On Thursdays I'll be taking a break from politics to have some free thoughts .Today I share my attempt at a deep novel-style writing.
She spat the water into the ceramic sink, and refused to look into the mirror. She could taste the vile acid in her mouth as it burned like a flame in the back of her throat. Yet, that pain was a familiar one. She barely noticed the aching now, she barely noticed anything. She wiped her scabbing lips dry, ridding them of the moisture they so desperately desired. She wiped them just as she had wiped away everything she had lived and dreamed for, everything she desired. But, the desires these days are what ruined her. Her disease.
“Is everything alright in there Ms. Farhen?” asks a tiring voice with as much concern as enthusiasm.
No response.
“I can’t wait for you much longer,” sounded the voice, tiring more with every word, “other people are waiting.”
The door clicked open, and the ghoulish figure slowly crept out of the bathroom. Her eyes seemed beaten, shadowed, dark, and dead. The same could be said for most of her body. Her sagging arms, which seemed to hang off her like a Christmas ornament too heavy for its branch. Her frail, brittle legs, shaking with every step. Her face, aging at a rate too quick to calculate. Her once glimmering Julia Roberts smile was now a myth, her golden flowing hair was reduced to strings of oily yarn.
“Don’t call me Ms. Farhen,” the decrepit figure demanded without expression, “my name is Liz.”
No sign of acknowledgement followed. The nurse simply set down a cup on the table laden with unopened cards. Liz was at a point where she felt ‘get well’ cards were a mockery. Like a piece of cardboard with some generic notion stamped on was going to miraculously rid her of all the pain. As if Hallmark could produce a life-saving piece of paper that would get rid of all the shit she had dealt with. No card, no words, would ever heal her.
Liz reached for the cup. A potpourri of medical innovation, the blue one for the headaches, the yellow a blood-thinner, the pink one would prevent nausea caused by the blue one, the orange for her heart. As she looked at the psychedelic cup-o’-relief she held in her hand, the nurse chimed in, “let’s try to keep them out of the toilet this time….Liz.”
There’s something sad in the fact that she could drink a bottle of vodka as if it were water, but she could not keep down the medicines that were keeping her alive. Her body became repulsed by the fact that these small capsules were easing the problems she felt she deserved. She did not want to feel better, she didn’t want get better. She felt guilty, wanted to suffer for her sins. If she weren’t allowed to drink away her guilt, the least she could do was force her body to rid itself of anything and everything that would help her. The only power she had left in life was the power over herself. The power to keep herself incarcerated in her own misery.
She trembled as she placed each pill in her mouth, swallowing with disgust. The nurse stood behind her watching with piercing eyes as if she were a guard in the Korean buffer zone, awaiting a moment of chaos, where she would step in and take control. This moment never came. Liz succumbed to the nurse’s persistence and took her medicine. It would only take a few minutes until the next stop in the cycle. The nurse would leave, she’d begin to sweat, walk to the bathroom, be free from the medicine, and flush it away.
Any minute now, she thought to herself. The sweating began, as scheduled, but the nurse was still standing there.
“Not this time Liz,” the nurse said, as the hints of a smile began to appear, “It can’t work like this anymore. “
The look of satisfaction the nurse had on her face repulsed Liz more than the pills she ingested. The pressure was building in her chest; she could no longer hold it in. She felt the sweat beading on her forehead, her breathing became more and more rapid. Of all the things she’s been through, this became the most uncomfortable. She felt powerless, like a pawn at the hands of the nurse.
She was desperate. So was her body to get rid of everything inside of her. And then in happened. It pushed through her throat and finally out. As the medicine was expelled out, the power filled her once again. She stumbled to the nurse, looked her in the eyes and said nothing.
The silence summed up the animosity in the room. The nurse looked back at her, turned and left the room. Liz felt victorious, energized. She felt like she had just finished a race. And then it struck her. She sat on her bed, and realized her most accomplished moment in a long time was throwing-up
