Short Story

The parents came out of Grandma’s room by one by one, bags under their eyes, makeup running down their face, and bright red noses. By that time, I could almost predict what happened. As my mom and dad approached us with their heads down, I prepared myself to hear exactly what I never wanted to hear. “The doctors are turning off the life support machine. She isn’t suffering anymore, and she will be looking over every one of you guys. She said she loves you all so much,” Mom told us while my dad didn’t hide his tears back.

During this time, I felt alone. My parents were at the hospital a lot. I felt I could not trust anyone. I had no one to share my secrets with. I began to hide my feelings. I plastered a fake smile on my face and pretended everything was going to be okay. I knew it was not going to be okay. If Kaylee got her heart transplant, the family would have to get rid of our cat, Maggie. If Kaylee did not get a heart in time, she would die.

“Right this way,” the nurse ahead of me was prompting me to a brightly lit hall that was completely foreign to me. I couldn’t help but be terrified by the sights and sounds around me: people chattering, machines methodically beeping, gurneys rushing past. It was my first time in a hospital and my eyes frantically searched each room looking for any trace of my father. She stopped suddenly and I turned to the bed in front of me but I could not comprehend what I saw. At such a young age, I idolized my father; I had never seen him so vulnerable. Seeing him laying in a hospital bed unconscious, surrounded by wires and tubes was like witnessing Superman encounter kryptonite. My dad’s car accident not only made him a quadriplegic, but also crippled

There was a strong pungent of disinfectants and rubbing alcohol as she was rushed into the lobby. Crying out her last breath to express her agonizing pain as she lied down on the cold gurney. The nurses in a light blue uniform quickly arrived as several doctors in long white gowns rushed to the scene. Her mother was by her side, holding her hands as tight as she could, as the nurses pushed the agitating gurney towards the automatic doors. Soon her visions blurred and as the world turned into a tint of pink and red. As her vision slowly darkened, she solely relied on the touch of her mother’s warm hand and her soothing voice. Notwithstanding the tight grip of her mother’s hands, they was soon torn apart. Fear took over her body as she cried even louder. The sudden yet rhythmic beep was the last memory she could recall. It was March 5th.

My hospital bed was ice cold and the bleak and empty white walls depressed me as the uncomforting thought that I would have to stay here for maybe another week brought tears to my eyes. The usual and oppressive smell of disinfectant lingered in the room as I recalled that night in my head, trying to convince myself it wasn’t my fault, as I had done everyday since the accident. It was the day everything changed and my life was turned upside down. Forever.

When I saw my aunt and uncle walk into the waiting room, fresh tear stains streaked upon their cheeks, I knew. When my uncle opened his mouth to say something and nothing came out but a child like squeal, my heart was torn in half. When someone finally said the words ‘she’s gone’ to the family members that had just arrived, getting my extremities cut off of my body one by one would have most certainly hurt less. I shut down and sat in that too clean smelling hospital room, little by little people began to say their good-byes to each other and leave, while I just sat. My grandpa walked in and I looked up at the red neon clock on the wall to see that a hour had passed. Without saying a word, he motioned and walked with me out of the room to the end of the hallway where my sister and cousin were sitting. The corner where the four of us sat, you could look out the windows into a sea of city

It was 5:00, and as I glanced outside at the gray mist, I couldn’t shake the thought that I was going to miss another day of fourth grade. “Why me,” I wondered as I strained my muscles to watch the door. I had a weird disease, the neurologists were saying recently. Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy. You can break it down to this. Imagine a horrible disease that rids you of all your physical capabilities. Now multiply that by ten. Put yourself on steroids. Get into a wheelchair. That’s what was left of me. Yup, withering away like a dying fire. Just then my beautiful, totally not pitying myself thoughts were interrupted by the creak of the wooden door with a window in it, as a man in a white coat walked into the room, and after talking with my dad a few minutes, he loaded me into a soft, white bed on wheels, so I closed my eyes as the cart rumbled down the hallway to the elevator. I didn’t really care what happened to me, I was used to pain, as long as there weren't any residents operating on me. It was a mistake that I picked the banana anesthesia, a mistake I would apply to my knowledge it future surgeries. I gaped

I gawked at the crowd of kids, why did they have to make so much noise, or move so much? I hated how new I was to this, but I kept on.

I lay with one ear pressed against my brother’s chest in a hospital bed meant for one. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. His ten-year-old heart beats as fast as a sixty-year-old smoker’s, desperately trying to compensate for the weakness in his cardiac muscles. We lie watching the History Channel, one of his favorites, when a nurse walks in to insert an IV needle. I watch his big, brown eyes as it takes the nurse four times to get the needle in one of the veins, finally finding its place in his small, delicate hands. His eyes never leave the television screen and his posture remains relaxed. This is nothing more than a routine, a life he’s always known.

“Twenty-one! The Chief’s vote makes it twenty-one! And by God if that ain’t a majority I’ll eat my hat!” “Yippee,” Cheswick yells. The other Acutes are coming across toward me. “The meeting was closed,” she says. Her smile is still there, but the back of her neck as she walks out of the day room and into the Nurses’ Station, is red and swelling like she’ll blow apart any second.

I find it difficult to keep staring at my son, I’m watching nothing. He just lies in the bed perfectly still, but in great agony. The world seems to have stopped in this room, it is as if time doesn’t exist. Outside this room though the world continues to move on, and nurses and doctors roam the corridors trying to save another patient. It’s hard to believe there is so much pain in the world. The doctors act as if they are immune to pain especially the way they urge me to end my son’s life.

“Yeah, someone needs to go up to France and give them a piece of all of our minds! And I think that I want to be the first!” Tyler exclaimed. Cameron and Tyler nodded in agreement.

Rose colored shards fell from the sky as citizens evacuated the area, Hekesville's central train station was destroyed, the clock tower was demolished by our accidental damage. "She's not waking up!" I puffed, holding onto my stomach, avoiding getting sliced by Cecie's, well now Durga's shards. "I'm not getting jailed for a crime I didn't do, and neither are you!"Raven my comrade flew next to me. "Just give up!" Kail let out a wicked laugh,

Crouched beside my father's hospital bed, I prayed for him to stay alive as he ran his trembling fingers through my soft brown curls for the last time. He focused on my big green eyes as they overflowed with salty tears and whispered: “Sabrina Jane, in no circumstance you will give up hope.”

My mom drove almost too close to the vehicle. I propped my head up on the paper wrapped pillow so that I could watch her through the small, back windows of the ambulance doors. The sirens were hushed, almost as if there wasn’t a problem at all. “Vitals are normal, 97.3° is her temp, only about 40 more minutes until we’re there,” the kind EMT was trying to lighten up the mood. My sirens might not have been screaming, but my mind was a broken machine that needed to be fixed before my whole body could work again.