Susan Cox Is No Longer Here

Justin Heckert with a heartbreaking story on a woman who didn't want to die alone:

This is something that happened during a long, dry summer, and if I don't write it down now I fear it might haunt me forever. My hope is that the woman from the hospital room will eventually let go of my thoughts, so that I no longer see her peeling fingernails and the black bandanna tied around her head, her ruby slippers and that blue monkey with beads for eyes and a single black stitch for a smile. I can still hear the last thing she said to me, in her tired, smoker's voice, and I wish to God I could forget it.