Firefly Glen yomblod

Wrestling with the unthinkable, Anselm's brow knot in distress. Was this to be life's bitter irony? That their moment of reconciliation was forever robbed from them both? Now, in what he could only see was her dying hour, he could not hold her or comfort her.

There was nothing to stop the anguished tears that sprung from his stinging eyes as he saw her own face dampened. His earlier thoughts of pettiness were replaced with thorny shame: she had looked like shit because of --

Anselm's thoughts turned to his boys abruptly. He could not allow words such as 'death' or 'rabies' to habituate the space within his thoughts: doing so would manifest a reality that he was not ready to embrace.

Suddenly he felt like a little boy again; his own boys -- were they to be without a mother now? His throat bobbed and he inhaled several raw, shaky breaths. She couldn't do this to them.

How could she?

He knew she was powerless. He wanted to slam his fists against anything; delete the hundred days leading up to this moment. To grab her and shake her until warmth and life sparked back into Heda's veins. She was just giving up - giving up on her boys and giving up on him.

Again came the needling thought: she is powerless to this, he reminded himself. That she was so listless should have been his first dose of reality that this was well and beyond Heda's control to navigate.

They vill vant to see you. He managed in a blubbery sob altogether unmanlike.

Verklempt beyond words, Anselm grew stonily silent.