text: I wrote this for Furious Fiction, but sadly I didn't win, or even get on their short or long list. It has been edited slightly to be bang on 500 words. I hope you enjoy \*\*\* There was a deep sigh as he leaned back against the bench. He could see the sun beginning to rise over the horizon, lighting the sky. His mother was in the hospital behind him. She wouldn’t be watching the sunrise. It had been three months since she’d slipped into the coma. Three months of praying that she would wake up. Of late night sprints to the hospital when some part of her system failed, only to be brought back from the brink by the doctors and nurses. Of listening to the machines beep. Of machines breathing for her. The doctor had come to him yesterday. “Sir, I know you might not want to hear this.” She’d said. “But the patient, your mother, she may never wake up from this. It says here on her file that she didn’t want to be kept alive if she wasn’t conscious. You need to start thinking about letting her go.” “Letting her go?” He’d roared in return. “Letting my mother go? It’s not as if she can just wake up if the machines are taken away. You’re asking me to *kill* my own mother.” “Sir, no. We’re not asking you to do that. We are informing you of her wishes. We will leave the decision with you.” The doctor had left, and he’d stayed at his mother’s bedside that night, holding her hand and running his thumb over the soft skin. He hated how she looked, tucked into the stark white sheets, her hair neatly pinned back. Her hair was supposed to be free, to hang about her face and get in her eyes. A bell rang in the morning air and he turned to watch a bicycle fly past, a woman, her hair loose and her feet bare. A woman who could have been his mother when she was younger. Their eyes met, and she smiled at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners. Then she was gone and around the corner. He stood, slowly making his way back to the hospital. There was a peace in his chest that hadn’t been there before. Perhaps she’d only had a passing resemblance to his mother, it was hard to tell with how fast she was going, but he believed that it was his mother, telling him that it was okay. The nurse on duty handed him a clipboard and a pen. He skimmed the words, his pen finding the page and leaving his signature at the bottom. Then he went back to his mother’s side, took her hand in his. The room was quiet now, without the beeping, without the hiss of the machines. But it did not feel dead. He cried when she passed on. As all children do when they lose a beloved parent. But he could still feel her fingers in his hair, comforting him. He could feel the warmth of her kiss on his cheek. It told him that she was still there, watching over him, as she always had.