A Dark Comedy

Cybil chews on a green chili pepper

Ted, infuriated by the scraping of a fork across a plate, tears his attention from the TV. Cybil, his mother-in-law, wearing a blanket across her knees, a dinner plate in her lap, is separating bits of food.

“Cybil, it’s just lamb. Nothing bad. Try some. Be adventurous; go on, you’ll love it.”

Cybil pays Ted no mind, continuing to pick, prod, and push the food around the plate. “Donna’s kebab, you said?”

“Not Donna…Doner kebab…as in Greek!” Ted says, shaking his head, woofing down another large chunk of meat.

“Well, all I can say is, it may be sold as lamb, but then again, it may not actually be lamb.” She replies, suspiciously prodding the food with her fork.

“Look, Cybil, if you’re not hungry…then…”

“I don’t know if I’m this hungry!” Cybil answers, holding at eye level something squirmy hanging from her fork.

“Then give it to me. I’m starving. Mary will fix you something when she gets home from the launderette.”

“What happened to you, Ted? When you married my daughter, you seemed such a nice man.”

“Things change, Cybil. We move on. We grow old and we die. And if we don’t eat anything, we die a lot quicker. So eat while you still can.”

“But…”

“Damn and hell, Cybil…are you hungry or not?” Ted blasts.

“Maybe…just a little.” She replies, sounding meek.

“Then eat! Stop wailing. Or perhaps I should spell out the results of self-induced starvation.”

Ted, having lost his patience and the remote, expertly retrieves it from its hiding place, between the settee cushions. He switches the channel and watches with mindless distraction. He doesn’t notice Cybil circling a green chili pepper around the plate, first inspecting it for insects before putting it into her mouth. There is a long pause, then the old girl begins to shuffle in the chair. Her facial features contort and wrinkle, her eyes blink ferociously and become watery. The choking sounds, Ted first thinks are coming from the TV, an episode of Gray’s Anatomy. Then leaps from the settee to stop her…but too late. She stops chewing. Cybil’s eyes become wild and piercing. Ted senses the pain behind them, the ferocity of the chili pepper burning in her throat, sending violent thoughts to her withered brain. He watches in terrified awe as her weak hands grip the armrests, her teeth grinding, her body shaking as she wobbles from side-to-side in the chair, while her vocal chords emit a last suffering whine and eyes roll back into her head. Ted cannot decide whether he should race for a glass of water or dive for the phone. He chooses the latter, cursing his choice of Greek food as he dials emergency services.

“Ambulance please…what? No… ambulance…my mother-in-law, she’s eaten a chili pepper and is choking to death…what?… it happened last week! Idiot! Of course it just happened! 202 Fore Street…yes above the ‘In-A-Spin’ launderette…what do you mean twenty minutes, she’ll be dead in two! The best you can do…what does that mean, my mother-in-law is riding the lightning here! I understand …be quick…age?…I don’t know…anything between eighty and a hundred…she’s pretty damn old. Just hurry, okay.” Ted slams down the phone, and then turns to Cybil. She is slumping forward in the armchair.

“Oh my God! I’ve killed my mother-in-law with a kebab!” He blurts out, jumping over the coffee table to be at her side, grabbing her skeletal hand, and feeling for a pulse.

Nothing.

“Com’on, Cybil, your daughter will kill me if I’ve killed you; don’t you be dying on me now.” He feels her forehead, then shakes her wildly. She doesn’t respond.

At that moment, Ted hears a key turn in the door. When it opens, Mary is standing in the open doorway with an armful of laundry.

“Ted, can you help me wi…oh my god! What the heck are you doing? You’ll kill her!”

“I’m trying to save her, honey. I think she’s dead already!”

“What!” Mary cries, dropping the laundry to the floor, shoving Ted aside.

“I killed her…with a kebab. I called emergency services, they’re on the way.”

Mary places an ear on her mother’s chest.

“She’s alive…just. Her pulse is very weak…she’s hanging on.”

“You think she’ll be okay to fly? I paid for a joy ride over San Francisco.”

“Fly…fly…she’s an inch from the damn grave!”

“But she’ll be okay, right?”

“She’s unconscious. How did this happen.”

“Well…er, okay, so she said she was hungry. I fancied kebab myself. We were watching TV, so I ordered a take-out from ‘Artburn’… you know, Al’s place down the street. I think she ate a green chili. I didn’t see it, well…no, I did see it, just as she ate it, by then it was too late.”

“You gave an eighty-eight year old woman Greek food, with green chili peppers?”

“You know how she likes to try new things, honey. I thought she would like a change. The menu said nothing about there being green chili peppers.”

In the distance, sirens are approaching. Ted, after first pacing up and down, insists on gathering up his mother-in-law and carrying her toward the door. Mary asks him to leave her where she is, but Ted, stubborn and thinking he can help, gathers up the lifeless eighty-five-pounds. Mary watches in horror as the second tragedy starts to unfold in slow motion. She lunges in an attempt to move the laundry but is too late.

Ted’s legs give way underneath him as he trips forward, his clean underwear wrapped around his ankles. The thrust of the Ted’s falling gives Cybil’s airborne trajectory real momentum. She crashes somewhere between the coffee table and the rocking chair, hitting her head on the bookshelf, knocking to the floor a Dummy’s Guide to Health and Nutrition.

Mary screams, climbing over her husband, who is lying over the coffee table after making an attempt to catch Cybil. Gray’s Anatomy second part is just beginning on the TV.

“Hell, Ted! Now you’ve really killed her,” Mary exclaims, sobbing. On the TV Meredith is telling Derek Shepherd that she is going to leave him. Meredith is sobbing too.

“Maybe…honey, maybe she was already dead, you know, even before she hit the floor!” Ted responds, choosing to opt for the best of any bad outcome, which just happens to be better than one where her insides are being charred to a crisp.

When the doorbell rings, Ted opens the door. Two paramedics are standing there.

“Hurry, please. My mother-in-law was choking when I called you. I think she may be dead.”

One paramedic kneels beside the old girl with a concerned suspicion. Cybil is ashen, and he notices a large bump on the back of her head. He grows curious as to why this old woman is spread-eagled across the floor, one furry slipper gone from her foot, and chili sauce dripping off her chin. The second paramedic, acknowledging the informative nod from his partner, immediately reaches for his radio.

“Better send the police here,” he tells the dispatcher, “…this looks suspiciously like there’s been a vicious beating!” He says, sounding like Dr. Phil.

“What? No…no…” Ted insists. “She was choking, and then went unconscious. I was carrying her to the door, trying to save precious seconds. I fell over the laundry. Here, see…” He says, removing a pair of whitey-tighties from around his ankles, and holding them up. “Really, she flew forward as I fell. I think she may have already been dead in flight!”

“Step away, please. Both of you. Let me get a better look at her.”

The paramedic screens the old girl, first taking her pulse, then opens a small case with complicated medical equipment inside.

On the TV, Dr. Mark Sloan is busy explaining a procedure to a new female intern.

‘The two major complications of atherosclerosis are acute myocardial infarction and acute ischemic stroke. Both are life-threatening conditions characterized by the abrupt cessation of blood flow to respective organs, resulting in an infarction. It is possible to limit the extent of infarction with early intervention. In both conditions, minutes count.’

There falls a complete silence.

Ted reaches for the remote, but not before Dr. Mark invites the new intern out for a Greek meal. Mary snatches the remote from Ted’s hand and hits the power button. The TV shuts down.

“Hmmm…very weak, but alive.” The paramedic announces in somber fashion. A flutter of relief beats through Ted’s heart. “Let’s get her to the hospital. You two wait here. I’ll give the police a report over the radio.”

“I booked her a seaplane flight over San Francisco on Friday,” Ted informs the paramedics.

“Honey! Please!” Mary says, putting her head in her hands.

“Well…I think she was really looking forward to it, you know.”