I settled into the park bench with a little glad sigh, and looked at the sea of daffodils surrounding me. They were so gorgeous, in their vibrant shades of yellow and orange. This was my favourite time of the year, with the daffodils in my favourite park in full bloom. Each daffodil was supposed to represent a cancer patient at the local hospital- the squat grey building looming behind me. Signs with beautiful printed wording adorned the side of the park “Not a victim, but a true warrior” “He fell as he had lived, fighting” “Cancer took her body, but her beautiful soul remains”. The benches too, all had little memorial plaques, inscribed with names and dates. A few others were walking slowly around the park, probably like me, enjoying the wonderful sight while remembering their loved ones.
For my mom was there too, she had fallen a few years ago, but I still never tired of coming to the daffodil park in spring, and remembering her. Although we used to live in the same house together until her death, it was somehow at that little park, which I hadn’t even known existed until she was hospitalized, that I felt closest to her. Sometimes, I felt I could almost hear her voice among the daffodils.
Buzz!
My mobile vibrated. I felt annoyed- was no moment sacred? I knew it was my own fault for not fully turning my phone off before coming to the daffodil park, as I always do- I don’t know how I overlooked that. Reluctantly, I drew out my phone and glanced at the new message from an unknown sender, just to make sure it was nothing urgent.
“It wasn’t cancer. They kill us there”
My blood froze as I read the words. I looked up. The daffodils were moving gently in breeze, the bright yellow petals and orange hearts taking on a slightly sickly shade as the clouds moved over the thin spring sun. A damp mist out of nowhere started drifting into the park, slowly shrouding the bright flowers.
The others too had settled in the benches dotted around the park, and were busily looking at their phones. Ordinarily I would have been irritated as to why they were looking at phones when visiting this sacred park, but now I felt a dreadful curiosity. Were they getting the same text message?
Against my better judgement, I texted back single question mark.
The answer came flying back.
“They kill us. At the hospital. We don’t die of cancer. It’s a lie”
My mind went hurtling back to my mother’s last days at that hospital behind me. How ill she had looked, greyish-yellow. I remembered the tortuous devices and the hospital smell came flooding back to me.
Something about the others in the park caught my attention. I looked at them more closely than I ever had since I entered the park.
And then I saw. They were all hooked up to medical devices. Some of them had needles lodged into their hands, their arms or heads, others had tubes attached to their noses, one had a tube running from an open hole in their throat. Their faces were all blank and poorly-defined, their features blurry. The devices led to nowhere – the tubes and wires trailing off into the damp mist which was now laying heavily over the park. My heart contracted with fear, and I felt rooted to the spot.
I texted back, lamely, I know. “I don’t understand”
The others were texting furiously on their phones. This time it took a few minutes. I felt them drawing on their collective energy to get through to me. I held my breath.
Buzz!
“They use us for experiments. Not healing us. They think we’re dying anyway, why not. It’s not as if anyone could tell the difference.”
My mind went back to my mother’s doctors, the surgeon, the oncologist, the radiologist, the nurses, the patient liaison, the long long explanations, the fatigue, the desperate desire to leave the hospital and just let them get on with it, do whatever they have to do. I saw my mother’s face again, framed by the cheerful patterned bandanas contrasting with her drawn anguished expression.
I texted “All of them?”
I knew what the answer would be even before I heard the buzz of my phone.
“Yes.”
I looked up. The others were staring straight at me, their eyes burning bright through the mist, the needles and wires moving faintly, in time with the daffodils, in the breeze. The one closest to me reminded me of my mother, she had her look about her eyes, although with eroded features, it was hard to tell. An assortment of needles and wires was dangling from her hands, arms and scalp. I shivered- with cold, with fear, I couldn’t tell anymore.
That buzz again.
“You know what you have to do”
I texted frantically. “But all the patients- other people there. They are just victims- like you!”
“It’s for the greater good. You will save so many more from death at that hospital”
I could not believe my mother, my kind gentle mother who would not hurt a fly when she was alive, who was always donating to local shelters and charities would agree and ask me for such a terrible thing. But the moment the doubt formed in my head, my phone buzzed again.
“Please. We cannot rest in peace until the deed is done. And think of all the souls you will save”
I knew then that I had to do it. I stood up, and left the daffodil park. The mist dissolved, and when I looked back, the sun was shining brightly on the brilliant yellow and orange flowers.
As an engineer, I have a good understanding of how materials and buildings work, and it wasn’t particularly hard for me to set the hospital on fire that same night. I stood in the daffodil park in the early hours of the morning, the daffodils pale white like ghost flowers, and watched the flames consume the building. The wail of the fire sirens couldn’t cover my mother’s approving murmur in my ear, and I felt a deep satisfaction and peace as I had never felt since her death.