day to prevent the small black hairs from forming on his face. At least back then, he could stand in front of a mirror without feeling horrified at his appearance. His head was now bald and skin pale. It was a strange feeling to swipe his fingers across the dome of his head and caress the smooth skin. Mike did not have the courage to gaze back at his own reflection in the mirrors. It was too much for him to see his arms and legs without a single strand of small hair. He requested his nurse to remove the mirror hanging in the small bathroom in his room.
The voice of the nurse Alexa had greeted him every morning of the work days, and then a different nurse would come in on the weekends. Alexa was a tall black woman who kept her hair pinned in a high ponytail. She never missed a day of having sparkling diamond earrings. Ever so friendly and kind, she would stick around and make small talk with him. Mike always asked if he had anyone on the visitor list. He had brought his cellphone with him, but rarely did he get phone calls. Nathan made it a duty to text him every night, often while he was asleep. That was one of the first things Mike experienced from the chemo treatments. Apart from throwing up constantly and losing his appetite, he slept more than ten hours a night on several occasions.
Never did he sleep on his back before staying in the hospital like this. Now it had become his common resting position. Across the other side of his room, a large flat screen television was mounted on the wall. Every Friday, Nathan would come visit after work, bringing a small gift. The man would make his presence known from the appearance of his grey work uniform and slick black hair. At first, Mike did not want to see his friend out of fear of having to see a shocked expression on his face when he saw his bald head. Instead, Nathan offered a smile and reassured his friend that in the near future, his hair would grow back. An empty chair was left near the window in the room. Nathan would pull the chair next to the hospital bed, then turn on the television for them to watch something together as Mike indulged himself with food outside the hospital.
That was always the surprise gift Nathan brought along. On his way to the hospital, he would stop at a fast food restaurant and order Mike something. It was against protocol for visitors to bring patients the gift of outside food, but Nathan knew how to sneak it under a jacket. A burger from McDonalds or chicken nuggets from Burger King was a real treat and a break from the tasteless hospital food. For the third time, Mike found himself looking forward to Friday on the calendar for the sole purpose of that meal. While Nathan was in the room, they would flip channels, but there was rarely anything they watched and paid attention to the program. Instead, the two men sat talking about life and discussing days gone by. Mike could not wait to be home, cancer-free and sitting in front of the computer to play Doom with his old friend.
On his last visit, Nathan brought up the subject of girls by mentioning a model they both liked. Mike blushed at first before sighing and thinking of his own bad situation. 'You think a woman is going to want me when I look like this?', the question only made Nathan shake his head. He swore to Mike that once he had recovered, his hair would grow back just fine. Sometimes it was hard not to sink into a hole of depression in his situation. While the treatment was going well, Mike still felt exhausted. Their conversation about women had reminded him that there was one special crush in his life. Nathan knew better than to tease his friend about his old love. No matter how many years went by and other famous women he saw in magazines, nothing compared to his first crush. It all began when he saw one music video on MTV one night, almost twenty years ago.
She was Jenny from the block. Otherwise known by her more famous initials as a nickname. JLo, or Jennifer Lopez for accuracy. Mike knew of her as Jen. Nathan made a gesture to his friend that some day he would find a big-legged woman like her to sit on his lap. Mike at least gave that goofy smirk he was always known for. Anytime they discussed women and Jennifer Lopez's name came up, Nathan would enlarge his eyes and gesture with his hands.
'She's got a... GREAT ASS!!'
, he would say in an impression of Al Pacino's voice. It was refreshing to hear Nathan do that the last time he came over. On a lonely Tuesday afternoon, Mike found himself thinking about Jennifer again. With only basic cable on the television and no way to look up music videos on his phone, he had to use his imagination.
While there had been other famous women who caught his eye in magazines and online photos, Jennifer was the only one that mattered to him. It did not matter if there were other celebrities with bigger asses or closer to his own age. Jennifer Lopez had reached the milestone of her fiftieth birthday a few years ago and had aged like fine wine. Or so Mike thought. The thoughts of Jennifer Lopez's booty were a delightful daydream as he was stuck in bed. He could at least daydream about her perfect ass and the world's greatest legs. Her chestnut brown eyes matched his, but not the hair. The Booty music video she made alongside Iggy Azalea had been the source of many of his fantasies. Mike always loved it when Jennifer had her hair up in a ponytail.
The heart rate monitor slowed down as he remained lying there in silence. If it dropped low enough, an emergency beep would go off, alerting the nurses outside his room. Ever since the chemo treatments Mike's heartrate had been something of a rollercoaster, but it rarely stayed at high levels. Attached to the right side of his bed was a white remote. It operated the television and had a button at the top to call a nurse when needed. Up until a few days ago, Mike had stopped calling nurses when he needed to climb out of the bed and take the short trip to the bathroom. There was a certain sense of independence in walking by himself that he did not want to lose. Never could he have guessed he would learn to appreciate something so simple as going to the bathroom, until he had to deal with a dangling tube attached to an IV pole.
Closing his eyes, he stopped thinking about it. Rather than diving down into a hole of his own bleak thoughts, Mike knew better than to give up hope. At this point, he would be out of the hospital in a week and ready for recovery. He thought about Jennifer Lopez instead. It was easier to let his mind go free with thoughts about her wonderful body and voice. As his eyes remained shut, Mike took a deep breath and exhaled. 'Big big booty, what you got a big booty', he could hear the words of that famous song echoing through his mind. So much time had passed since he last relaxed and watched that video, yet he could still remember it scene by scene. Thinking about Jennifer Lopez twerking her thick ass was the only thing keeping him sane at this point. Sometimes he just wanted to muster all the strength he still had in his body and punch the wall.
Those angry thoughts were subdued the more he thought about his old crush. Even though he had never met her, Jennifer would always be the woman of his dreams. Exhaling another deep breath when he heard the heart rate monitor beep. His blood pressure may have been low right now, but Mike did not see the need to press the button and call a nurse. As he slowly opened his eyes to see the bright lights above, Mike let out another sigh. His body was aching from all the pain he had endured. Outside the closed door of his room, a booming sound was audible in the distance. It grew louder with each passing second until it sounded as if the noise was directly outside his door. Mike let out a sigh and then heard the door knob turn. He closed his eyes as the stomping sound now entered his room and the door shut behind whoever had entered.
"Time to wake up, Mr. Mike! Come on! Rise and shine!"
That voice did not belong to his usual assigned nurse. It had a distinctive New York accent and sounded oddly familiar. Mike opened his eyes, gazing in the direction of the door. He was forced to do a double-take when he saw the face.
