you don't have to be shy about it

i hear my phone ringing when i'm peeling my right contact from my eye. i quickly shove it into its holder of precious liquid and dash into my room and to my phone. i can't see a bloody thing, but i already know it's kelly.

her voice always comes across as tinny from toronto- she sounds so far away when in reality it's only a few hundred kilometres. five hours in the death van, if you're measuring time wise.

"so..." she pauses.

the phone is slightly slick in my hand and my stomach clenches. you see, last night kelly called just as i was heading out to go dancing. her news wasn't particularly stellar. in fact, it made me sit on my bed and question why i couldn't really cry over it.

when i was in grade four, my dad's voice started changing. it got raspier and rougher and he was eventually diagnoised with cancer in his voicebox. this is a disease that normally struck men who were twice my father's age- a disease that left little to no chance of survival because of the implications involving the cancer spreading to the lungs and bronchial tubes. they didn't tell us when they operated on my father, but he had something like a thirty percent chance of pulling through the surgery alive.

he did. the deity above has a different plan for children and alcoholics.

anyways, the complications after surgery are difficult to explain, but essentially my father has to have scar tissue removed every once in awhile from his bronchial tube because this scar tissue can cause complications with his breathing. last week he went in for a regular check up and instead of scar tissue, they found a cancerous mass.

"so...dad came down to toronto today and they shipped him back to owen sound, but he's coming back down next monday for surgery to remove the mass and then they'll do further assessment afterwards."

i nod, only remembering afterwards that kelly can't see me.