Letters To James

Chapter #5

James sat behind the stage and listened to the brooks brothers talking to the wild fans. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. He glanced around and pulled out the next letter.

Dear James,

A new girl came to the hospital and moved into the room next to mine today. She’s so beautiful with her honey blonde hair and sky blue eyes. She obviously hasn’t been long diagnosed as she still has all her hair. She walked past my bedroom and glanced in then flashed me a smile. It was a bright smile. I’ve never seen someone with this… disease look so happy. We all just seem to give up on life when we find out that we are cursed with it but she’s different. I heard the nurses speaking to her – she’s called Bell , as in the ringing bell. I really do hope we become friends or something but I’m not confident enough to actually go and introduce myself. I keep thinking of me messing up my speech and she’ll just laugh at me , and then the nurses will laugh at me too. Like I said , they’re not nice people.

On another subject , I went to Sharni today. She tried to talk to me about snow globes and something about how most of the time they’re quiet but when you shake them up, all these snowflakes scatter around. Apparently humans are like snow globes. We’re quiet but then someone or something shakes us and next thing we know we’re all over the place. Then we settle down and BOOM! The snowflakes are floating again. I didn’t say anything to her though , so she began complaining about how I never talk and just twiddle my fingers. I thought counsellors were supposed to be there to listen to your problems and if you don’t want to talk , respect that – the patient would tell them in their own time. But oh no , she expected me right from the start to spill everything out to her. Then she told me that if I don’t begin talking soon she would tell the nurses and doctors and I would get a punishment such as the cane. In hospitals they don’t want to hurt people , they’re there to fix the broken people , gosh woman , get your facts right!

A nurse just brought in my lunch now – a honey sandwich and some fruit. It’s a lot better than the food at my old home. The sandwiches soggy and the fruit bruised. Here at the hospital everything’s fresh. Fruit and vege harvested less than a day ago , bread baked with a hard crust around the outside of the soft fluffy stuff we all love.

James looked up from the letter and thought about the food he ate. The best money could buy , wasted without a thought of those who had none , scraps or old.

Now the nurses are on the verge of yelling at me to eat my lunch but , I’m not hungry. I’m a bit put off my food knowing I’m due for an hour in the devils wifes room. I know I should eat but that dreadful medicine won’t help me anyway… Never in a million years.

Love from ,

Elsie.

James swallowed and reread the last paragraph. Elsie called a room the devils wifes room. It must be such a depressing feeling knowing that your life depends on all this medicine.

He thought the nurses and Sharni were horrible. He had always assumed that they were supposed to be sweet and spoil you. He wondered what had triggered them to be like this to Elsie.

I wrote this at 12am in the morning , so sorry for a crap chapter. I just needed to update something today and picked the easy option.