Can I get a witness?

Dillion Achord Sr. had a dramatic conversion experience as a teenager when his best friend took him to a revival. After that he become more zealous than the friend who took him to the revival. 

He became a Baptist lay preacher. Spent lots of time witnessing. Some people figured it was just a phase, but he remained fervent–until the wheels started falling off his life. 

Despite his zeal, he never wanted to become a pastor. His dream was be a high school football coach. After that, he rarely went by "Dillon". Everybody called him "Coach". He liked that.  

Mentoring the next generation, that was his goal post–more than the goal post on the field. Mind you, he had a passion for football. He knew what was going on in the lives of his players. He prayed with them and for them. He had voluntary home Bible studies for players. The football field was his mission field. They respected and revered him. He was a role model of manliness. For many, he was the only father-figure they had to look up to.  

Then his wife left him for another man, abandoning their teenage son. Life without a wife was a physical and emotional hardship. 

His son might have been a huge consolation were it not for the fact that Dillion Jr., or "Junior", as he was always called, was hard into teenage rebellion. That originated in rage over his mother's desertion. Made worse because Junior started hanging out with juvenile delinquents. So he started getting into trouble with the law.

As a result, his father's grief over the breakup of the marriage was compounded by grief over the stormy relationship with his son. With just the two of them living together, it was an ideal time for them for father and son to deepen their bond, but instead, forces were tearing them apart. 

Coach used to go to the football field to pray, walking round and round the track after school when the field was deserted. His prayer life use to be full of praise, contrition, and thanksgiving, but now he was yelling at God. 

After he picked up his son at the police station for–he lost count–they got into a shouting match at home, and Junior ran away from home. That led to more yelling at God.

To make matters worse, he lost his job. Although he loved the players and they loved him, the town loving winning, and the team lost more games than it won. 

That's in part because Coach didn't always pick the best players. He didn't pick boys from well-to-do families. He picked working-class guys. Many came from troubled homes. Football was his ministry. He recruited boys who desperately needed someone to befriend them. Coach cared about sinners, not winners. They put their heart and soul into the game because they adored their coach, but they never had the talent to beat the best teams. Most parents didn't appreciate his priorities. They wanted winners, not losers. 

When he was fired, the team was furious. It was a tearful farewell. But turnover is rapid in intramural football. 

After that he yelled less at God because he prayed less. He lost his wife, his son, and his dream job. 

He took a job at the local used car dealership. In a small town he had to be nice to customers who got him fired. 

A few months later he began to feel stabbing abdominal pain and back pain. He went to the doctor. After a battery of tests, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The prognosis was dire. 

At that point Coach dropped out of church. And his prayer life, already at low ebb, dried up entirely. He might as well die. He had nothing left to live for. 

A few weeks later, his estranged son found out through the grapevine that his dad was dying of cancer. At first, Junior was dumbfounded by the news. Then he drove back to his dad. All that time, Junior was living just one town up the road. He wept all the way back. 

When Coach came to the door, Junior was shocked to see how gaunt he was. He dad was always buff. But now he was wasted. 

Junior moved back in. Fixed all the meals. Bathed his father. Helped him use the bathroom. Gave him morphine injections. 

As Coach became increasingly bed-ridden, he asked his son to read the Bible to him. Mainly from the Psalms and the Gospel of John. 

One evening, Junior cradled his dad in his arms while recounted happy memories of stuff they used to do together when he was younger. Hiking, hunting, rafting, horseback riding. His dad would nod or smile at each anecdote. It all came flooding back in Junior's mind's eye–which is why he didn't notice when Coach became unresponsive. He craned his neck around and saw that Coach's pupils were dilated. His dad died in his arms. Junior got out of bed, closed his father's eyes, kissed him good-bye, and pulled the sheet over his face.

Junior used to visit his father's grave every day, weather-permitting. Later he brought his little boy along. Then he drove to high school football practice. His son played around the bleachers while Junior coached the team. 

The Chosen

Praetorius was sitting alone on the front deck of the ferry, taking in the ocean view and sea breeze, when an agitated young boy came outside and sat next to him. Concerned about his state of mind, Praetorius asked the boy what was wrong. The boy said he was being pursued by two men who intended to abduct him. 

Praetorius wasn't quite sure what to make of this. Kids have a lively imagination. But the boy's fear was palpable. He asked him if this was the first time. The boy said, no, he was constantly shadowed and hunted by the two men. He was always able to give them the slip, but now they had him cornered. There was no escape. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. 

Praetorius introduced himself to the boy and asked his name. The boy said his name was Michael Angelus. Praetorius sensed something else about the boy, but couldn't quite place it. 

Then two men came out onto the deck and fixed their eyes on Michael. Praetorius had his arm around the boy, so the men stood there, mulling over what to do next. 

Praetorius could see that they were unrelated to Michael, so they might well be kidnappers or human traffickers. But there was something even more sinister about the men. Praetorius instantly sensed that they were demoniacs. 

Praetorius wasn't an ordinary man. His grandparents were witches. And they acquired occult abilities through sorcery. But that came at a terrible cost. A family history of insanity, nightmares, depression, suicide, and violence. For that reason, Praetorius shunned Satanism. Indeed, he wore a cross and went to church. Nevertheless, he inherited the occult abilities of his grandparents. But he figured he could use his powers for good. Ultimately, all supernatural power derives from God. 

Not only could he sense their true identity, but the demoniacs could sense something uncanny about him. Praetorius and the demoniacs both had antennae for the realm of spirits. So there was a standoff until the ferry made port, at which point Praetorius got up to chaperon Michael off the ship and protect him from the trackers from hell. The demoniacs immediately blocked the doorway. 

Then, with a wave of his hand, Praetorius immobilized them and threw them overboard. Michael was shocked, but pleasantly surprised by his wizardry. 

Praetorius drove Michael home with him. He found out that Michael had been in and out of foster care after his parents died in a freak accident. As a very young boy, Michael frequently sensed something malevolent watching him, lurking in the shadows. But it was only as his coming of age became imminent that he was seen to be a looming threat. That's when they began to stalk him in earnest. But by seeming miracles, he was able to elude them whenever they were about to close in on him. 

Praetorius always wondered if he'd ever have a chance to use his hereditary powers for good. It couldn't be a coincidence that he as on the ferry at the same time Michael and the infernal trackers boarded the ferry. Some invisible benefactor must have guided Michael to the ferry. From now on, Praetorius became his bodyguard and guardian. 

Drowing the demoniacs bought Michael and Praetorius some time. Of course, that didn't obliterate the evil spirits. But the trail went cold as they had to rustle up new human hosts. Praetorius had misgivings about drowning the demoniacs, since that killed the human host. It was a snap decision under duress, to protect an innocent boy. But as it turns out, the trackers only possessed humans who dabbled in the occult. 

Praetorius was able to generate a field around Michael and himself which made them indetectable to infernal surveillance. But Praetorius wasn't omniscient or omnipotent. His powers faded over distance. And his conscious powers waned when he slept. Through lucid dreaming and telepathy, he was able to draw Michael's mind into his own when he slept, and shield him from surveillance outside the dreamworld. But Praetorius could only direct or concentrate his powers when he was awake or lucid. It was draining to be in a state of high alert all the time, and sometimes his concentration flagged, which gave the trackers a chance to catch up. 

One time the demoniacs were able to track down his house. But as they got closer, Praetorius sensed them and woke up. He and Michael got dressed. As they were about to leave, Praetorius saw the trackers in the driveway. He went outside, then encircled them in a ring of fire. That posed a dilemma for the trackers. If they tried to escape through the fire, the human host would burn to death. The demons would survive, but they'd be impotent to interface with Michael or Praetorius until they commandeered two new hosts. That gave Michael and Praetorius a window to skip town. By the time the trackers took possession of new hosts, they lost the scent.

After that they had to live on the run, moving from place to place. One time, when Michael and Praetorius were working at a tavern, and Praetorius became distracted, the trackers zeroed in. But Praetorius could always sense their approach. When the trackers arrived at the bar, they were confronted by Hell's Angels. This was, however, the first time Hell's Angels came face-to-face with real angels from hell. They were outmatched because the demoniacs had superhuman strength. But the diversion enabled Michael and Praetorius a chance to flee the scene. 

Praetorius could never discern what was special about Michael. Then one day, Praetorius accidentally spilled boiling water on his hand in the kitchen. Praetorius required medical attention. But Michael instinctively pricked his finger with a needle and smeared a few drops of blood over the scalded hand. It healed within minutes. 

Praetorius then realized that Michael was a golden child. A healer. His blood had therapeutic properties. Yet he still didn't understand why the dark side felt so threatened by Michael. But a year and a half-later, a well-funded group of antinatalists, bioterrorisits, and ecoterrorists developed an airborne, mutant strain of leukemia. People began to die by the millions. The human race was on the verge of extinction. 

Evidently, the dark side foresaw this event. Indeed, the dark side engineered this event behind-the-scenes. Michael was immune to the contagion. He was a carrier, but a therapeutic carrier. He offered his blood. Of course, there was only one of him. How could a single blood donor save the human race? Yet a transfusion from his blood not only cured the patient but changed their blood, so that each cured person could cure others by becoming blood donors. The rate of healing was as exponential.

Yet millions continued to die. Children were cured, and Christians were cured, although not all churchgoers were cured.  But the blood didn't cure people who persecuted Christians. The disparity didn't go unnoticed, leading to Christian revival around the world. 

Praetorius was seriously injured in a traffic accident. Comatose for days, the trackers were able to detect Michael. By that time it was too late change the outcome. The contagion was broken. But that made the dark side all the more vindictive. They infected Michael with a scratch. A mutant strain of bubonic plague. He died hours later, hugging his Bible. Having healed millions, he couldn't heal himself. 

When Praetorius regained consciousness, he was enraged and grief-stricken. He couldn't fathom why heaven let Michael die. But after watching coverage of world-wide mourning, he changed his mind and concluded that perhaps it was better for Michael to die young, lest he become an object of worship, and all the adoration go to his head.

Still in his twenties, Praetorius hadn't married, in part because he was guarding Michael, and in part because he feared transmitted his occult powers to his own children. But now that he no longer had Michael to protect, he renounced his hereditary abilities, got married, and became an exorcist–using ordinary means of grace like prayer, Scripture, and hymn-singing to combat the dark side. 

War orphan

-i-

Sherman was a G.I. fighting behind enemy lines in a war-torn country, ravaged by civil war. He found a war orphan in a burnt-out village. A young boy named Jason. At first the boy was terrified, until he saw that Sherman meant him no harm. Sherman gave him a pat on the head and some chocolate, which the hungry boy wolfed down. The boy was hoping Sherman was his rescuer. Sherman looked into his trusting, pleading, desperate eyes. He felt a strong instinctive pull to take the boy back with him. 

But attempting to rescue the boy would put Sherman at risk. The boy would slow him down. They were surrounded by the enemy. 

He hated the idea of leaving the kid behind to die–or worse. But he knew that was just his evolutionary programming. He was being manipulated by blind evolution to be altruistic and sacrificial. 

Fact is, the kid was just a temporary biological organism like the rest of us. Eminently and ultimately replaceable. One child is pretty interchangeable with another. What difference does it make to world history if there's one more child or one less child, a thousand more or a thousand fewer? It's all so random and arbitrary. 

Why should Sherman risk the only life he's got to save a child's life? Sure, he'd feel rotten if he abandoned the boy, but that's just evolution guilt-tripping him. Why should he let himself be suckered by his biological brainwashing? It's like a phobia: you can't shake the feeling, but you know it's irrational, so you have to override it to do what's necessary.

It reminded him of the movie he saw one time–Screamers–where killer robots disguised as war orphans clutching teddybears mimic vulnerable children. They emit plaintive cries. But underneath it's just a heartless machine, like evolutionary psychology in camouflage. 

Regretfully, he turned his back on the boy and walked away. The boy was later captured by combatants from a rival clan. They took him to a compound with war orphans of all ages, whom they rounded up. The older boys brutalized the younger boys. And the guards brutalized all the boys to toughen them up and turn them into the next generation of soldiers for the revolutionary cause. Jason grew up to be a pitiless killer who massacred old men, mothers, daughters, and young children from the wrong clan, raping the women before shooting them in the head. 

-ii-

In a parallel universe Jed was a G.I. fighting behind enemy lines in a war-torn  country, ravaged by civil war. He found a war orphan in a burnt-out village. A young boy named Jason. At first the boy was terrified, until he saw that Jed meant no harm. Jed picked him up in his arms and hugged him. 

There was no question about leaving the boy behind. Here was a child with an immortal soul. Yet Jed knew that attempting to rescue him was very risky. They might not make it out alive.

As much as possible they had to avoid public roads and open fields where they might be spotted. Stick to the woods. But that made for slow going. Hunting slowed them down. Often Jed had to carry Jason in his arms through the underbrush. Sometimes they shivered in the rain. While hiking, or huddling before a campfire, Jed told Jason Bible stories about creation; the garden of Eden; Noah's flood; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph; the Exodus; King David; Daniel–and especially the Gospels. He taught Jason the Lord's Prayer. Every night, Jason slept in Jed's arms. 

They had many miraculously narrow escapes as they were pursued by the enemy. They sometimes used streams to cover their tracks, and mask their scent from dogs. One time, when the enemy sent hunting dogs to track them down, Jeb had to shoot them. That wasted bullets he might need for self-defense, and the shots gave away their location. Thankfully, the enemy was far enough away that it couldn't find them. 

This went on for weeks. As they were approaching the border, the enemy finally caught up with them. Jed and Jason were cornered. Jed figured it was better to die together than for them to be captured alive. The enemy had a terrifying reputation, confirmed by firsthand observation. He prayed the Lord's Prayer with Jason. Then he pulled out his revolver. It was empty. All the bullets were spent from shooting game and killing the dogs in hot pursuit. But the enemy didn't know that. He pointed the revolver at the approaching combatants. They machine-gunned Jeb and Jason, who died in his arms. 

A moment later, Jeb and Jason stepped out into an amber-lit garden. They heard unearthly music in the distance. Then a nimbic Jesus came to them. He embraced Jeb, then took Jason by the hand, and led them towards the music. 

The best of both worlds

Shiloh, Gunner's younger brother, was blind from birth. They were about a year and a half apart. When they were still little kids, Gunner enjoyed his brother's constant company. That was the only brother he had. He never knew what it was like to have a sighted brother. So for him, that was natural and normal. And Shiloh adored his older brother. 

But when Gunner came of age, he began to itch for independence. There were things he couldn't do with other boys his own age because he couldn't take Shiloh along. Simple things like hiking with the guys. He developed a festering resentment for Shiloh. Increasingly, he felt like Shiloh was a ball-in-chain, holding him back. He could leave Shiloh behind, but that was mean. He began to hate Shiloh's dependence on him. He began to hate Shiloh. Gunner was missing out on life. You only get to be a teenager once. 

He knew it was wrong to feel that way. If it was frustrating for him to have a blind brother, imagine how frustrating it was to be the blind brother! 

Shiloh sensed the growing estrangement. Gunner was tempted to tell Shiloh what he was feeling, but something restrained him. He knew that if he said what he thought, it would be irreparably hurtful to his loving, innocent brother. 

One time Gunner was temporarily bedridden by a sports accident. Ironically, it was Shiloh who cared for him. But that just intensified Gunner's inner dilemma. He resented the fact that he shouldn't resent his brother. 

One day, Gunner found a time-machine in the woods. He had no idea how it got there. But that gave him an idea. If he could go back in time, he could preempt Shiloh's conception. Of course, he didn't know on which night Shiloh was conceived, but he had a rough idea of the range. If he traveled back into the past enough times, he could disrupt parental activities and soon or later hit upon the crucial evening. 

And that's what he did. When he returned to his own time after several tries, then went into his bedroom, Shiloh was gone. Shiloh's stuff was gone. The clothes, the posters, the pictures of Shiloh and Gunner together. There was no trace of Shiloh's existence because he never existed in that timeline. 

At first it was a relief, but there was a yawning emptiness. A huge hole at the center of his life. 

What he really wanted was a brother who could see. So he went back to the time machine. When he returned to his own time, after several more tries, he was greeted by a…sister! But what's not what he wanted. He wouldn't mind having a sister. But he didn't want a sister instead of a brother. 

It turned out that his mother suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome. She barely fertile. It was hard for her to conceive at all. Shiloh and Gunner were the only boys she had on tap. 

At this point, Gunner hated himself for hating Shiloh. He felt like he committed fratricide with the time machine. 

So he went back into the time machine and restored the status quo ante. Reset things to the day before he discovered the time machine. After that he torched the time machine. 

A few weeks later, Shiloh was hit by a car–because he couldn't see the car. Standing over him in the ER, stroking his hair and holding his hand, as Shiloh hovered between life and death, Gunner realized that he didn't want Shiloh to die. His brother flatlined several times but they were able to resuscitate him and stabilize him. It was bad enough to scrub his brother from the timeline using the machine, yet that was detached. He didn't see the target. But watching his brother die, repeatedly die in the ER, tugged at Gunner's heart. And all the good memories came flooding back. All the good times together he'd forgotten about. In his roiling resentment he'd been far blinder than his brother. 

After Shiloh came home from the hospital, he sensed a change in Gunner's attitude. And Gunner found new things for them to do together. 

They lived in the same town for the rest of their lives. Gunner outlived Shiloh. When Gunner died, Shiloh was waiting for him. In the world to come, they were young again, only this time Shiloh could see! 

Icarus

Icarus was an exceptionally hospitable planet for humanoid habitation. According to pious legend, the original inhabitants were colonists transported to Icarus inside giant birds flying through space, by the Creator of Icarus. The same legend prophesied that one day the Creator of Icarus would come back for the colonists. 

But with the development of planetology, scientists scoffed at the legend. Planetology was the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. Scientists dismissed the legend as a superstitious, prescientific etiological fable. 

That divided Icarians into two factions: scientists and fundamentalists. But as planetologists continued to excavate Icarus, they uncovered evidence that Icarus was an artificial planet, only a few thousand years old, composed of metallic alloys. 

Fundamentalists took their discovery as scientific confirmation that the legend was true. But scientists retorted that positing a Creator was a cop-out and science stopper. Appealing to external agency explains something mysterious by something even more mysterious–which explains nothing at all. We cannot allow an Alien Foot in the door. Anyone who could believe in terraformers could believe in anything. To appeal to a terraformer is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen, through outside interference. 

Scientists accused fundamentalists of committing the little-green-men-of-the-gaps fallacy. They pointed out that planetology had an impressive track record of explaining things without recourse to invisible, extraicarian meddling.  

So there was yet another impasse between the scientists and fundamentalists. Then one day a giant bird from outer space landed on Icarus, and out stepped the Creator. Fundamentalists immediately took this as vindication of the ancient oracle. 

Scientists couldn't believe their eyes. Some of them said it must be staged. Others said a hallucination was more plausible than accepting the existence of a Creator. The Creator ushered the fundamentalists into the giant bird and flew away, leaving the scientists behind. A month later the climate-control machine in the planetary core wore out, and life on Icarus perished in a mass extinction event. 

Through two doors at once

Life is a series of invisible doors. Sets of two doors. Most folks go through one door at a time, whether the right-hand door or the left-hand door. But for some unexplained reason, Jasper went through both doors at once. He came out the other side as two copies of Jasper. But for some unexplained reason, he kept returning to the same spot. Each time, passing through both doors at once, his life split into forking paths. 

He went thorough the door where his parents divorced, and the other door where they stayed together. He went through another set of doors where his mother had custody and his father has custody. He turned out fairly well living with his dad. He turned out better living with both parents. He became a delinquent living with his mother. 

There was the door where his brother committed suicide and the door where his brother didn't commit suicide. Going through the door where his brother committed suicide, Jasper's life went into a tailspin. He became junkie. He eventually killed himself because he was unable to cope with the inconsolable loss. Grief enveloped him in a dark cloud from which he never emerged.  

There was the door where he where he accidentally ran over a cyclist at night and the door where he avoided the cyclist. After accidentally killing the cyclist, he was afraid to turn himself into the police. The fatality remained an unsolved crime, but he haunted by guilt for the rest of his life. 

There was the door where he was blinded in a baseball accident. Knocked unconscious when a teammate accidentally hit him in the head with a baseball bat. When he woke up in a hospital bed, he was blind. That one blow to the head not only shattered his skull, but shattered his plans. At first he was despondent and bitter. After months of brooding, he began to rebuild his life, step-by-step. Not the life he asked for. Not the life he hoped for. But after that he no longer took life for granted. The ambit of his life got smaller but deeper. And he hoped to see again in the world to come. 

There was the door where he won a football scholarship and the door where he was edged out. Losing the scholarship scuttled his dreams. All his hopes were pinned on getting the scholarship. After that he had to dream new dreams.  

There was the door where a rival married his high school crush. So h married another girl. He secretly felt she was second-best. But his rival told him that his crush was a nagging wife. So he no longer regretted losing her to another man. He warmed to his wife and had a happy marriage. His bad luck was good luck in retrospect. 

The was the door where he was drafted and the door where he was not. Before he was drafted, evil was an abstraction for him. Watching his comrades maimed or blown up right before his eyes gave him nightmares. But it also made him hope for a better world to come. 

Finally, there was the door where he became an atheist and the door where he became a Christian. For some unexplained reason, after he went through one door and came out the other side a Christian, that broke the cycle. Never again did he go through two doors at once. He just continued along that branch until he died and went to heaven.  

Room with a view

Dexter Horton IV was a self-made man, and he never let you forget it. The sun at the center of his solar system, around whom the satellites revolved. Starting a business from the bottom up, five wives and two estranged sons later, he was the CEO of Fortune 500 company. While many CEOs had limousines, Dexter drove to work in his Bugatti Veyron. Truth be told, there never was a Dexter Horton I, II, or III. He tacked IV onto the end of his name because it sounded more impressive.

Dexter demanded perfection from his underlings. The turnover rate was high. The one person he was close to was Eileen, his secretary of 27 years. She was his first employee. 

At least, everyone, included herself, always thought she was the one person he cared about. That's before she was injured in a traffic accident. He never visited her in the convalescent home. After rehab, she showed up for work, only to find out that he replaced her without notification. 

He bought his two sons, by different wives, into Harvard Business School. He didn't consult them. They balked. They had no interest in following in his footsteps. He cut them out of the will and broke off further communication. For them it hardly made any appreciable difference in their lives, since he was more like a sperm donor than a father. 

Dexter was riding high until one day, at a board meeting, he suffered a stroke. It wasn't a massive stroke, but he was hospitalized, and underwent physical therapy. At first he had to use a walker around the convalescent home. 

He ran the company from his hospital bed. Summoned his entourage, holding court in the convalescent center, barking orders, berating subordinates. He was in his element. 

But one day the retinue never appeared. The king was vexed. Turns out the board quietly relieved him of the chairmanship and pensioned him off, citing a termination clause for incapacity. Dexter was in high dudgeon and threatened a lawsuit, but it was all perfectly legal. 

With the courtiers gone, Dexter was alone all day, every day. He phoned his wives and sons, not having spoken to them for years. One son paid a visit. This was the last chance to be reconciled. For the first few minutes they had a formally pleasant exchange, but Dexter began to complain about how negligent his son was. Never sent him a birthday card or Christmas card. As the conversation degenerated, Dexter called his son a "loser" for refusing to go to Harvard Business School. After the chewing out, his son never came back. That was the first time and last time a family member went to see him. Now Dexter was more alone than ever. For the first time, after his son stormed out of the room, Dexter cried. 

When a chaplain tried to talk to him, Dexter cursed him out. Organized religion was a crutch for the weak. He didn't need God. He didn't need anyone! He was a self-made man! 

Dexter had a roommate whose bed was by the window. Dexter seethed about the fact that his roommate had a view while Dexter was one bed over, away from the view. He hoped his roommate would die soon. The sooner the better. That was the one thing he was tempted to pray about. Had he been a praying man, that's what he'd prayer for–his roommate's swift demise, so that Dexter could have the bed by the window. 

One night his roommate began groaning in pain. Dexter struggled to get out of bed on his own, staggered over to his roommate's bed, and yanked the remote out of reach so that his roommate couldn't use the panic button. 

But he stumbled and fell as he pivoted to go back to his own bed. Due to the injury, Dexter was confined to a wheelchair. 

Next morning, after his dead roommate was taken away, they moved Dexter to the bed by the window. But when he finally had a chance to look out the window, it was facing a concrete wall. That was the view. 

He tried to order the nurses around, making lewd comments about their appearance and groping them when they came within reach. As a result, they stopped responding when he needed someone to walk him to the bathroom. He wet himself and soiled himself while they ignored him. He felt like a missing person. After a while, people stop looking for you. They adjust to the absence. You're gone, but life goes on. 

One night he was seized by wracking chest pain. He pumped the panic button, but no one came. He died clutching the panic button. When they discovered him in the morning, it was curled in the grip of his rigid fist.