Brain Sad

It was that time of the month again. Well actually week. Or make that every goddamned day. For Harper almost every second of every minute was like having her period. Not as in the 'quick Mum, get me some Libra, Stayfree, anything!', but more along the lines 'I HATE EVERY PERSON WHO WAS EVER BORN, HAS DIED AND ARE BEING CONCIEVED AT THIS VERY MOMENT!'

"Angst-struating" she called it.

She knew it was the Depression causing her brain to lose its emotional filter, but this didn't stop her from attempting her usual methods of dealing with mood swings.

This is why she sat in bed, curled up, watching The Breakfast Club, eating Homer Hudson ice-cream from the carton, her wheat pack draped across her non-cramping middle. It felt just like any other period. Except for the constant beeping of the machines she was attached to. Not to mention the uncomfortable feeling of the thin metal tip of a needle shoved under the skin of her hand. Oh, and the fact her body wasn't going through a cycle of reproduction, but instead dying a little more with each of Judd Nelson's snide comments.

She closed her eyes at this thought and allowed a long drawn out breath to escape from her lips. The uncomfortable hospital blankets rustled quietly as she swung herself out of bed, her toes recoiling slightly from the cold linoleum floor. As she hesitated there, poised between sitting on the edge of the mattress and standing up, she noticed how bare her room was. No flowers took up space on every surface, no cards sat on her bedside table in a disorganised order, no teddy bears signed by classmates sat upon the ugly hospital blankets. The only colour in the room was her hot pink travel bag. She didn’t even like pink.

She found herself feeling envious of the terminal cancer patient in the room next hers. His name was Daniel and everybody loved him. Daniel with his weekly visits from family and friends. Daniel with his armfuls of flowers and gifts. Daniel with his oh so positive outlook on life. Daniel with his stupid, fucking cancer.

People with cancer weren’t scary like people with Depression were.

Harper let her body slump back onto the edge of the bed; suddenly deciding that getting up was too much effort. But she didn’t feel bad for this. Everything was too much effort for everyone else, so she felt entitled to be lazy seeing as she was dying.

It was too much effort for her friends to come and see her. Too much effort to treat her the same way. Too much effort to buy her a five dollar bouquet of flowers from Woolworths. Too much effort to show they cared.

It was all too much.

Screw you guys, she thought, pushing herself up again.

With a wince she pulled the needle out from her hand, the pull of the adhesive bandage upon her skin almost more painful than the removal of the actual needle. Her mother would have had a heart attack if she had seen this. Harper could almost hear her explaining in that guilty yet firm voice that she needed the needle to keep her fluids up.

I’ll drink from the bubbler in the hallway.

She padded towards the door of her room and opened it, stepping out into the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway. Walking towards the entrance to the hospital garden/the exit to the white walled prison, she stopped at one of the bubblers lining the walkway and drank deeply. This liquid didn’t feel so artificial.

Finally she stepped outside into the pale moonlight and headed towards her accustomed spot on the swing set. But a lone figure sat upon one of the swings, their bare feet trailing limply in the dirt. Harper walked towards them, curious as to whom it was and was shocked as she recognised Daniel’s face in the glow of the moon.

She sat down next to him, not wanting to give up her late night swing set visit just because Daniel the Cancer patient was in her spot. Pushing off with her feet, Harper began to rock herself back and forth. They weren’t the big swings you did when you were five and had no sense of danger, but instead the small, thoughtful swings that you only did when you had something big to contemplate like God or dying. The motion of the swings always seemed to dislodge the thoughts in Harper’s head, seemed to help her unscramble everything. But not tonight. With every rock, her mind seemed to become even more jumbled and messy. She came to a stop.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked Daniel, accusation coating her voice.

He turned his head towards her, as if he had only just noticed her presence. “Sorry, didn’t know going outside wasn’t allowed.”

Harper frowned and Daniel grinned.

“Yeah, well…” Harper’s voice trailed off as she realised she had no reply.

Daniel laughed and Harper felt her face redden in anger. What right did Daniel have to laugh at her? She opened her mouth to tell him to be quiet, although not quite as politely as that, but was stopped as he spoke.

“Sorry,” he said, running a hand over his bald head, “I don’t laugh to be rude…I don’t know, I guess I laugh for the sake of laughing.”

“Yeah,” she agreed before she could stop herself, “I get that.”

Silence followed this exchange and the slight creak of the metal chains mingled with the faint sound of cars on the highway was all that could be heard. Harper wanted nothing more than to hate Daniel, to yell and scream and tell him he wasn’t special, that he was just like her, some insignificant human in this massive world who was destined to die a meaningless death. But she stayed quiet, for as much as she envied Daniel, she couldn’t help but enjoy his presence
.
The chains of the swing felt cool in her palms as she gripped them. She tilted her head back slightly; her pale neck exposed, and gazed into the star scattered sky. The branches of the trees bent in the warm breeze, shaking off the last of winter and making way for the green leaves that were already beginning to unfurl. It made her sad and angry and confused and self-pitying all at the same time when she thought about how differently people treated her. For even though her and Daniel were both nineteen, hospitalised and terminal, the rift between cancer patients and Depression patients was unmissable.

Cancer patient Daniel was loved. He was kind and gentle. He lit up a room with his positivity and good humour. People pitied him and pitied themselves for having to watch him die. Family and friends came in a constant stream during visiting hours, their laughter and sometimes even their sobs able to be heard in Harper’s room.

But Depression patients were scary. People feared them, as if they would bite like a rabid dog. They thought they could catch their crazy. That the inflammation of the brain was contagious if you looked at them or spoke hello. Depression patients could be unstable. They weren’t cuddly and relatable. They were too different. Too difficult. Too dangerous.

Harper felt her throat tighten in a mix of anger, sadness and envy and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to run back to her room

(tomb)

and hide away under the covers, no longer caring about the pride of staying out here on the swings. No longer caring if Daniel thought she was weird. No longer caring about why people didn’t come to see her. Because she knew why. They were scared. And honestly, she scared herself.

“I envy you, Harper. Did you know that?”

Harper stopped swinging and turned to Daniel, not sure if it was him who really spoke or if she had imagined it. He turned to face her, his hollowed face grim.

“You envy me?” She laughed, the sound coming out a little maniacal.

“Like, I mean, how stupid is it for a terminal patient to be jealous of another terminal patient?” He chuckled a solemn chuckle and went back to looking at her intently.

“Yeah…pretty stupid…” Harper looked at her feet.

“I mean, you just get so much time to be by yourself. It’s just you and your mum. Nobody else. I wish so much that I could have that quality time with my parents before I…y’know…”

“Die?” Harper filled in for him.

“Yeah…” It was Daniel’s turn to look at his feet.

“Yes, well, being alone when you’re dying isn’t exactly as great as it looks,” Harper spat, her lip curling back over her teeth slightly.

He was quiet after that and Harper pushed herself up from the swing. With clenched fists she made her way back across the rejuvenating grass of the garden, when she heard Daniel call her name. She turned, looking at his shadowy silhouette upon the swing set.

“We can always hang out, like, if you ever want the company,” he called.

“Sure, Daniel,” Harper called back, turning around again and walking back to the hospital.
And as she walked she shook her head, a sad smile resting upon her lips.

For didn’t he know that the loved cancer patients never hung out with the frightening Depression patients?