Time

A short story at a hospital bed

TW: Hospital, Sickness, Death (child)


Cold, white walls. Machines beeping. The smell of disinfection agents. Again.
I stride up to her bed. Her swollen eye-lids rise, bloodshot eyes locked on me. A cough, then a second and a third.
„Are you real?“ the girl asks with her weak, trembling voice. I nod. „You’re beautiful. Nothing like the pictures I’ve seen.“ I grab a chair and sit down at her bedside. She stares at the bare ceiling. „Have you ever felt pain?“ she asks. „Regret? Sadness?“
„No.“ I answer calmly. „But I do understand it.“ The machines at her bedside keep beeping, and little lights in various colors flash up in regular intervals.
„How long?“
„Five minutes and twenty-seven seconds, from now.“ I say, looking at the clock on the wall.
She does not speak again for the next two minutes and three seconds.
„Thanks.“
An alarm sound rings down the hall and a nurse rushes past the door window to the room next over. „Do they see you, too?“ I shake my head. „Only who accepts me can see me.“ I point outside. „They don‘t accept me. They fight me. Day after day.“
Another fifty-one seconds pass in this dark room.
„What about me? I fight you, too.“
I shake my head. „You fight for more time, but you have accepted me a long time ago.“ A tear runs down her cheek.
„You... don‘t talk much. I imagined you’d be kind, and caring. Promising me that you will take the pain away. That all my problems will be gone.“ Her voice becomes softer. Fainter. She swallows. „Telling me that I’m a strong girl for hanging in there for so long.” Again, I shake my head.
“I do not need to. You already know.” For a moment, a smile brightens her fragile face, before a violent coughing fit rattles her entire body. I stand up and inch closer. She looks up to me and nods. I place my hand on hers and hold it. The machines start beeping loudly, and the alarm rings. She gets up, and I help her out of bed. One feet on the floor, then the other. Slowly, we walk out of the door, past the exhausted nurse rushing in.