This story starts where most stories end. Or maybe I should say the author, myself, knows the ending to my own story.
I’m 17 years old and I have stage 4 lymphoma. For you rookies, that means me and the grim reaper are doomed….destined to meet.
However, this story isn’t about cancer. It isn’t about some hospital doing experiments on children, and it won’t be able to come to conclusions. This story - however written by me - is not my own. Not really.
We start the night we learned the current treatments weren’t working. I can’t tell you which drug cocktails they were using anymore - I stopped paying attention when my hair fell out. I remember mom, usually stoic in grief, screaming outside in the hallway. I recall the beeping of my machines, something that had become similar to white noise.
I remember seeing my dad, staring at the ground. The rain fell down the hospital window, a downpour, a physical representation of what my parents must be feeling.
I couldn’t stand to look at them - I tried my best to stare out the window, even if all I could see was the room reflected back at me. My body reacted to her first. I felt my skin raise on my arms, spidey senses, if you will. I closed my eyes, I listened. Beep - beep - beep - machines still doing their thing. Mom, screaming, check. Rain on the window, check. Something else? I opened my eyes and I jumped. My reflection in the window staring back at me. I sighed and laid down.
I felt droplets on my skin, like the rain had somehow gotten inside. Eyes open, I saw her. Mouth wide, screaming, no sound. What I felt had to have been spittle. Her eyes were wide.
In these moments, you’d think you’d scream. You think you’d scream for your parents right outside the doorway, the doctor, hit the button that goes to the nurses station. But…..all I could do was stare. The beep - beep - beeping increased quickly, and an alarm sounded. All three rushed to my side - mother, father, doctor. I’m not sure what they saw. I don’t know what I looked like, then. Bald, small. Eyes screwed towards the ceiling, open, wide. No sound.
Now that I type this out, I probably looked just like she did to me.
I still am in the same hospital, still no hair, on a new floor. I have new nurses but the doctors seem to stay the same. Or maybe all doctors look alike from the view of a hospital bed.
The fight with my parents to sign the DNR was exhausting. I raised my voice, something I don’t tend to have the strength for any longer. In the end, I won out. However, it came with a clause. I had to keep fighting. Try another round of this, a new trial of that. I gave in. And so this hospital has been all I’ve known now, for months.
One night, alone on my floor, I woke up suddenly. I heard what sounded like sobbing. Assuming we’d lost another person, that a nurse was having a bad moment, I stood. I wanted to offer kindness and compassion to the people who clean my fucking ass when I can hardly move. Can you blame a girl?
I stood on shaky legs, reaching for my walker. 17 years old and I need a god damn walker. I grab my pole full of the fluids they’re constantly pumping into me, and I creep.
My door is often left cracked open, mom and dad slipping in and out when they can. I slide through, and wonder if the new drugs they’re giving me have side effects they don’t know about yet. Suddenly, I’m in an old ward. The kind of ward lit with candles and women in all white, a stripe of red over their hats. I walk. No one seems to notice me.
The sobbing is stronger now, and as far as I can tell, no one else is paying attention. Further I walk, looking into different rooms, seeing people wrapped in gauze. Everyone else….every person besides the mystery crier…..was on mute.
I could see what was happening, but only hear the cries. Slowly, I walk. I hear the sound further down the hallway, and I inch my way forward. By now, my mind had cleared as much as it could, considering the amount of pain medication they pump me with. The idea I was walking into the old woman occurred to me. Reader, maybe you’re screaming at me right now. Go back! Go lay down! Don’t do it, stupid girl.
I understand. If you want, you can stop here. Go find a story about a clown who haunts birthday parties. No one will blame you. Certainly not I.
Within a room to the right, the sobbing becomes almost unbearable. I walker myself into the room and there she is. The old woman with the silent cries. She’s facing me but her head is down. I ask her, timidly, if she’s okay.
Slowly, she raises her head. I brace myself. I’ve seen horror movies, okay? I’m expecting the same face, no eyes, maybe some blood. Instead, she is human, and she is broken. She reaches her hand out to me, and I grab it. It feels soft, like my grandma’s hand. Cold, too. I make my way to her bed and sit beside her, having fully already considered I died and this was some weird transition to the afterlife.
Instead, flashes come to my mind. Memories that aren’t mine. She’s showing me. A baby. A beautiful, chubby baby. Giggling. I feel so happy. I see hands that aren’t my hands but are my hands squeeze those little thighs, I see hair fall around my face, I recognize I’m….having….her memory? It jumps. I’m screaming at a man. I know what he’s done and he won’t get away with it again. I’m angry and I want him to pay. He turns on his heels, quickly. I feel her fear. The baby.
A rush to the hallway. A battle to the door. He closes himself inside the nursery. The baby is crying, screaming. She is, too. Scratching on the big oak door, banging hard against the frame. The nursery has a small bath inside. Water filled within the basin already, they’d begun their fight the moment he returned late from work.
The screaming. The pain. And then suddenly. The silence. Our screams became more desperate. Shoes on the floor, the door opens. He walks straight past us, down the stairs. Up we rise, knowing we don’t want to see, knowing we must see anyway. Baby, floating in the basin. Gone. Pain. So much pain. Screaming. Broken bottles, broken lamps. Time itself is no more. And suddenly, two people arrive, with a coat. They’re telling us we hurt our baby, our husband found her dead and me like this and called.
We’re locked up now, in a cell, where screams are eternal. Baby is gone. Husband will continue to hurt those girls. There is nothing we can do. We know he’ll be here soon, this is his hospital after all.
We’re on a cold table, and can’t move our head. Fear and confusion, the meds they give us must be affecting us just as much as my pain meds affect me. HE walks in, says something I… we can’t hear….there are straps around our head. The nurses nod and….leave us alone with him. The tools on the side of the table. A small hint of clarity as he raises the small, sharp piece of metal to our eye. The first pound into our skulls made us pass out.
I open my eyes, not realizing they were closed. She’s gone. I’m back in my room.
I’m tired now. I’m sorry. Her tale, this woman who can’t tell me her name, it isn’t over. She’s trying to show me something. I’m getting more weak each day, and I can see her more clearly, sometimes.
Goodnight, my friends.