Vegetable

By Lara Katz

Posted on

            “Is it possible to steal from a vegetable?” I asked Timothy.

            “Of course it is,” he said, zigzagging his crayon heavily into the page. “If the vegetable’s got something and you take it, well, that’s stealing.”

            “So if I peel a carrot,” I said, “and I take away its skin so it’s good for eating, am I stealing from it?”

            “Of course,” he said, and began to peel the paper off of his crayon as though I had inspired him.

            “But do you think that’s immoral?” I asked. “The carrot’s dead already, it’s been picked already, it doesn’t care if you peel it. It doesn’t care if you eat it. It didn’t even care when you picked it.”

            “You don’t pick carrots, Dad, don’t be stupid. Carrots are dug up.”

            “You’re not answering my question.”

            Timothy looked up from his waxy drawing and frowned. “Why do you care?”

“I want to know what you think.”

            “Well then,” Timothy said, and picked up his crayon once more. “I don’t think it’s immoral. It’s stealing but the carrot didn’t care.”

            “Doesn’t care.”

            “Whatever. The carrot doesn’t give shit whether you peel it or not.”

            “Timothy! We don’t swear.”

            “We don’t. I do.”

            “Timothy…”

            He shrugged. “You know it’s true.”

I got up. “Is it okay if I leave you for a bit? Will you eat dinner by yourself?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I’ll be back soon,” I promised.

            I get in the car and turn on the radio. The auto-tuned shrieking of some singer or another fills the car and I open the windows to let it all out. If I change the station I might forget to change it back, and then Lisbeth might know I left Timothy alone, but I can’t bring him, either. So I don’t change the station, I just listen and drive.

            There’s almost no traffic and I arrive at the hospital before dinner. I make a beeline for the elevator and ride it up to the seventh floor. Her door is closed. Her door is always closed, because otherwise someone might see her, someone might recognize her, and then they might tell someone else, and then the hospital might be mobbed by fans. Idiots.

            I always have to prepare for the mights.

            I rest my hand on the door knob and take a deep breath and then I enter.

            And there she is. A great big ugly slab of fat on a mattress. They probably wouldn’t recognize her anyway, but I still close the door behind myself. She’s no longer a wisp of girl with delicate blond locks, she’s a slab of fat stuck with tubes covered inadequately by a faded hospital gown. The nurse looks up when I enter but doesn’t say anything. Her dark eyes seem more sunken than the last time, and her forehead has begun to show signs of creases. I want to look away but there’s nowhere else to look, so I just nod and sit down in the chair next to the bed and take up my daughter’s hand.

            “She’s been having seizures more often recently,” the nurse says. “Almost every other hour now.”

            “What type of seizures?” I ask.

            “The little ones and the big ones,” she says.

            “Anything else,” I say.

            “You’ll have to talk to her doctor,” the nurse says. “If it’s alright with you—”

            “I’ll yell if there’s a problem.”

            “Thank you,” the nurse says, and steps out of the room.

            I lean out of the door but I don’t see the doctor. I sit back in the chair by the bedside and take up her hand once more. It’s soft, warm, and sweaty. There’s no expression on her face, just a slack jaw and a line of dribble down her chin. I lift a tissue and wipe it away. I toss the tissue into the trash can and think about what a waste that was. A tree, or a tree branch more likely, was sacrificed for that tissue. A tissue to wipe away the dribble of a girl who sees nothing, feels nothing, and will most likely never wake up.

            But what does the tree care either?

            I sit back in my chair and stare at her empty, mindless face. Not much is certain, but I know, if she wakes up, she will not know who we are. She will be a different person. A nineteen-year-old girl with the mind of a newborn child. She will be useless. She will not be the girl I remember.

            She is a vegetable.

            I stand up abruptly and, knowing I shouldn’t, pull the cord to indicate there is an emergency and the doctor should come immediately. She runs in a minute later, panting, looking wildly around the room.

            “It’s okay, there’s no issue, I pulled it by mistake,” I say.

            “Oh,” she says, but she looks suspicious.

            “Now that you’re here, would you mind giving me the prognosis for the week? That would be very much appreciated.” My words tumble out a bit too quickly, but I can’t help it.

            “Um. Okay,” she says, still looking suspicious. She reaches for the chart next to the bed and begins to read it. “It looks like there’s been little improvement this week, I’m sorry to say,” she says. “There’s not a whole lot of likelihood she will wake up. I’m really sorry.”

            I don’t react. I already know this. “What if she does?”

            “She will not know you.”

            So my fears are true. It is all true. What is the point, anymore? I have to ask myself.

            “I think she should be taken off of life support,” I say.

            “I see,” the doctor says.

            “She’s suffering and she has no chance at recovery. I see no other option.”

            “Well,” she says, “we’ll need an agreement among the family members.”

            “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

            “Then I don’t know what to tell you.”

            “Look,” I say. “She’s basically dead. If she wakes up, which you say is unlikely, she won’t be the same person, will she?”

            “No,” the doctor says.

            “Then my daughter’s already dead and we’re just delaying the funeral.”

            “I understand how you feel,” the doctor says.

            “Then what’s the problem?”

            “There are a few. Firstly, she is not brain dead. She’s close. She’s in PVS. Persistent vegetative state. It is possible she’ll wake up, again unlikely, but possible. And if and when she does, no, she won’t remember you, or anything, but there will still be a slim chance she can recover some brain functions. There’s even a slim chance she could recover her higher brain functions. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I’m a doctor. I don’t rule out the possible. I would’ve thought you’d understand.”

            I bite my lip.

            “Secondly, I know you’re her father, but if her mother, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc., all want to keep her on the life support as long as possible, there’s nothing you can do. You’re outnumbered. Do you understand?”

            “I didn’t say I was the only relative who wanted to do it.”

            The doctor gives me a long look. “I’ve met all the ones who care by now,” she says, “and so I don’t need you to tell me you’re the only one.”

            “Fine,” I say, throwing up my hands. “Let some poor child who’d survive to have a productive life not get the organ donation they need. Let some poor family get less health care because of all the funding going towards keeping a vegetable vegetating. Is this really right? Is she ever going to wake up? No. My daughter is dead. She’s not coming back. Why am I the only one to realize this? Why am I the only unselfish person in my family?”

            “I can’t answer all of those questions,” the doctor says, “But I can tell you that we’re all a little selfish sometimes. And…” She looks away. “Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we need to have a little more hope.”

            “You’re full of it,” I say, and look over at the bloated face one last time. “I don’t like to argue in front of my children. But my children aren’t here. There is no one in this room but us. Do you understand?”
            “I understand,” the doctor says, and looks at me once more. “But I’ve already explained my position.”
            So I reach over and yank the cord out of the wall.

            It’s that easy. One minute the room is full of the incessant buzzing, burring, humming sound of machinery, and then the machine is off. It’s off. It’s just a machine that’s been turned off.

            The doctor is staring at me like I’m insane. She grabs the cord from me and tries to put it back in the wall. I push her away, blocking her with my body. She whirls around and reaches for the cord I pulled to bring her here.

            I grab her hand and stop it where it is. “It’s done now,” I say.

            She’s trying to pull away from me, inching away like I’ve killed her first-born, or maybe, more accurately, like I’ve killed my own. She’s feeling for her cellphone in her pocket but when she pulls it out I just jerk it away.

            “What will this change?” I ask. “It’s done. It was going to be done. It had to be done.”

            “You—you can’t—” Her voice is shaking. “You killed your daughter!”
            “She was already dead,” I say, convincing myself as much as her, and I release her hand, leaving her standing in the room with the body and walk out of the door.

            Just like that.

            She was famous once, my daughter.

            Now my own fame has eclipsed hers. The father who pulled the cord on his own daughter’s life. The police didn’t want to listen to my explanations. I can only wonder now, what would have happened if I had written something down beforehand—some kind of statement—if I would be sitting now in a cell with whitewashed walls and a barred window. But I didn’t prepare for this might, the most important one of all.

            It might be heartless.

            But I didn’t realize it was a crime to steal the life of a vegetable.

– Lara Katz