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☾ 𝐸𝐿𝐸𝑉𝐸𝑁
On Friday, Anna had a sniffle. On Saturday, the sweats. By Tuesday, she was stuck in bed, as pale as her blanket sheets and somehow, at the same time, red as a flame. That's how hot she felt too- she felt like she was on fire, the heat devouring her whole and filling her vision with a searing brightness that meant she could barely open her eyes. Barely blinking, she couldn't even twist over without a pitching pain reaching her stomach in a rapid speed.
Anna was conveniently ill. It seemed that God had a different plan for her. Just as she had decided that Australia wouldn't be her home, she was stranded in the very country by her own failing body. How weak she felt!
All she wanted to do was leave. Leave and find her family. The mother that she imagined would have been holding her tightly, keeping the thousands of tiny pieces of herself, that she felt slipping away each second, together. Anna imagined her building her back together at each sneeze and cough and hurl of her stomach. Like a precious china doll being glued back together. Forever fractured, but fixed and loved by her real mother.
But she couldn't leave now. It was as hopeless as sailing head first into a furious storm. She had never felt so sick. Spring Fever, was what they called it, though she doubted that was the true name of the illness that had infected her body, consuming her consciousness bit by bit. It wasn't influenza. She had known someone with that in England. They had died within two weeks of being diagnosed. But they had been old and that fact did very little to sooth Anna's already jittery nerves.
Mrs Bagley never left her side. Mr Bagley practically forced the soup down her on days she couldn't lift the spoon to her mouth, feeling like even one mouthful would make her explode. She would have felt guilty. Would have. But Anna knew her chances. They couldn't afford a doctor- the closest thing she had to a treatment was Molly's honey tea, fresh each morning.
You have to pull through this. That was what Mrs Bagley would whisper to her as she woke, whether that be morning or evening. But Anna didn't think she could simply pull through. No matter how desperately she wanted to. She was just so tired. All of the time.
One day, on which she perceived to be a bright morning from the glare that hit against the small mirror in the corner of her room, she felt a gentle tug on her hand. Forcing her eyes to open, Anna looked to see Elliot sitting by her side, Maya hanging closely by his shoulder and peering over her.
"You shouldn't be here, what if I'm contagious?" Anna said, her voice croaky.
"If it was contagious, Mrs Bagley would have been as sick as you by now," Elliot said as he moved to sit against the bed so Maya could take the seat. "Besides, we had to be here for you. I- we wouldn't let you suffer without someone to tell bad jokes and fill the silence."
