The elevator doors open on the fourth floor of St. Bartholomew’s. The air is thick—antiseptic, endings, whispers of nurses who have tried, who have failed. Your father’s episodes… we cannot contain him.
But how does one contain a man who has spent a lifetime filling theaters with thunder, with laughter, with the echoes of a hundred voices?
His room is a barricade, chairs upturned, a fortress of blankets and rage. This is no hospital—this is a prison! And I am its captive!
I step forward, script in hand. “Dad, it’s Alice. I’ve brought something special.”
The air shifts. The wild glint in his eyes flickers, softens. Alice, my star… have you come to set me free?
I offer the script like a peace offering, like a map home. The Last Voyageur. His final role. His greatest performance.
He takes it, fingers tracing the pages like old memories. “It speaks of a voyageur?”
“It speaks of you.”
I drape the Hudson Bay Point blanket over his shoulders—the one he always admired but never bought, the one that belongs to him now.
“It’s a prop, Dad. For the voyageur.”
A shift. The room is no longer a hospital, no longer an ending, but a stage. The bed, a canoe. The script, a paddle. And as he recites, the current takes him. His voice strong, rolling over the walls like waves. He sings—En roulant ma boule—a song older than time, a song that carries.
And for a moment, the illness is upstaged, the audience holds its breath, and my father is who he has always been.
Night falls. The script slips from his fingers. His voice quiets. The monitor stills. In spring, I lay him in his final canoe, overlooking a quiet lake. The theater masks—comedy and tragedy—stand watch. The blanket, now his shroud.
The wind stirs. A whisper. A rowing song on the breeze. The lake ripples. The voyage continues.
POETRY FESTIVAL. Submit to site for FREE. Submit for actor performance. Submit poem to be made into film. 