The Question

Excerpt

A man lay in bed, days away from death. His skin white and his lips dry, the man rested beneath the sheets. Relatives gathered at his side. He spoke to them in a whistling, gasping voice. They bent over, their ears almost to his lips to hear him. They fed him chips of ice and moistened his face. They whispered to him. When the doctor arrived—a weary man, grey and balding—the relatives moved away from the bed. The doctor too bent down to hear the muted words the man spoke. The man whispered a question into the doctor's ear. Why,