But it sticks in my craw—whatever the hell that stupid phrase even means. What’s a craw, anyway? I consider Googling the origin and meaning of the phrase, but it slips my mind and the rest of the evening passes in easy conversation and watching a sci-fi thriller on Netflix and opening another bottle of wine and then I’m tipsy and we sleep together, this time just sleeping, and yet even as I drunkenly slumber, I dream of Adrian standing in front of me, and he’s just looking at me, and in the dream I NEED to ask him what he’s hiding, but my lips won’t work, my mouth won’t open, and he turns away in the dream and the opportunity to ask him is gone. And when I wake up with the sliver of silver moon hung in the window frame like a stray fingernail clipping, I can’t grasp the shape of the dream, only the fleeting emotional substance of it.

Whisky & Women

I’m having trouble with my appetite. Just…not hungry. Nauseated. I’ve been warned that with pancreatic cancer, having symptoms at all is not a good sign. The early symptoms tend to be vague, more generalized and not immediately tagged as symptomatic of cancer. Thus the fact that I didn’t get mine diagnosed till it was already spreading, and fast.

It’s already beyond my pancreas, so surgery wasn’t an option even then, at the very beginning. Chemo isn’t going to cure it. Just extend my life. Make it suck less.

People have lived for years with it, and others have died within months of first detection.

I’m maudlin, today. Nadia is at work, and I’m feeling like shit. Since she’s gone, I let myself just wallow in the shittiness, a rarity for me. It sucks. It hurts. I don’t want it. It’s not fair. Wah-wah-wah. The river of bullshit from my weak mind and sensitive, artiste heart is sickening even to me. Fuck this.

I’m trying to force myself out of the funk when my phone rings. Oh, yay! A distraction.

“Hello?” I answer it on the third ring. Don’t want to seem too eager.

“Adrian, hey. This is Nathan Fischer.”

I blink. “Hey, bud. Long time no see, how are you?”