The Clock

The ticking of the old decrepit clock stops momentarily as the rust covered gears

catch on one another. After an ominous silence, the gears shift and the repetitive sound

continues once again, echoing loudly throughout the large white room.

She sighs, a sound full of melancholy, regret and lost dreams as she glances

down at her pale hands that seem to be made up of just skin and bones, the veins

clearly visible through her transparent skin. Craning her neck to peer at the clock, she

winces as the action pulls unfamiliarly at the muscles in her neck. Just two more

minutes, she thinks, two more minutes until all of this is over. She had been waiting for

this moment since the day she had entered the hospital six months ago.

* * *

The local doctors she had been taken to see had been unable to diagnose the

cause of her condition. After being put through an innumerable number of unsuccessful

tests and treatments, her parents had decided to transfer her over to one of the best

health care facilities in America. March 28th marked the day she became known as a

medical enigma— no one had been able to figure out what was wrong with her; not

even the top physicians in the world. However, a few physicians had come up with

some treatments that would help prolong her life. Her parents had been overjoyed,

hopeful that the treatments would enable their daughter to recover both bodily and

mentally. She had not wanted to go through with the treatments, synonymous to ‘waste

of hard-earned money’ in her opinion. She knew that she was going to die, but she

didn’t have the heart to deny her parents the thread of hope they had been clinging on

to.

* * *

The sound of clacking shoes against the cold laminate floors increase in volume

as they near her room, interrupting her internal musing. She looks up, the muscles in

her eyes burning slightly at the sudden motion that turn them towards the transparent

glass frames making up her wall. Taking in the sight of her parents behind the windows

she sighs once again, not blaming them for their apparent inability to enter the room.

The hospital air suddenly turns into an unbearable, suffocating mass, denying them of

their ability to breathe. The ticking of the clock seems to slow.

Her mother’s shoulders shake as her back hunches over, curling into herself as

crystalline tears roll down her cheeks. Her father wraps his arms tightly around his wife

as he holds her against him in a futile attempt to shield her from the pain. His face is

stoic, mouth set in a grim line but it is not his face that catches her attention. His eyes

are tight and it is clear to her that he has not yet to accept what was about to happen.

A glass panel slides open and the doctor walks in slowly, solemnly as if walking

to the rhythm of her funeral march. This is it, she thinks as she glances down at her

body for the last time. Her rough and matted hair is spread out across her pillow. A red,

shiny scar sits diagonally on her once flawless face from her temple to the bottom of her

left ear. Her thin, frail body lies on the bed, both her left arm and leg still wrapped up in

heavy plaster casts. Her right arm is no longer there.

Glancing around the lonely room in the ICU wing, the room that had once been

filled with flowers and cards and balloons, the room she has come to call hers… The

doctor reaches her bedside and she looks down at her parents wistfully before turning away, smiling sadly as the clock hands cease their movements.