What'd You Do?

[Sirnerdlord]

The two men were alone in the hospital room. The older man sitting next to the twenty three year old with similar features laying motionless on the bed.

"Okay Brandon."

The young man's lips twitches up into a sadly releived smile.
"Thanks dad."

His father, Steven, swollowed visibly before a tremulous smile cracked his face. Turning he looked and checked on the phone set up on a stand angled to catch them clearly.

Brandon swallowed himself, hot tears leaking through the corners of his eyes.
"Thank you Dad," he repeated.

Steven visibly marshalled himself.

"For what?"

Brandon turned his eyes toward the camera.
"I Brandon Mathison am a Full body Quadrapalegic. I have no life, no agency over any decision, limited to verbal requests. This is no life worth living. I have asked my father Steven to put me out of my misery and to assist my suicide as I am incapable of even that. On my request we are recording this as a shield for my father against legal reprisal for fulfilling my request, because he doesn't deserve to go to prison for it."

Steven's face lowered as tears shined in his eyes, swallowing sobs he raised his head back up to meet the eyes of his only son.

"Want to watch a movie?"
Brandon smiled gratefully, "sure."
"What would you like to watch?"

Brandon took his time thinking before raising his head up to his father's face, "The Fox and The Hound?"

Steven choked out a laugh through his tight throat.
"A classic."

Pulling another phone from his pocket he navigated to Youtube and bought the movie, money be damned. Turning his chair to his son he angled the phone so they could both see it. Then together, they watched it.

As Widow Tweed drove away Steven lifted his other hand, a revolver with one bullet in it, and pulled the trigger...


He was arrested of course. Placed in jail.
Steven did not mind.
If the entirety of the rest of his life was contained in prison he would still have more agency than his son had.


.....


AN:
Had to help this dude get into his wheelchair earlier today. Then had the thought how horrible it would be to be completely paralyzed. Then thought: "what if it was my son? What if he asked me to free me from the prison of His Self?"

Thought it might be an interesting intro to a legal drama/feels type movie.

 

[Aleh]

Had to help this dude get into his wheelchair earlier today. Then had the thought how horrible it would be to be completely paralyzed. Then thought: "what if it was my son? What if he asked me to free me from the prison of His Self?"

Click to shrink...

As someone who's worked with people who actually are paralyzed like that... let's just say that this really doesn't capture it well.

Like, at all.

My emotional reactions were fairly complex, but generally contained a rather strong "fuck that guy" element.

And who the fuck handled Brandon's early treatment and care for him to summarize things that way? Like, seriously? Get this guy support from a CIL, stat. Hell, refer him to ADAPT. They have people. They know people.

Okay, so I'm being a bit uncharitable, but really. Disability isn't the end of the world, of your life, especially with modern technology.

 

[Sirnerdlord]

As someone who's worked with people who actually are paralyzed like that... let's just say that this really doesn't capture it well.

Like, at all.

My emotional reactions were fairly complex, but generally contained a rather strong "fuck that guy" element.

And who the fuck handled Brandon's early treatment and care for him to summarize things that way? Like, seriously? Get this guy support from a CIL, stat. Hell, refer him to ADAPT. They have people. They know people.

Okay, so I'm being a bit uncharitable, but really. Disability isn't the end of the world, of your life, especially with modern technology.

Click to shrink...

Cool. This is genuinly nice to know. I had no idea. This guy couldn't get up from the ground, had feces and piss on him. Was totally mortified and dejected to need my help and I really felt that. Putting myself in his shoes I am way too proud. I would legit just end it. But if I couldn't even do that? Worse nightmare. Literally hell.

 

[Aleh]

Cool. This is genuinly nice to know. I had no idea. This guy couldn't get up from the ground, had feces and piss on him. Was totally mortified and dejected to need my help and I really felt that. Putting myself in his shoes I am way too proud. I would legit just end it. But if I couldn't even do that? Worse nightmare. Literally hell.

Click to shrink...

Yeah' but in the field? We'd refer to that as being about a lack of support (and/or assistive technology) rather than about the paralysis itself.

Like, wheelchairs are designed so that their users can get into and out of them if they need to. How did he get stuck that way, especially long enough for things like feces and urine to become an issue?

 

[Sirnerdlord]

Yeah' but in the field? We'd refer to that as being about a lack of support (and/or assistive technology) rather than about the paralysis itself.

Like, wheelchairs are designed so that their users can get into and out of them if they need to. How did he get stuck that way, especially long enough for things like feces and urine to become an issue?

Click to shrink...

I legit have no idea. It was pretty persoective gaining though

 

[Aleh]

I legit have no idea. It was pretty persoective gaining though

Click to shrink...

Kinda? I mean, people get into shit situations all the time even without disability. One of the fundamental truths of life is that shit happens.

Losing anything, when it comes to bodily functions, sucks and is a huge adjustment... but it's usually not just the thing itself that's the problem.

Like... okay, formally we'd get into the difference between the social and medical models of disability here (see here for what looks like a reasonable introduction from a quick skim), for all that there's technically four in the set (the moral model is usually excluded because we associate it with primitive superstition, and the cultural model doesn't see much use outside the Deaf community), but we don't need to get into academics here -- it's mostly just a reasonably simple matter of looking at things from a different angle... which is something that comes naturally (to a point) when you have enough experience with them.