Trials and Tribulations - [Bensler EO]

Part Twenty - Desolation I

She stared at the familiar mahogany desk in front of her. She always liked to drag her vision along the carven lines and the intricate embellishments. In fact, she always found herself focused on them, rather than the rest of the room that still had medical equipment scattered around. The lightboxes and the reserved x-ray prints that were left from the last patient.

This time, the x-ray looked like a leg bone, and she makes a mental note of that.

She knew why she was here. She knew it had to be done. Even while she was still in the thick of fertility injections, she still had to pay some focus to what had led her here in the first place, and what she was going to do about it.

No imaging, no x-rays or ultrasounds, no tests. She was here for words. Braving the one thing she was scared the most of throughout this entire journey. The words she would never be able to un-hear. The logistical side of it all.

The attack plan she hadn't made yet.

In just a few days, she'd be forced to swing from one world to another. No more staving it off with the grasp of a dream. No more pretending, so blissfully pretending that she was bypassing a horror to get to the promise land.

Every soldier needs carefully laid plans of how they will go forth into war.

At least she found humor in it. She wasn't preparing an attack from some hidden barracks, she wasn't reading some confidential file about how she planned to win a battle. She was sitting across from a desk, forcing the moment to be as anti-climactic as possible. So simple, it was just going to be spoken words.

Promises that she would be forced to keep. A plan set in stone, no running. No escape. But she had to plan at some point, and the time that divided her from now until then was wearing thin.

"Sorry, my last patient's surgery ran a little longer than expected." Doctor Keller announced as he quickly rushed into his office.

She wasn't in a hurry. If he had told her that they'd need to reschedule because he was too busy, she would've run from the room without any protest. But she was here, waiting and wondering.

The clouds part, allowing a sliver of light to fall through the window and blanket itself upon them. It feels all too incredibly inappropriate, she isn't supposed to believe in the sun coming out. At least, not right now she isn't. She doesn't want the warmth on her skin or the light in her eyes. She wants the cold and the lonely dreck. She isn't supposed to want the darkness, but yet again, she wasn't supposed to have cancer either. Having hope was overrated... but losing it, well that was much worse.

Getting stuck between having hope and losing hope, that was where the agony was. The undecided vote, the winner takes it all. On the edge of her goddamn seat because she can't decide whether or not she wants to live in pain or die in peace. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both. Her mother was a fucking literature professor for God's sake. Robert Frost would forever be ingrained into her mind.