Wonder Jane

Chapter Five

   Hospitals are a place where people get better. Doctors, nurses, EMTs. They're all supposed to help you get healthy and up and out of the hospital. Make sure you don't die. But sometimes people do die in hospitals. Sometimes, you just can't help someone, and it's destined that they have to pass.

   Pass. People say pass because they want to sound nicer about it when someone passes away.

   Why can't you just say die? Is it necessary? Do some people really need the extra sugar on top when you explain, they're not with us anymore. They passed away.

   They say in because what if you just decided to go up to someone who lost a fellow person they love, and just say, they're not with us anymore. They died. That's it. They're dead now.

   It's insensitive. And yes it really is necessary. Especially for those who are so fragile they tear up whenever they kill a fly. It's human nature to be sensitive to certain things, whether it's for a reason, or you just happen to not like it.

   "Sir, is there something you would like?"

   The receptionist's voice snapped me out of my daze, and I quietly stated that I was here to see Jane Lee.

   After some identification and a quick interview, I was off to room three-ten, where a leukemia patient was being held. It all I had in me not to scream and yell and tear my hair out when I heard that she had Leukemia. It couldn't be true. Leukemia is not good news. But even though people can die from it, most people also live. Those were my wishes for Her. That was what I wishing would happen to her. She'd be signed out of the hospital within the next few days, and we'd go back to our usual routine.

   Only, when I got to her room, it was like she was an outlet, and the tubes and IV's were the cables of a TV that wasn't wireless. It was a whole mess, and she was even more of one.

   Her skin was blotchy and yellow, covered in rashes and bumps. A breathing mask was hooked up to her mouth, and her chest was rising, although slowly, but it was rising.

   Her hair was still her hair though. Nothing changed about it, except that it looked dim in the hospital lights, and only slightly lifeless from the hospital's supply of washing materials.

   Her lips were pale and chapped. Not covered in her special purple lipstick. I couldn't remember a time when she didn't wear her lipstick.

   I didn't realize he eyes were open and looking at me, until the heart-rate monitor started beeping faster and the sound of struggled breathing filled the vacant room. I rushed over to her bedside, where she was struggling to get the mask off. I put my hand over her cold one, and gently pried it off, making her release its death-like grip on the mask. When her hand was down, I gently took the mask off for her, making sure to hold it for her so she wouldn't have to move to do anything.

   "What the heck are you doing here?" A strangled gasp came out.

   I honestly didn't know what I was expecting she would say when she saw me. But I thought it would be a little more...happier. I guess getting diagnosed with something like leukemia will do that to a person.

   She struggled once more to move. But instead of reaching for the mask, she reached for my wrist and tried to shove me away. I was bewildered. She just started to push and shove at me, and the more she struggled, the more she couldn't breathe, and the weaker she got. I grabbed her wrists, taking advantage of her weakening state, and kept them together with one hand while I held the mask up to her mouth, and she greedily took in the air, filling her lungs up as much as she could.

   It killed me to see her like that. Weak and so...gone. She wasn't her usual quirky, feisty self anymore. The closest I'd of her so far was when she struggled to get me out of the room. And now, she was wheezing on her bed, taking ragged breaths as her eyes teared up. I felt like mine were too. It hurt to see her like this. It really did.