Futile Trials

Broken Glass

You've been in a coma for almost two years.

What little family you had that visited has long since stopped coming.. but they hold out the sad hope that you might someday wake up, so they keep you hooked to the machines.

Your room mate, however, has been here since the start. Discreetly, of course. They paid heed to when your family was present and when they weren't, only arriving when everyone else had made themselves scarce. 

When your family forgot about you, their trips became routine. Every third day they came, but never on the weekends. 

For the most part, they simply did homework in the cozy chair by the window, always closing the shades to a fine crack. The nurses always opened them the next day, perplexed and often worried. A funny sight, should it be you could ever pay witness.

There were the days where they read, though. Quietly, lips barely moving, they read just barely aloud, just for you to hear.

On your last day in a coma, they read to you one last time:

"When the fox hears the rabbit, he comes running.. but not to help: Hannibal." They stand from their familiar seat, closing the worn copy of Silence of the Lambs and walking towards you with a slow, measured pace. "Don't you see? You are the rabbit, and I the fox." They set the book on the white sheets layered across the foot of your bed. "But personally..." They skim their hand up the length of your bed as they walk, tapping the ventilator when they reach the crown of your bed. "...I don't think I'm Hannibal's fox... Because I'd like to help." They stoop down to be face to face with you, reaching their hand down behind your life support unit and pulling the plug.

The ventilator stops, the heart monitor flat lines, and every other still functioning alarm begins to scream.

"I'm sorry you've been a synthetically sustained vegetable for so long," and they walk out with their face shielded from the distracted nurses frantically rushing in, leaving nothing behind but their Silence of the Lambs book.

Game Over.