a minor affliction [ aiden and danny

[[nyte]]

a i d e n ;

Pills. I don't see the point of them, of my father's insistence that I can be saved. Pills, like little stars shoved down my throat every morning and the morning before that and before that and before that and...

I'm tired of it all, of trying. There are days that I don't even dare get out of bed because there's tar in my lungs and blood in my throat and every time a wipe the drool from the corners of my mouth it's always dark crimson and tastes of rotten pennies.

At this point I am living on his word that life after this will be worth it. That my demons will not once again claw its way down my throat and they will not see the opaque ghosts appear on my lungs once more, deaths fingerprints stained into my flesh.

I keep telling him that miracles do not happen twice. Lightning will never crack the same soil. Whatever lives up in the heavens has spared me once and fate will not be so forgiving again. Never again. There is only so much a body can take. 

And the tumor just keeps getting bigger.

I've never had much interest in life after death, never seen myself as anything but ten feet underground once I succumb to this constant sluggishness that has taken me. But I can't help but be curious about what awaits me because the deadline seems to be approaching at an ever increasing rate and there is nothing that I can find that will ease the uneasiness stirring in my gut. Slowing blood that already feels like concrete through my veins. 

One can only stare death in the face for so long before succumbing to the fear it radiates. I am ready to go, have come to terms with the fact that I have had (and will only ever have) eighteen short years to fill what should have been a lifetime but at the same time I am so terrified that sometimes I wish I could fold myself within my blankets and beg for one last bit of kindness, for my life back. 

But I am not so pathetic. 

The bottle is near empty. The stars clang noisily against the plastic cage I soon free them from. Bitter whiteness placed on the back of my tongue, washed away by a wave of clear, tasteless drink. 

Even water makes my stomach churn.

It's a side effect of these chemicals I am so constantly exposing myself to, welcoming them in with a mouth hung wide. They ruin my appetite, they thin my hair. It will not be long until anyone could look at me and see the death that is closing in like vultures to carrion. And then they will pity me, look at me with those sad eyes and mouths turned into pouts. 

It's terrible to see such a young boy go to something like this. You should be out running, not confined to a hospital bed.

(And yet your words change nothing, do they?)

I scrawl a quick note to Father and leave it tacked to the front door, just above the white board meant to keep track of what medications I have to take when. I often wonder when living became such a complicated process. Gone to the pharmacy, big surprise. Don't have a heart attack.

As much as I have some to love my father, there is something so suffocating about all that he has sacrificed for me. Nothing he does will bring Mom back but I don't think he's quite realized it yet. I hold out no hope that he ever will. 

I feel as though I have run a mile before I arrive at a hospital a mere two blocks away. It's not usually this bad, I chide to stop the dread tugging at my heartstrings, today is just a bad day. 

I'm not ready to spend my last few weeks holed up in a white room, not yet.

The smell of antiseptic makes me nauseous. I keep a hand over my mouth as I trudge over to a counter with an old lady stationed behind, one with a motherly smile and a nametag that reads Marlene.

"Hey, Marlene is it?" I give her a smile, feeling pressure building up in my throat with every falsetto word. "I'm here for-," The cough is sudden, coming from somewhere deep in my chest, stirring what had so happily laid dormant. Hands are being wrapped around my lungs, breath lost as i dissolve into a fit of ugly barks. "Sorry I just need- j- j- ust n-need-." 

And suddenly I am helpless, doubled over as pain spreads to even the tips of my fingers and I am retching into my palm, drawing even more attention to an affliction I just want to ignore.

But I guess you cannot ignore death.

[ ugky ]

[Stare]

[googlefont="Parisienne:400"]danny brooker

slow down
we’re losing the meaning of words now
quiet the noise
'cause we made a mountain of minuscule things

Danny didn't tell her parents why she left the house, and they didn't ask.

It was the same routine every month. She made sure that Alex was out and about or somewhere where she couldn't ask questions before throwing on a sweatshirt two sizes too big and a pair of sunglasses regardless of the weather, slipping out the back door without so much as a word to anyone. Once upon a time it was how she'd left when she was heading for damp alleys to embrace leather jackets and suck on a cigarette like she was breathing for the very first time. They would bang on old trash cans just to scare the people passing by, etching every foul word they knew onto the dumpsters because they could.

It had been a long time since she'd smoked. Her mother once told her that cigarettes would kill her. Whenever she looks back on the memory, she gives a wry smile. Maybe they could. But not fast enough, Mama.

It was sleeting when she stepped outside and Danny scowled as she tugged the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head, tugging her hair underneath it. She glanced at her reflection in the window as she passed it, a bleeding reflection of a girl who obviously didn't want to be seen. She'd cut off all ties with her old friends - stopped going to the alleys, stopped shoplifting at the same stores - but they sometimes still tried to find her, asking if she wanted a good time. The sweatshirt helped with that. Sometimes she wished that was the true reason why she wore it.

The walk wasn't a long time, but she was still bitter and shivering by the time she arrived. Her teeth chattered as she entered the building, breathing in the familiar scent of sanitized rooms and crisp sheets. She'd grown to hate the color white because it was everywhere, a blank slate to remind the people trapped within it of all the chances they would never have. She avoided looking into any rooms and kept her teeth gritted, glaring at the floor through sunglasses that she didn't dare take off. Maybe one day the setting would make her feel fear, like she should, but at the current time she just felt angry. Angry and betrayed and resentful.

Her eyes caught on a vase on an empty bedside table, and the spite swelled in her chest. Who the hell could possibly think that a dying person would want to see even more dying things? What comfort was it to see such beautiful things snipped from their lifeline for no good reason? She turned her head away quickly, stuffing her hands into her pockets and shaking her head.

It was the sound of death that finally drove the bitter taste in her mouth away.

Danny spun toward the sound, immediately alarmed. The sunglasses made it somewhat difficult to see, but she recognized a silhouette doubled over in front of the nurse's counter. Heads turned but people didn't move, as if this was nothing new. Danny knew that she should probably do the same - she would never forgive herself if someone recognized her - but the nurse she needed was currently flailing behind the counter. And besides, she sure as hell was no hero, but certainly wasn't just going to let him stand there like that.

Hating herself and the sleet that still soaked her to the bone and the white walls that threatened to swallow her, she moved toward the boy, ducking down and trying not to get eye level with him. She jerked back when she felt the breath from one of her coughs, swearing as the sunglasses fell off her face but not bothering to pick them up. Instead, her hands hesitated in the air for a moment before reaching forward to grasp at the boy's arms, half to steady him and half to let him know she was there. "Hey, are you okay?" Stupid question. "What do you need? What can I do? How can I help?"

Someday soon, people would be asking her those same questions. She could see them hovering over her, eyes narrowed with concern over something they didn't understand. How can I help? More than the question, she dreaded the answer.

You can't.

hold on
'cause what’s said is said and what’s done’s done
oblivious clocks on the walls run
'cause time doesn’t owe us a thing