Purgatory

Beep… Beep…Beep…

Ah, hell.

How long have I been here? A week, a month, a year? Timelessness. Eternal obscurity. Sporadically floating in and out of reality. Aware of sounds, but unable to respond.

I am dying. Slowly, but surely. Every second I lay here in this bed, I am growing frailer, more poorly. The nurses try ever so hard to make it easier. They bring me food, clothes, books, toys. All in vain.

Memories form, fade, and form again. I remember the tiny things. Homework assignments, throwaway conversations, the colours of pencils. Slowly piecing together my past, until I drift back into uneasy slumber, and I wake with no recollection of my life.

I’m afraid that if I see myself as I am now, I’ll completely lose the tiny essence of the person I used to be. I can’t look in a mirror, for fear that the sight of my body will be so ghastly, I will completely give up on myself altogether.

It pains me to see my parents. They come here often, silently watching as their only daughter desperately grasps onto her life, only to gradually fail, like someone climbing up a rope only to lose their grip and slide down inch by inch. I struggle to make a sound, to speak to them, to let them know that I’m not gone yet. The endeavor drains my little energy, and I have to return to simply looking on as tears silently roll down my mother’s cheeks.

Purgatory.

I can hear the incessant beep of the machine reading my heart rate. The steady rhythmic hum of the mechanism, interrupted only by the beeping of my heart, is soothing. It restores confidence in the fact that it’s not over yet.

I succumb to insanity, but it never lasts. I snap myself back into what’s left of my mind and halfheartedly return to my senses. I think about people I’ve met in my fourteen years, my close friends, my not-so-close friends, people I barely exchanged two words with. They all matter.

*

I see my reflection for the first time in an eternity. My face is pale, too pale. Purple circles rim my eyes and my hair is lank and dead looking. The spark of life has faded from my eyes. I turn the corners of my lips upwards into a feeble smile, and the tears start to flow. Hot, salty tears make their way down my insipid face, past the gaunt hollows of my cheeks and the contours of my jaw line.

The heat of my tears startles me. They feel searingly hot against my cold skin. I take small baby steps towards the window, balancing myself, afraid to fall. I raise a hand and brush back the dull curtains that hide me from the rest of the world. I peer out at the city, the sky as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night. The city lights glitter across the horizon. I stare out at the view, lips moving wordlessly as I pray for a miracle. A miracle to help me survive.

Death used to seem inevitable. Now I know it is but a choice, something I can resort to if all else fails.

And that’s how I uttered a word. The doctors were milling around, not expecting anything of me, and I summoned every fibre in my body and spoke one word: “No.”

            I said it very quietly. So quietly, in fact, that it was barely audible and I wasn’t sure if anyone could hear me. But they did. That was my miracle. Now all I can do is hope for another one and ask to survive.

Beep… Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…

            My heart rate quickens, and the doctors suddenly spring into action. It’s not over yet.

Beep… Beep… Beep…

Ah, hell.