ALL IN THE HEAD 1

ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Emily was only eight years old when her family found out, just about a year ago now, that she had a very rare disease, a disease that attacks the organs. There isn't a lot that can be done for her and at this stage she is hooked up to all sorts of machines to keep her organs going, as well as being dosed with morphine for the pain.

During her visits to the hospital over the past year, before the visits became somewhat of a permanent residence, Emily became friendly with a boy the same age as herself whom also has a terminal condition. This boy, his name is Mark. Only thing was other than Emily, no one could see Mark. Doctors told her mother that having an imaginary friend was something very normal for a young girl in her position and that it is most definitely nothing to worry about.

It makes sense that he also ever seems to be here at the hospital, with all that Emily is going through, a friend, real or not, can only be something good. Sure, isn't all the worry taken up on other things?

There was and is an organization that grants wishes for sick children who attend the particular hospital that Emily attends but the one wish that Emily ever wanted is one that she can't have. Travelling on holidays on a plane when she was seven had a huge impact on her. Emily had the window seat, and when the plane rose up over the clouds Emily wished that she had the ability to fly in, out and above the clouds all by herself.

This disease just tore through Emily at such a furious rate that there was nothing more the doctors could do and the time had come to turn off the machines. Her mum stayed at her side. Emily was unconscious when a man in his late twenties introduced himself to her mum.

'Hello ... I'm Mark' he said.

Emily's mum didn't know how to react to this. Her daughter has not got long left, a stranger introduces himself, a stranger whose name so happens to be the same as that of Emily's imaginary friend, only the imaginary friend is a child and not some twenty something year old man. Surely the name is a coincidence, still how could anyone react to such a moment?

This Mark fellow doesn't waste time for he does go on to tell Emily's mum that he was that very same boy who befriended Emily, and that Emily could see him as a boy of the same age as her. He continued to tell that he had the same disease as Emily only in him it was less aggressive, and that he had lived for almost twenty years with it. He had been around to aid Emily in all she had been going through and he was now here to once again help Emily.

The disease indeed went through the young girl so much quicker than it went through Mark when he was a child. In the same way Emily has Mark, Mark too had a visitor, a friend at a time he needed, someone through whom Mark was granted something very special.

Mark asked Joan, Emily's mum, as to if she believed in God. Joan had always been religious but found it difficult to believe in anything of late with the fact that her daughter is dying, and in a manner no child should have to endure. Mark told Joan to close her eyes as God had something very special to show her. She did close her eyes and as she did so, tears couldn't help but escape from those closed eyes, for what she saw was something very special indeed.

It was like Joan was back on that airplane from a couple of years ago only Emily was not sitting next to her. Instead as Joan looked out of the airplane, she could see that Emily was flying freely above the clouds, the one thing she had dreamed so much about, something she was now getting to experience. In and out, over and under, a moment of could only be called ... magic.

When Joan opened her eyes there was two things of note, one of which was this Mark fellow was no longer in the room and the other is that Emily's monitors indicated that she had passed away, though she had done so with the biggest of smiles etched upon her face. Emily got her wish, she flew in, out and most certainly above the clouds, and now there was no more pain.