Charlotte Gaspel: Demons and Ghosts

X: News

The sun always rises every day, and every morning its presence is usually felt, but on the first day of a new life the sky takes on a much more noticeable blue colour than usual.

It was a room in a rented flat. Clara was watching the glorious sunrise preparing fried eggs, she was cooking fresh eggs just bought from a grocery shop free of alligator eggs. Jeff was sipping coffee, staring at the paper, looking for a job, sitting at the table in pink slippers and a light blue dressing gown over a white T-shirt. Charlie was sleeping in his new bed; however, although the weather was mostly warm, he was covered in sheets. He felt very cold and restless; he didn't have enough energy to get up, but he didn't feel comfortable enough to continue sleeping either. I think it was the perfect time to tell his parents how he felt.

Charlie got up slowly, and with the urge to vomit, walked intermittently to the table.

"Good morning, son!" Jeff greeted.

"How are you doing, Charlie?" said Clara, dropping what she was doing to hug him. "Are you alright? You look a little pale."

"Good morning. About that..." said Charlie in a muffled voice, "I feel a bit dizzy and my tummy hurts."

"What are you feeling?" Jeff asked worriedly. "Is it a burning or did you get a bump?"

"It's more of a..."

That's the last thing he said before collapsing on the kitchen floor.

The next thing Charlie sees when he opens his eyes is Clara patting his head, lying in the back of a taxi, her head on his mother's thighs and her feet on his father's. The taxi driver was given direct orders to get to the hospital as fast as he could.

Clara saw Charlie open his eyes so she kissed him on the forehead and then say, "Here, have some fresh bread. You must eat something." Jeff was ready to give him water in case he got stuck while eating. Charlie felt awful, but that moment of isolation was going to be a comfort in the future.

Charlie, oh, poor Charlie. You can't get everything in life it seems.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the dazzling light of a long bulb from the ceiling of a hospital room. He turned his head to look for answers, saw his parents on the other side of the door through the glass, saw the gurney he was lying on, saw a bag of serum, and saw that serum going into his veins through wires attached to his wrist. He couldn't believe it. Something was happening. Something was really going on and he couldn't ignore it any longer.

Jeff and Clara were desperately talking to a doctor on the other side of the door. She kept muffling her words, but that only made the expectations worse, as with every sentence she spoke she got closer to the answer to the question: "What's wrong with Charlie"

"We've been doing check-ups and tests on him for a while, and it looks like his situation is a lot more complicated than we thought," the doctor said nervously.

"Please, just tell us if it's serious or not," Jeff asked in a desperate tone.

"I think that would require you to come to my office," the doctor replied with some concern.

Jeff and Clara sat in her office not knowing what to expect. The stress and fear they felt was comparable to when Jeff was about to be shot at the other hospital.

"It's time for you to know," said the doctor. "After x-raying the boy, we were able to see the source of the pain in his abdomen and the nausea."

The doctor continued talking, uttering several words, but only one word stuck in Jeff and Clara's head. The only one that could be heard echoing in their minds...

Cancer.

Terminal liver cancer. Charlie was suffering from a deadly tumour in one of his organs, a tumour that would spread until one of the two would stop growing, crushing and killing his insides cruelly, with nothing to do but try to slow it down.

Cancer is one of the most painful diseases, not only for the patient, but also for their relatives, who will have to watch as the victim gradually loses colour until they lose it forever.

You will know that it hurts a lot to lose a loved one, but unless you experience it yourself, you will never be able to imagine how it feels.

Treatment is naturally expensive, and Jeff and Clara never had enough money for something of that magnitude. They cried. They cried because they knew it was impossible to go ahead with the operation. They knew it was very difficult to have to watch their son's life slip through their fingers. It is never easy. The doctor had been through a similar situation, so she expressed sympathy and said, "I know what it's like to go through this, so I'll make you a proposal: I'll cover the treatment for a few months to make the deposit easier for you, if you promise me that you'll stay determined through this adversity."

The proposal was kind; miraculous, you could say. Naturally they would say no, but they were not willing to sacrifice their son in exchange for showing education, so they accepted. The money they had was not enough, but it was not impossible to raise the funds.

...

Night fell. The rain brushed the pavement, and Charlie's bed felt the melancholy. He understood perfectly well; he was not naive, he knew the importance of courage in this situation.

Charlie slept, hoping to wake up in a new home.