The Fight (Republished)

Chapter 7: Bereft

My wife hasn't visited me in over a week. I've fallen into a hole of depression, which I call my hospital bed. It's comfortable and warm for the most part, but there might as well be steel bars and the grim reaper standing next to it as he pokes me with his death scythe from the outside. Taunting me, he smiles and plays with the lock, as if he has the key and wishes to release me back into the world with my friends and family. He's a bastard and he's probably the one keeping my wife away from me. Heck, he's probably the one erasing my memory of when she does visit. My wife hasn't visited me in over a week, a week?!

I don't believe she's been living her life without visiting me for that long. I can't believe it, she's my wife after all. She loves me, she must... still. I was strong for her and to leave me here would be... would be... I look around the hospital room, machinery beeping, mattress creaking ever so slightly... It would be so unloving of her.

My whiteboard indicated she was here, but I don't know when. I have no clue at all how long it has been since she wrote that. I don't even know how anyone is doing on the outside. My cube, my prison, my bed... whatever you wish to call this damn thing. It holds me back from being me. Sure, I can type this sad, genuine story for you to read as I waste my existence away, but it's not what I want to be writing. I want to be writing about love and happiness, fantasy and magic. I want to be writing about things that help people escape from this world of loss and torture so they aren't constantly reminded of how bad things can turn out. I want people to escape to a place where they feel loved, are happy and possibilities are endless for them. In here, in this room of death - I can't sugarcoat it, I am dying, right? - I don't feel loved, I'm not happy and possibilities are null and void.

Depressing, I know, to be sick and trying to mend your body with medication that was intended to cure you of your illness. It doesn't always work though. It doesn't always end either. I feel tied down, as if I'm chained up like a prisoner in someone else's body. Yup, someone else's body. It doesn't belong to me anymore, how can it? My memory doesn't serve me well anymore, my body is growing stiffer by the day as I lie here and I'm confined to a room of bleakness. I have no strength to walk the halls now, so I don't even think to ask the nurses anymore out of the odd chance they might say yes to me for once. They don't care you know, they really don't. It's just a job for them, a paycheque, something they are good at and enjoy doing. But to care and go that extra mile to make me - a dying resident - happier, will never take place.

I feel so alone... so unloved... so miserable. I don't know how much I weigh anymore, but I'm sure my muscle mass is probably shrinking due to the lack of working out and protein I normally have in my diet. My wife hasn't sneaked any food in for me, even if it is something healthy.

My memory doesn't serve me well anymore and my body is becoming more and more fragile it seems. Difficult to say for certain though.