Myosotis

Light Pollution

'Face in the shade

It's the previous me that you cry about

Face in the shade

Goodnight, goodbye'

-Yuk-Cheung Chun feat. Europa Hang, 'Light Pollution'

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"You can't do that, Alice!"

Alice stared the nurse berating her blankly, barely registering their words. If she wanted to commit suicide, it was her choice, nobody else should have a say but her. If they thought they were doing her a favour, they weren't. They were just interfering.

"Your life isn't something that you can throw away so easily!" 'Or is it?'

"Once you throw it away, you can't get it back," the nurse told her. Alice was quiet and looked at everything else but her senior. Pursing their lips as the nurse realised their charge wasn't listening and didn't understand the true implications of her death, they tried a different tactic.

"Think about the people you will be leaving behind. Your parents have just lost your brother - how do you think they'll feel if they lost their daughter too in the span of a month?"  

That got through to Alice.

The young girl glared at the nurse who returned her furious look with one of disapproval.

Alice was not like her brother.

(She refused to believe she would throw her life away and leave someone precious to her like her brother did, even if that was exactly what she almost did.)

"Shut up."

The nurse blinked and opened their mouth to scold her for responding that way, but before a single word could leave their mouth, Alice stopped them again with a scream of, "Shut up!"

"What do you know?" Alice spat, narrowing her narrowed eyes even more at her target of contempt. All of her pent up frustration was being unleashed and Alice was seeing red. "You don't know what I've been through, so don't you dare try to tell me you understand because you don't. Stop giving me those eyes of pity, I don't need them. They don't do anything to help, they just make me feel worse, so just stop. And I don't need you people, you strangers, to continue trying to comfort me because comfort from strangers means nothing to me. It's like receiving no comfort at all. Comforting words mean nothing if they don't come from someone who truly cares about me. I don't know you, and you don't know me, so stop acting like you do because you never will!"

Once again, the nurse tried to put their own say in, but Alice wouldn't let them. She cut them off by throwing her uneaten tray of food at them.

"Leave!"

Quietly and without a complaint but only a brief look back which resulted in another smashed vase, the nurse scampered out, leaving Alice alone. Even when alone, Alice continued to glare at the door before silently closing her eyes and falling back onto her bed to think about what the nurse had said.

"Think about the people you will be leaving behind. Your parents have just lost your brother - how do you think they'll feel if they lost their daughter too in the span of a month?"

It wasn't like her parents would miss her, they would only be missing the girl she had once been.

Glancing out into the dark, Alice saw spots of light turning on as the night encompassed all and polluted the darkness.