“Keeping On” by Bill Tope
Leo lay in repose on the bed in his modest clapboard house. But his body was not still. First, he drew up a knee and then lay it flat again. Next, he waved his arm in the air for no apparent reason. He dispassionately considered his errant movements and tics and remembered seeing a man on the television the day before. That man, a famous actor named Michael, was afflicted with the same disease as Leo. Michael was ten years younger than Leo, but had the disease for a decade longer than he.
Michael was a mess, Leo decided. He was much worse than Leo, his symptoms more profound. Leo’s head didn’t swivel helter-skelter on his neck, and he didn’t bend at the trunk and twist his torso this way and that. Did he? He took stock of his body, the body he had for more than 70 years. It. Was. Never. Still.
Leo recalled the way that others, on the streets or at his bus stop or in stores he frequented, looked at him. Often, they would avert their eyes and walk in another direction. What’s the matter with you? he silently shrieked inside his head. But their behavior was a mystery no more. It was like Leo’s eyes opened. He sighed.
Leo shrugged for no reason. He flexed his neck. When he answered the phone, he had difficulty making himself understood. Once, when he played his voicemail message back to check it, he didn’t recognize his own voice. He sounded like he’d had a stroke.
His disease progressed rapidly over the last several years, since his mother passed away. Leo moved back in with her to take care of her as she became old and frail. His mother loved him very much and unconditionally. He sighed again and silently thanked God that his mother didn’t live to see the condition he was in now. She would have wept.
Leo felt dizzy, lightheaded. Leo was a writer. His disease had no apparent effect on his ability to create stories and poems. He sat before his PC and typed as he listened to Pink Floyd on the stereo. The anthem off their greatest album, a song called “Brain Damage,” brought it all back home to Leo. He thanked God again. He was still in much better shape than Michael was in. Leo knew his time would come, but he took comfort in the fact that he was not in a wheelchair or a bed–yet.
Leo recalled his meeting with a fellow writer he’d been in touch with for years via email. She told him with devastating candor that his writing was such that she always imagined him as normal.
“Thanks, Melinda,” he replied with a wry smile. “I like to think of myself that way, too.” Melinda was instantly contrite. She didn’t mean to insult Leo or to hurt his feelings. He told her that he was only joking. The last thing he wanted to do with a friend was to play the disability card.
Watching Michael on TV, he could see what was in store for him, but he remained unaffected, mostly. He had grown philosophical about his destiny. Tonight, he would write another story, spin a narrative involving perfect characters and those not so perfect. He would create a universe out of whole cloth. A universe where he could be anything he wanted to be. It was his saving grace. He would keep on keeping on.
Copyright © 2026 Bill Tope
All Rights Reserved
