A Girl, A kind Man and A Little Bit Of Hope

Chapter 4

Jenny loved to dream, she would imagine she was a famous actor and that she starred on TV that is what she would be when she was older if she was not ill, if she did not have Cancer.  Every breath was one step closer to death and in some ways that was a relief, Jenny had been in and out of hospital her whole life, maybe it was time for her to stop running away and face her fears no matter what they were and what they would do to her.  The actresses on the front of magazines were so beautiful, something her sickly face would never get to be. She like living in a world of unrealistic facts and hopeful truths when really she was just lying to herself.  She dreamed of delivering lines in harmony and with perfect speech, she could imagine perfecting and rehearsing each word until there were no mistakes and in her head she pictured early morning wake up calls to be turned into something beautiful by makeup artists ready to perform in front of a camera. 

Books were another great escape they allowed her to be someone she was not and that was nice because Jenny hated who she was.  She hated every second of every minute because her life was like a massive countdown; Jenny was running out of time and her clock was ticking it was just a matter of time before there was no time at all.  Books were like games, she loved the virtual games because they let her imagination go wild and she could create people who did not have to live in grief or pain and that was nice, she could create the dream family, a beautiful daughter with a loving mother and father and that is how she wanted her life to be. 

Jenny although she was sweet and loving could be found to be filled with jealousy and envy but that was only to be accepted, she was dying and the nicest everyone could do was to show their understanding.  Everyone she had touched immediately fell in love with her warm spirit and her high hopes. Jenny could write stories and draw pictures and sing because those are all the things she wanted to do and be but she and everyone else knew that those things seemed highly unlikely and well out of reach from the small unfortunate child.

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Clark sighed as he flicked pointlessly through multiple TV channels most of which he had either seen way to many times or found incredibly boring.  He could hear the pulsing traffic of the city as car horns beeped and tires screeched.  There was some music coming from upstairs as the flooring shook gently and a wild hum thumped around.  The curtains were drawn tightly and the apartment was clean; there was nothing he could do. 

Children’s drawings lay on the ground and on the desk, the fridge was empty apart from a carton of milk and a bowl of fruit.  Crayon sketches and painted pictures were kids had come to stay for a night when the parents wanted some time of freedom and less worry and stress.

Clark pictured himself again as a child waiting for someone that never came, staying awake for hours on end until he had lost all hope in a hero to come and save him.  Just looking back on a childhood of cancer brought pain just by thinking upon the scarred memories and dented past.  Nothing was ever going to erase them and he knew he couldn’t but he could start to heal them by knowing that he was not going to be the person  who wasn’t going to come and tell him he was going to get better, he knew he couldn’t do that. 

Any other job would have driven him to the brink of depression knowing that his past still haunted him and that there were so many other kids suffering and all because of him.  Sometimes he just had to run off the worry and stress and jog, sometimes sprint.  When he was young he had run away from many things and places but he had never been able to run away from his disease it had somehow always beaten him at every bend of every corner anywhere he went and everywhere.  That is until he realized in life you have to fight back because if you don’t then you die and that can hurt other people and damage the society.  Clark had never wanted to hurt anyone in his life and he had no reason to either but when nobody turned up and he was abandoned in hospitals for days on end, days of boredom and loneliness; that is when he wouldn’t have minded dying.  He knew nobody cared enough to even phone and chat so why should he mind if they were sick with grief after he died?