Death Wish

By Mambomoma

May got up and switched off the TV. She was tired. Not from doing anything, just tired of living mostly. She was 68 years old and had lived alone and very lonely since her husband died.

“It will be 11 years in a few days,” she thought. “This is not how I planned to spend my Golden Years.”

Golden, ha, what a joke. She was just scraping by on Social Security. Her old friends all had more money than she did so she couldn’t afford to go and do things with them much anymore. Oh, she still had some family left, but they were all busy with there own lives and didn’t have time for her very often.

“I wonder if I died, how long it would take someone to miss me and come and check on me.” The question had crossed her mind many times.

Her only joy was her unseen family on the computer at the Antonio Banderas Web Mall. And Antonio. She knew she was too old to be so obsessed with a movie star, but she couldn’t help it. He was beautiful, a good man, and unknown to him, he had saved her life. She had been so depressed after her husband died, that she had been planning suicide until the day she saw his movie “Desperado” and had fallen hopelessly in love with him. She had adopted his whole family and loved them all as her own. Although she loved Antonio as a son, she also loved him the other way too. Would she sleep with him if she had the chance? You better believe it.

She went into her little office and turned on the computer. The dozens of pictures of Antonio on the walls smiled down at her. Her son had fussed at her for having more pictures of him than of her own family, but that was because he had a camera shoved in his face almost every day, and she couldn’t get her family to have pictures taken. At least that was her excuse.

She yawned and stretched while waiting for the dial-up computer to do its thing. Dang dial-up. She only lived a mile from the city limits but her internet provider kept saying they didn’t have fast access in her area yet.

“This is the 21st Century for heavens sake. They can go to Mars, but they can’t get me fast access? What kind of deal is this?” she thought.

She rested her head on the computer desk while she waited for the Mall to come up. Antonio had been looking tired and thin lately. She hoped he was OK.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. She froze and her blood ran cold. How did somebody get in her house? She knew she had locked all the doors before she went to the office.

“Don’t be afraid,” a voice said.

She knew that voice as well as she knew her own. She knew it from his movies she had watched over and over, and it sang her to sleep every night. ANTONIO! But that was impossible. He didn’t know her from Adam’s hatband for one thing, and why would he care even if he did. She must be dreaming or this was a cruel joke. She couldn’t move or speak.

Slowly he turned her office chair around until she faced him. Oh, yes it was really him. She knew every line of him, every mole, freckle and hair follicle probably better than he did himself. And, the eyes-there was no way to fake those.

“Whaaaat are you doing here,” she stammered.

“What do you pray for every night?” he asked. “The angels sent me here to answer your prayers.”

She just looked at him with her mouth hanging open.

“Think of me as your fairy godmother,” he said. “I will grant you three wishes.”

“Godmother, wrong anatomy,” she thought. But she said, “Three wishes, huh. Anything?”

“Anything,” he answered. “And-aw heck, for you, I’ll make it four.”

“Weeell, OK,” she said slowly. “Since this is probably a dream anyway I might as well go for it. Right?”

“Number one, I want you to make me some paella and eat it with me and wash it down with a bottle of good wine. I’m tired of that cheap boxed stuff.”

“Number two, I want you to kiss me like you kissed Catherine-Zeta-Jones in the barn in Zorro, while we dance in the moonlight.”

“Number three, I want you to make love to me like you did to Angelina Jolie in the uncut version of “Original Sin.”

“OK,” he said, and proceeded to do all three. When he was finished, he started out the door, but stopped and turned back.

“Wait,” he said. “I promised you an extra wish.”

I laughed, and said, “After this night what else could I possibly want? What else could I possibly want except to die with a smile on my face.”

He kissed her sweetly, winked and was gone.

She woke to the sun shining in her eyes, groaned and looked up to see the computer screen in her face.

“Oh shi,t” she said aloud. “I slept all night in here. But, dang what a dream I had.”

She pushed her chair back and got up stiffly. She was sore from sitting so long hunched over the computer desk, but otherwise felt wonderful. Her body felt a tingling sensation all over, and as she walked toward the bathroom she noticed a warm wetness between her legs.

“Jeez, I think I’ll sleep in the office more often,” she thought. “It must be all the Antonios on the walls that induced such a dream.”

She washed the sleep from her eyes and headed for the kitchen and did a little dance step on the way. She felt 10 years younger and happier than she’d been in a long time. She put the coffee on, and got out the cereal and milk for her breakfast. She leaned against the sink and stared out the window recalling her dream, while she waited on the coffee. She glanced down in the sink and her heart stopped.

“What is this?” she thought? There sitting side by side were two wine glasses, with a cigarette butt floating in one.

“And, what is this in the drain?” She reached down and picked it up.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “It wasn’t a dream. It was real.” A smile formed at the corners of her mouth. “I spent the night with Antonio.”

That was the last thought that went through her mind as the blackness washed over her.

Her son found her when he came to mow the yard that afternoon. She was lying on the kitchen floor like she was asleep with a big smile on her face.

“Well,” her son thought as he looked down at her, “Whatever her last thought was, it certainly make her happy.”

“Humm. Strange,” he said to himself. “How did this get here?”

He reached down and picked up a shrimp from between her lifeless fingers.