My collection of sad stories

Fading away

I could hear someone call my name. The voice sounded like Gramps. It was hoarse from all the cries and shouting. He held my right hand in his and I saw from the vintage point I stood that, a tear slid from the corner of his eyes.

He tried holding it back but couldn't, as they fell in rivulets down his face. He rubbed the insides of my palm and planted a soft kiss on it. Yet, I couldn't feel anything.

I stood at a far distance, watching myself lying comatose on the hospital bed. Tubes were connected to my nose and a heart monitor continued to beep slowly.

I looked around the room I had been admitted in. The walls were painted white and a pale blue curtain hung on the doorway, seperating it from the room opposite. Sunlight trickled in from the closed shutters of the window and a bright, white light shone above which illuminated the room. A cold stench of antiseptic and detergent filled my nostrils.

It made me wrinkle my small, button nose as Gramps voice broke through my reverie.

"Mia," he called out, his voice slightly uneven and his hands clamping mine in a tight grip. "Please stay. I don't know what I'd do without you."

His dam broke and he kept on shaking his head as if he didn't want to believe that his favourite was stuck in a hospital for weeks or months even. His blonde hair was in mess atop his head and his gray eyes looked withdrawn. He appeared older than his sixties and his pale skin was full of wrinkles.

I noticed the deep creases in Gramp's forehead and I heaved a sigh. He was really worried that I was going to die and leave him just like my parents, and younger brother did in that awful car crash.

I couldn't remember the details, my mind was in a haze and I found it hard to believe that I was slowly fading away from the face of the Earth. I felt the despair that quaked my Grandpa's heart reaching me in waves and it kinda sucked that there was nothing I could do.

I was going to die anyways and it didn't matter if the whole world came tumbling down, nothing was going to change that. But I wanted to reach out to him for just a minute. My feet dragged across the white, tiled floor and I found myself sitting on an arm chair opposite Gramps.

He looked at me briefly and then turned his eyes away as if in shame. Maybe, he thought I wasn't a fighter and little things didn't matter to me but, he was wrong. Because in this case, it wasn't my call, even though the nurses kept on saying the opposite.

He hugged his cream, coloured sweater tighter around his body and my eyes racked over his tall, thin frame. I could tell he wasn't eating well. His cheeks looked sunken and he got the black eye.
The way his shoulders heaved, I knew he needed comfort. That was what I couldn't give and I bit my lips in regret.

I reached out my hand to touch his briefly and his head shot up. A knowing look flitted across his features but it was gone as fast as it had come.
I began wondering if he could see me. My right hand moved in a forward and backward motion in front of my face as I asked, "Gramps, can you see me?"

Worry laced my cracked voice and desperation clawed at the edges. Gramps stood up gruffly and wiped his eyes with the white handkerchief he held in his hand.

He was about leaving when he turned back all of a sudden and planted a kiss on my forehead. I simply watched the motion in monotony, not quite feeling anything myself.

That fact made tears pool round the corner of my eyes and fall in loops down my face.

My eyes blurred and I could hear my grandpa vaguely muttering something in my left ear.

"Gramps," I muttered, rushing to his side and pulling him into a hug. But of course, he couldn't feel anything and he merely stood detached from me.

"I love you so much." My voice broke. "I know you probably can't hear this but, I just felt like saying it anyways."

"It sucks that even if I do get out of this, I would go back to nothing," I muttered, I felt my heart clench and sink to the pit of my stomach. "No parents, no home, no life, no boyfriend, no goals . . . absolutely nothing," I concluded.

Gramps took a deep breath and began walking away from me, his head was hung low. I felt deeply for him. He was suffering and it was all my fault.

It was my fault that I had convinced my parents to go on a road trip, it was my fault that I was being so careless and threw senseless jokes around, overall, it was also my fault that I was the only one that barely made it alive.

I slumped to the ground and my fingers were bunched into a fist. I could feel my heart beat erratically and in the distance, I could hear the loud beeping of the heart rate monitor.

All of a sudden, nurses with their blue and white uniforms rushed into the room. I barely took note of their appearance as they put me on a stretcher and began rolling me away. My head was pounding and my eyelids slowly slid shut.

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