I have no more I wish to discover today. - DNAB
Dark is always there. At night it is the night. As morning comes it moves and shifts and hides behind things. I could open my curtains, but then the darkness plays tricks on me. It lies.
So I lie.
In my bed. I will stay here.
Perhaps forever.
On my side I stare at the cracked brown wall. Halfway up the crack turns sideways, viciously, dramatically, loudly.
I have headache.
I have a crack in my wall.
I have curtains I don’t want to open.
I have questions.
My questions are hungry, they devour my other thoughts and stand alone in the center of my empty mind.
They shape the space in my room. The curtains flutter, the shadow moves across the crack in my wall. An unknown figure dances away.
It is the crack again. The curtain is still. The silence sits in the dark and listens to me.
Is the world spinning, or am I?
My hungry mind leaves me that question. It offers it to me as food.
And I can’t answer it.
Sometimes my mind thinks I am asleep, my eyes are closed but I am awake.
I snatch at the questions flying past before they are eaten, consumed, discarded as darkness to float behind the curtains in my room.
Suffocating in my bed. Pretending to be asleep. I grab at the shiny prize flying past. I am Harry living alone in my small dark room. I will snatch the snitch before my hungry mind consumes it all.
Why me? Obvious I know. It passes quickly, and has no answer. I leave it to the voracious dark.
How does an 11 year old get cancer? Feels like a science question. Data would know. Doctors would know. Parents should know. I don’t know.
It wasn’t even a surprise when the curtains were yanked open and light filled the room. I knew it would be mother. I knew it was time.
Get out of bed.
I’m not ready.
Get out of bed.
It’s not time.
Get out of bed.
I want to do something new.
Get out of bed and you can do something new.
CHEMO IS NOT NEW. I HAVE DONE IT BEFORE AND I DON’T LIKE IT.
She stands there for the longest time, waiting for me to speak, expecting me to say something. I wish I could. I wish I could discover something new. Something so amazing that it would make me forget the crack in my wall, the darkness hiding behind my curtains, and the stranger who dances away when the wind blows.
It’s a train running through the middle of my head.
It gets closer, filling my minds eye.
Pushing the hungry thoughts out of the way.
Spilling noise and movement into my brain.
Questions slip and slide through the noise and movement.
What was that noise?
It sounds like something.
Is it next door?
Are they building?
Questions charge ahead of the train in my brain. Pushing darkness, headaches, Chemo, mother and the dancing stranger aside.
What is that noise?
Did I just hear it again?
I stand there for the longest time, waiting for me to speak, expecting me to say something. I wish I could. I wish I could discover something new. Something so amazing that it would make me forget the crack in my wall, the darkness hiding behind my curtains, and the stranger who dances away when the wind blows.
I’m standing at the window. I held my breathe all the way from the bed to here. It tricked my mind. There is no hunger, no train, no questions. Just the curtain.
I reach out and pull it slowly to the side.
The sun touches my skin softly.
I see a small boy playing with a blue ball in the empty lot.
I watch.
I have no questions.
I have no more I wish to discover today.
