Brain Sad
Chapter Seven
Harper awoke with the feeling of disorientation familiar with that of childhood. Where you would fall asleep in the car or at your nana’s house only to wake up in your own bed wondering when you learned to teleport. But instead of the mystifying question of new found magical powers, Harper was faced with the question of how long she had before she was confined to nothing more than this hospital. Of how long until she couldn’t even think of getting out of bed.
Harper laid her head in her hands and dug her nails into her scalp as she thought of this. It wasn’t fair. She was already destined to wind up in a stupid wooden coffin with stupid greedy worms eating her stupid rotting flesh until she became a stupid dead skeleton. Why did she have to spend Post-Illness being stuck in this boring, idiotic, meaningless, STUPID hospital room?
Is that all her life had become: Pre-Illness and Post-Illness? Part I and Part II? Two separate chapters that had been pointlessly written and were now being even more pointlessly read because some inconsiderate bastard had forgotten to say “spoiler alert!” and now everybody knew the goddamn ending?
Harper squirmed further down into the bed, not wanting to face these things. All she wanted was to be okay. Not cured. Not un-terminal. Just okay. She just wanted to wake up in the morning and decide she wanted to go and see her friends or to take a stroll in the local park. Instead, she awoke in the morning with a daily visit from Cerdepitol and perhaps a stroll to the cafeteria where she would eat a soggy salad sandwich alone.
And even more than she wanted to be okay, she wanted to be able to deal. Her grip on reality and her former self was slipping and she hated it. She hated it more than she hated the doctor’s cold hands. She hated more than she hated the smell of hand sanitiser. She hated it more than she hated the Cancer patients. Her acceptance of her diagnoses was slowly fading away into the haze of red that was beginning to overtake her mind. Everything was becoming too hard. She was too sensitive. It was all too much.
Just then, her brooding thoughts were interrupted by the door of her room opening. It was her mum.
“Hey,” she greeted softly, coming to sit on the bed beside her daughter. “How’re you feeling?”
Harper snorted. “Dead.”
Her mother frowned, but said nothing, knowing deep down that it wasn’t really Harper, but the Depression using her like some twisted marionette.
“Sorry, Mum,” Harper whispered regretfully.
“I know it isn’t you, baby girl,” her mother replied, her voice coming out slightly raspy as she reached out to stroke her daughter’s dark hair.
And Harper began to cry. Not the small little sobs that lasted no more than a minute, but heaving wails that ripped through her throat in croaky gasps. The tears poured down her face in warm rivers and her shoulders shook violently. Her mother wrapped her arms around her and held her daughter close, not caring as her shirt dampened. She felt tears brim in her own eyes and she tried desperately not to let them fall, but failed.
And they stayed like that. Mother and daughter entwined together, bound by blood, torn by illness, their tears mingling into a mess of broken hearts and inability to heal them. They became one person, joined by the thing that would ultimately separate them. They gripped each other tight, neither knowing whether or not this would be the last time they would know this feeling. They were two buoys keeping each other afloat as the icy waves of reality finally crashed down around them, sweeping them into its deadly tide.
And in their sorrows, they drowned.
Harper laid her head in her hands and dug her nails into her scalp as she thought of this. It wasn’t fair. She was already destined to wind up in a stupid wooden coffin with stupid greedy worms eating her stupid rotting flesh until she became a stupid dead skeleton. Why did she have to spend Post-Illness being stuck in this boring, idiotic, meaningless, STUPID hospital room?
Is that all her life had become: Pre-Illness and Post-Illness? Part I and Part II? Two separate chapters that had been pointlessly written and were now being even more pointlessly read because some inconsiderate bastard had forgotten to say “spoiler alert!” and now everybody knew the goddamn ending?
Harper squirmed further down into the bed, not wanting to face these things. All she wanted was to be okay. Not cured. Not un-terminal. Just okay. She just wanted to wake up in the morning and decide she wanted to go and see her friends or to take a stroll in the local park. Instead, she awoke in the morning with a daily visit from Cerdepitol and perhaps a stroll to the cafeteria where she would eat a soggy salad sandwich alone.
And even more than she wanted to be okay, she wanted to be able to deal. Her grip on reality and her former self was slipping and she hated it. She hated it more than she hated the doctor’s cold hands. She hated more than she hated the smell of hand sanitiser. She hated it more than she hated the Cancer patients. Her acceptance of her diagnoses was slowly fading away into the haze of red that was beginning to overtake her mind. Everything was becoming too hard. She was too sensitive. It was all too much.
Just then, her brooding thoughts were interrupted by the door of her room opening. It was her mum.
“Hey,” she greeted softly, coming to sit on the bed beside her daughter. “How’re you feeling?”
Harper snorted. “Dead.”
Her mother frowned, but said nothing, knowing deep down that it wasn’t really Harper, but the Depression using her like some twisted marionette.
“Sorry, Mum,” Harper whispered regretfully.
“I know it isn’t you, baby girl,” her mother replied, her voice coming out slightly raspy as she reached out to stroke her daughter’s dark hair.
And Harper began to cry. Not the small little sobs that lasted no more than a minute, but heaving wails that ripped through her throat in croaky gasps. The tears poured down her face in warm rivers and her shoulders shook violently. Her mother wrapped her arms around her and held her daughter close, not caring as her shirt dampened. She felt tears brim in her own eyes and she tried desperately not to let them fall, but failed.
And they stayed like that. Mother and daughter entwined together, bound by blood, torn by illness, their tears mingling into a mess of broken hearts and inability to heal them. They became one person, joined by the thing that would ultimately separate them. They gripped each other tight, neither knowing whether or not this would be the last time they would know this feeling. They were two buoys keeping each other afloat as the icy waves of reality finally crashed down around them, sweeping them into its deadly tide.
And in their sorrows, they drowned.