A CAST OF PAIN (Closed For Editing)

Chapter Forty Four

"I was diagnosed with a brain tumor at a very young age." Dead leaves made crunching sounds beneath their feet as they stepped towards an unknown destination.

"I dealt with it for three years, but a few months later, the tumor disappeared miraculously. The Lord Jesus finally answered my prayers and healed me. And..." She paused, a small smile gracing her face as she looked up to the sky, eyes turning dreamy with hands folded across her chest. Glancing at him and back at the open skies, she continued, "I could remember how many times I kept on coming out during testimony time in church to testify to how grateful I was. People got tired, but that little girl, little me, was grateful." She looked back at him.

"Twelve years later..." She halted in her footsteps, and he stopped, peering at her. "Twelve years later, it's Mum's birthday." Her lips thinned into a sad smile. "And we're waiting in front of the stairs for Dad to bring Mum downstairs."

She took a long pause.

Dad finally comes, hands on Mum's shoulder as he leads her downstairs blindfolded.

FLASHBACK

"Careful... careful..." Mr. Williams said as he led his wife downstairs to slippers slapping the tiled stairs.

"Hmm, this surprise must be... hmm, can't wait!" Mrs. Williams squealed.

"Okay... last one... yes! We're here." Mr. Williams announced as they descended from the last staircase. He then began to untie the blindfold.

Immediately, as the blindfold fell off, birthday songs began.

The flashback still played on, but it remained inaudible as Jojo continued the story.

"Kore and I, we... we were supposed to start the birthday song together, but I couldn't sing. Kore looked at me severally, urging me to join her, but I couldn't. I tried and tried, but my voice wouldn't come out."

The song soon ended, and Mum was happy.

"Oh, my darlings." Her hands were clasped together under her jaw. She looked to her husband with shimmering eyes, hugged him.

"Then, it was our turn. By then, Dad was giving me this weird look." She paused for a while then continued.

"I watched Kore open her arms wide as Mum welcomed her into her warm embrace.

Then she approached me, and I tried to open my arms wide, but I couldn't. She hugged me anyway, but..."

FLASHBACK

"Ewa dear, you're so stiff, are you okay?" She asked, her hands still on Jojo's shoulders.

END.

"By then, I couldn't feel my legs, and then my whole body, but Mum didn't know, and I didn't know how to tell her. She was chattering away about how grateful she was for the surprise, and I couldn't hold it anymore, owing to the fact that I couldn't feel my legs. So I slumped, and Mum fell with me, although she wasn't hurt."

"And it felt like I was falling through clouds, so from the time I fell till I blacked out, I felt nothing. Well, not until I woke up on the hospital bed."

"Mum's birthday was ruined, and..."

"Jojo, it's okay, you don't have to..." David started saying, but she cut him off.

"Shh... I'm almost done."

And he went quiet.

She heaved deeply and continued.

"I was in the hospital for a few days when my nerves started working again... and here I am today, still battling with it."

Her pause was sudden, again she was staring into space again, and he didn't know whether it was time to speak or not. But, as he was about to say something, she looked up at him and smiled.

"I'm a little bit low on faith right now..." She said. And it was true because the light that usually shone in her eyes was almost nonexistent, and all that was left of it was a flicker that only managed to stay for even a minute. It was gone as soon as it appeared.

He still said nothing, and he was glad he didn't because she continued.

"You know, I did a very foolish thing, I... went to the net and searched for testimonies of people who... who like me had brain tumors and cancer, like me, and I read them. How it came, how they survived, and how some lived with it till they died, how..."

Her voice broke at that moment, and David didn't know what to do. He wanted to do something to take the pain away at that moment, but he felt stuck. He watched her cry for a while, clean her eyes and cry again.

"David, I can't sleep well at night; I have nightmares... I'm scared I might die...."

"No, no, don't say that," he drew closer and pulled her into a hug.

"I don't want to die," she continued and kept repeating it as she detached herself from him. "I want to live, I want to sing, I want to dance and get married and have children and.... a lot of things."

"And you will, you will do all these and more. You're not going to die. Come on, say it."

"I'm not going to die; I will live to declare the works of the Lord in the land of the living....."

"And you will, okay?"

Jojo nodded.

"Do you still need a hug?"

She nodded again.

"Come here."

And he went ahead to pull her in for a hug.

KORE

I wanted to go to my room, but I remembered the choking feeling I felt earlier this evening so I opted for the roof instead.

Luckily for me, there was no one. I had this place all to myself. And I came just in time to watch the sun set.

I watched it for a while, but it seemed glued to the spot so, I ran my eyes down to see the ground floor which never failed to teem with family members and wondered if they had left already. My tormentor parents, I mean.

And with the way I reacted down there, what would they be thinking? My siblings, my parents, Larry and Jessie, my parents especially....

A feeling of humiliation suddenly overwhelmed me, and I was suddenly scared to go back in there.

They flashed through my mind, the shocked and surprised faces of everyone, the hurt look on my tormentor Mum's face.... My stomach knotted inside, making me weak to my knees.

As I found my way to the bench, I knew I had a lot of questions to answer should I go out there.