Tales Of Then || Flash Fiction

Death Sentence

I was given a death sentence.

The date the countdown for my life started was June 12th, 2018. A simple name on a calendar, a bold screaming number forever confined to a square. That square, that blank, horrifyingly empty space, was the day my ticket for a ride called death was bought.

I remember that day like a photograph. Like I could hold that calendar date in my hands and stare, stare, stare until I was there—on a bed hundreds of people had been on, separated only by a crinkling paper, my feet having swung three feet in the air.

My mother had sat in a white plastic chair, a reassuring smile on her face that I had once foolishly believed was real. My flip flops on the floor, my bright pink painted toes free to feel air whooshing between them. A million bees had run through my veins as I patiently waited for the doctor to come in.

"They're taking forever," I whined, throwing my head back and giving the ceiling a pitiful stare. "We're both going to be mummies by the time the doctor gets in here."

I had learned as a child that when a nurse says, 'the doctor will be with you shortly,' they're lying. Always.
Then again, everyone in health care lies. Even their smiles as they tell you you're going to be fine.

"I'm sure the doctor is just going over your files." She smiled again. A fake one I believed to be true.

And then finally, after I was sure I had grown a couple gray hairs, the door plastered with various posters of the human anatomy, opened. Slowly at first, as if making sure no idiot was about to get their head whacked in.
And then a smiling dark-haired doctor walked in with papers in his hand. Relief had flooded me with that smile—

"I'm afraid I don't come bearing good news."

Staring into that date, I could feel how my stomach had dropped to my knees, how my heart seemed to stumble to a stop before starting again. Mother had teared up, soaking in every word he had said.

And yet I couldn't hear anything besides that word. A synonym for death.

"Cancer."