The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter eighteen | Cyrus

The girl was on bed rest the whole day.

  Her body looked frail, as if the infection was physically draining the life out of her. Cyrus knew this wasn’t the case, but it still unnerved him.

  She was pale. Ghostly. Not to mention the humongous bags that developed halfway through the day, even though she’d slept every other hour.

  There was a bucket for her to puke in beside her bed, as well as a rag for her to cough into. She had a habit of coughing up blood.

  She was wasting away already.

  How much longer would she have?

  No more than a few days. His mother told him how quickly the infection was progressing.

  At the rate his mom had described, the girl might not even live to see tomorrow.

  Cyrus’s mother had just left the wound unwrapped because the girl obviously wouldn’t be getting up, and it would also let them monitor the infection. Every hour, the purple veins seemed to advance upwards by at least an inch or so.

  But whatever happened, Cyrus didn’t leave the girl’s bedside. He sat in that swivel chair and held her hair back when she puked, brought her anything she needed, and even drew her pictures because she loved it when he did that.

  She was quiet as he did this, although her breathing had grown labored with the hours that passed. Which really worried him.

  She had refused to eat lunch and dinner.

  “I can’t stomach it.” she had croaked.

  This worried him furthermore.

  He ate dinner on his desk, not even caring if the pictures got stained. There was a girl’s life at stake, his drawings were nothing compared to that.

  Not caring about what she said, he brought a glass of water to her. With trembling hands, she grabbed it, and barely had the strength to lift her head to sip.

  There was an aching feeling in his chest as he watched.

  Was this what it felt like when your heart broke?

  Cyrus assumed so.

  It seemed like the logical thing, seeing as he was watching someone he cared about wither away to nothingness. And the worst part was; he couldn’t do a thing.

  He could only watch as his mother tried to cure her, each attempt failing just as miserably as the first.

  The more he thought about it, the more his heart broke.

  Finally, at the end of the day, after watching her starve, vomit, and cough herself to death, she had fallen asleep. Not asleep as in death, but asleep as in actual slumber.

  Cyrus didn’t want to leave her side. Her calm breathing was the only thing keeping him sane.

  So he stayed there and watched the rising and falling of her chest as she slept. His mother peeked in soon enough and came to try another remedy that was doomed to failure.

  “Nothing’s working, Cyrus.” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes. “I know, mom.”

  After rubbing something gooey on her leg, she crossed the small space to Cyrus, and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got a plan, Cyrus… but you’re not gonna like it. Heck, I don’t even like it.”

  Cyrus interrupted her. “Stop. Don’t act like she’s gonna die. She might not. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  He watched as his mother’s eyes glistened with sorrow. She gathered her small assortment of supplies and left as quickly as she had appeared.

  Cyrus knew she was going to die. It was inevitable now, wasn’t it? But saying otherwise made some part of him feel like maybe she would get better. It made him feel like maybe the next morning she’d wake up and everything would just be healed.

  Her leg, her sickness; everything.

  But of course that wasn’t the case.

  She was still breathing though, and for now, that was a gift.

  He continued to listen to her ragged inhaling and exhaling, and somehow, through all the guilt, grief, and pain, he drifted off to sleep.