Dappled sunlight fell on Sherman Kingsborough’s face as he walked through the Portland Japanese Garden. He was disappointed that it didn’t have a more lyrical name, like the Morikami Japanese Gardens near his father’s mansion in Palm Beach, but he had to admit, the place was pretty damn nice.
Sherman had once dated a Buddhist girl who spent her time schooling him in the ways of The Middle Way. He did everything to woo her, including a spontaneous trip to Japan and a tour of Buddhist temples. Of course, none of it made any difference to Sherman. He cared as much for Buddha as he cared for God, which is to say not at all. The things I’ve done just to get me some strange, he thought to himself.
The only lasting impact of his search for enlightenment—or rather sleeping with a woman in search of enlightenment—was a penchant for Japanese architecture and Japanese gardens. He found them oddly soothing.
So it was not surprising that Sherman found himself admiring a Japanese maple, a soft carpet of its burgundy leaves on the ground beneath his feet, just hours before he was scheduled to embark on his mission to kill Jared Stone.
The girl he’d dated had taught him a few relaxation techniques—he liked to think of them as tricks rather than techniques—and he tried to employ them as he wandered the garden, but it was no use. His adrenal gland was working overtime, flooding his system with narcotic levels of stimulant. His mind was focused as if all his thoughts were being filtered through a magnifying glass, and his muscles were straining not to burst out of his skin.
He was ready.
***
Jared was spending an increasing amount of time lying on his office floor with the lights out. The few times he did engage with the outside world, other than his daily interviews with the Life and Death producers and his visits to the doctor, were almost entirely with the right-to-die lobby. He had become their poster child, and something of a cause célèbre in the world of euthanasia advocacy.
Given his situation, Jared wanted to do as much for the lobby as he could. When he had the strength, he scheduled phone interviews with area newspapers and radio stations, and he had been working on an editorial for the Oregonian, but he couldn’t seem to finish it:
Death with Dignity: An Insider’s Perspective
by Jared Stone
As most readers know, I have a brain tumor. It’s an inoperable high-grade glioblastoma multiforme, and it is killing me. This is unequivocally true; as much as anything can be unequivocally true when you no longer know what “true” means. There are no drugs; there is no surgery; there is no miracle in my future. Within four months, probably less, I will be dead.
I have decisions to make. Do I allow my family to watch me suffer and wither away? Or do I end my suffering and leave them earlier than I might otherwise?
Whether I choose to exercise my right to assisted suicide is a choice for me, for my family, and for my health-care providers. There is no reason, no logical reason, the state should involve itself in my personal affairs.
And that’s as far as he could get. He knew what he wanted to say, or at least he thought he did, but couldn’t figure out how to get it down on paper. He wasn’t even sure what the first word of the next sentence might be.
A friend in the legislature, a coauthor of the expansion to the Death with Dignity Act, offered to finish the editorial for Jared, but that somehow didn’t seem right. Jared just needed a bit more time with his mind sharp; if he could have more time he could put the editorial to bed. Unfortunately, the moments of true clarity were coming in shorter and less frequent bursts.
Jared gave up on the editorial and lay back down on the floor. His mind kept making more interesting and unusual anagrams. His favorite was “life and death”—inflated head—something poetic that he hoped to remember to tell the producer for the next day’s interview segment of the show.
He knew he should be turning his attention to more serious matters—his family, his future, his legacy—but he couldn’t seem to muster the interest. His brain was growing so devoid of memories that it was lacking context. For example, he knew his daughter Jackie was upset, but he wasn’t sure he knew what that really meant. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to feel.
Jared lay for a long moment thinking about Jackie, when he had what he thought was an epiphany, if that was the right word. He propped himself up on one elbow and spoke to the dog in the dark. “Hey, Trey. I think I really fucked up.”
Jared put his head back down, closed his eyes, and slept. The memory of that moment would be gone before he woke.