Dust and Memories

Diagnosis

It always stunned Basch, just how few words it required to break someone's world into pieces. Human beings were such delicate creatures. They could take so much, bear the weight of a world, but words could ruin them in seconds.

For him, it was only two words, simple ones, really.

"It's leukemia."

He had had to catch his mother as her knees gave out, and he eased her into one of the fancy chairs made of clear plastic that were nestled along the wall in the room.

He felt his heart break for his sister, getting her blood drawn in the lab for what seemed like the millionth time in the past month. The pale, tender skin of the crook of her arm had gone purple with bruises, and he knew it caused her more pain than she let on through that sweet smile.

He felt his stomach churn for his mother, trying to imagine what was racing through her head at the moment. Her only daughter was gravely ill with a potentially terminal disease, and she could barely keep food on the table for the three of them - the medical bills would ensure that they died of starvation before anything else.

The room they were waiting in was too cheery. The walls were painted a sunny orange, and the cabinets were a gentle white, like an orange creamsicle. A window looked out on a small garden where a plump woman with streaks of grey in her jet black hair was helping her son learn to walk.

The only thing that ruined the effect were the posters of body parts on the walls that covered up the paint, and that the cabinets were full of various supplies and instruments that appeared to be for torture, and the boy outside was in a wheelchair and would never walk again, and that his sweet, precious sister who hadn't a drop of bad blood with anyone was now being poisoned by her own body.

Basch lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it all out. He pictured a sheet of white paper, and focused on it as best he could with his mother's soft sobbing and the doctor trying to explain the implications of such a diagnosis.

The paper he was trying so hard to concentrate on was torn in two as the door opened, and Lili came flying into his arms. She smelled like rubbing alcohol and saline solution, but underneath that, he could catch the scent of flowers and her apple shampoo.

She was still Lili. Her hair was still gold and her eyes were still emerald. She still sounded the same when the first sob wracked her familiar, petite frame, and the way she clung to him was the same way she had done for her whole life.She was still her kind, innocent self. She was still his sister, unchanged by this horrific diagnosis.

He had never cried so hard.