In a dimly lit room on the 3^rd floor of Mercy Regional Hospital, Winston Maple lay dying, although he wasn’t aware of it.

 
Comatose for the last two weeks, the doctors had removed the ventilator last Saturday afternoon. Yet, nearly four days later, the old bastard stubbornly refused to expire.

Once a man of some means, Maple had put away a tidy sum to carry him through old age. Unfortunately, the savings that would have outlived him couldn’t outlive the cancer. The money dried up quickly and, as the hopes of any future inheritances waned, the feigned affections of his family dried up, too. None of the three wives or seven children was there.

The only other person in the chilly room was the hospice nurse, seated across from the old man’s bed, working a crossword puzzle. Not unlike how he treated his family, Maple had been so uncooperative and abusive toward the nurse during his last sentient days that she couldn’t be bothered to feel sorry for him, either.

Laying aside her puzzle, the nurse stood to stretch her legs. She took a moment to make a cursory glance toward the bed and its bitter, broken occupant. Deciding he would be just as unconscious with her in or out of the room, she stepped into the hallway to walk a bit and to catch up on the day’s gossip at the nurse’s station.

Finally, completely alone, with a twisted sense of poetic justice, Winston Maple breathed his last.