One Because of a Thousand Whys (Novellete)

PART SEVEN: THE BECAUSE

PART SEVEN: THE BECAUSE

THE SUN already faded into the night when I finally got the courage to go back to my room.

"Joy!"

Dr. Christine, my psychiatrist, stood up from the sofa, ran towards me, and encircled me in a warm embrace as her hand caressed my hair. "I'm glad you're now awake. I'm glad you're still alive."

She touched my cheek and looked at me lovingly. "I'm glad."

"Are you that glad that you still have a patient to earn money from?"

Her eyes widened a little bit, but she kept on caressing my cheek. "Your feelings and fears are valid, but the root cause is illusory." She pulled me inside and let me sit on the bed. "I wonder how you'd feel when you finally let yourself be loved and taken care of, Joy." She took a peeled orange from the basket on the bedside table and handed it to me. "Would you allow yourself to eat so your strength would be back?"

"But I won't increase the life I have, would I? I have cancer, Doctor Christine. And two weeks from now, I'll breathe my last! So, what's the essence of retrieving my strength from eating food?"

She blinked and put the orange back in the basket. She sat beside me and took my hand, squeezing it. "Warm. And alive. Feel the beat of your heart, Joy. It beats. It whispers lup-dup, lup-dup. It chants the sound of life. And it still keeps on beating 'til this very minute."

"W-what do you mean?"

"It's been two weeks—no, thirteen days to be exact—since you lost your consciousness on that bridge. And for thirteen days, you were in a state of coma. You only have two weeks to live, you say? Your life's beyond those two weeks now, Joy."

My mouth fell open.

"You continued to live, Joy. You did. You still do."

"B-but..." I couldn't find the right words to express what I felt. "But I'll still die..."

"Everyone will. Even I, Joy. Death is the end of our physical body."

"I know about that, Doctor. But you don't understand..."

"Then, tell me, Joy. Tell me your scattered thoughts so we can categorize them in such a way that they can be understood."

As soon as I closed my eyes, my tears suddenly fell. "I don't believe in God..." I whispered. "I don't want to believe that God exists, but my heart screams that He does..." Sniffing, I wiped the tears on my cheeks harshly. "But there were recent events that I witnessed that attested to His existence, but I later realized that they were only products of my imagination while I was in a comatose state."

"You did a great job of describing what you feel, Joy," she said in her soothing voice. "Now, would you please unfold every event you've experienced?"

And there, I found myself telling her everything from the very moment I bought bottles of sleeping pills, to encountering that mushroom man with the brightest and widest smile, to saving a kid from a car accident, to witnessing my bloody body being revived by medical personnel, to being a wandering spirit and realizing my purpose, to listening to that mushroom man's biography, to knowing God's love and grace, to being eaten by a dazzling light, to waking up in this hospital room, and to meeting that mushroom man in Abra's persona.

I covered my face with both of my palms. I felt how my little hope was crashed by one instant punch of reality. I wept for the fact that there could be no God. I wept for the fact that I found the reason for my why in the wind of imagination.

"That's my story..." I finished narrating and inhaled a deep breath. "A-aside from PTSD, do I have another mental disorder, Doctor Christine? That could be the reason why I couldn't remember some of the things that happened to me."