Posted Yesterday, 11:40 PM
Dreams fade and shimmer
He sat on the edge of the bed. He wished desperately to stand up but his body violently suggested to obey the principle rule of gravity and fall back like a ragdoll. To lay there just like a meat puppet while the rising sun's beams paint streaks of lights on his weak, wrecked body...
It were not such like that. Not always. Not two months ago.
Yes, two months earlier it were started. Or at least the official part based on all the results. A few months prior it were but sudden weakness, became tired much faster and started to loss weight despite the sheer amount of consumed food. Nothing fancy, nothing painful, nothing seemingly serious but a few bothering symptoms growth increasingly tiresome. Small, seemingly harmless treadstones what paved the way of demise, doomsday, the great and grim reaper by every passing hours and days.
Two months earlier. Right back in that room were furnitured and painted to be calming, to support tranquility. All the light, pastel colours, shades of creme and white, all meant to calm the patients. But the cosy air were dissonant together with the doctor and her assistant whom both were there because mankind had nefarious curses bestowed upon themselves. The doctor were an oncologist, her face were calm and professional, displayed the fact she told patients their marest dreams every day. But her eyes behind her glasses could not remained calm. Openly sad, proved she were to young to got used to tell such horrible things for people.
Maybe a few years later those eyes would become just as cold and empty like her face. "Professional" hardened by thousands of more consultations reveal people's own demise nigh. Oncologists, afterall, rarely tell good news for their patients...
'We would remove the bulk of the tumour surgically...' she explained slowly. 'Then after about a week of recuperation we start the chemoteraphy. Your chances are good, promising. Of course we cannot tell it for sure at first still I think your chances are good!'
He just nodded. He still tried to organise all the turmoiled thoughts in his overcharged mind. A visit on the oncology were not he expected but it seemed the universe generously provide ********.
'The surgery would not be complicated according to the X-ray and CT results.' the oncologist continued and he noted the doctor were kind of cute albeit a bit to frail for a woman of his taste. 'The following chemo, I would not lie, would be exhausting and very, irrevocably unpleasant. But you are still young to endure I guess!'
Yeah, sure, whatever! What could one react for such things? A loud "Hurray!" or "Booyaaaaah!" may sounds strange? Another question noone could properly answer, sure thing.
That how it started two months earlier. That how one stepped where even angels fear to descent.
Not if like there were be anything extra. Just as the oncologist foretold: A surgery followed by two weeks of reeking pain just to be able to walk again with a crutch.
But that were well-localised physical pain. Painkillers could kept it at bay more or less. It was something familiar because everyone learns what is pain and how it feels. No novelty just grind it through!
Unlike what followed it's wake!
It started lightly. Some needles in the arms. A few hung sacks filled with nevershoulds, cocktails meant to exterminate life quite literally. A special mix meant specially for him, an outstanding experience's gate carved and ornated with sigils of damnation. Where most chemo-coctails meant to work as a more-or-less specialised and aimed sword, with all the collateral damages, his were an atomic strike meant to wipe through everything in his body.
But the real fun started on the very next day...
He finally managed it. Stood up and went to try to vomit. It were a compelling, urgent feeling. It felt his intestines want to left through his mouth while his veins were filled with liquid fire. Every step hurt, every breath burned, every thought ached and echoed damn painfully. But it were only the urge to vomit, for the umpteenth time now, but he once again cannot vomit. He struggled for long, excruciating moments, then forfeit it and tried to gather enough power to crawl back to his bed.
It was his everydays' habit now, three to five times a days if he were lucky enough to sleep. If not, then he went through that more that a dozen times just on a single accursed day. Because life is good.
'****!' he repeated it as a mantra. He took the pills the oncologist suggested and prayed for all the Dark Gods forgotten to be able to drink that damn glass of water.
Tomorrow would be so much better! It says. For him it meant the next dose of chemo because it were true: Tomorrow would be so much better! All whom think that: **** you!
As for the universe itself: **** you to! Double **** you!
And while it seems rude, damn it, it helped him a bit to ease at least his thoughts. The other curses tormented him because someone said it would help... Well, that trully is another damned story...
Lying in bed did not help either, it just made it less tiring to feel ****** up. He once again thought that if how healing feels it would be better to die!
'Isn't it strange how dreams fade and shimmer..?' he said the first sudden wayward thought. It sounded familiar but he could not recall where or why?
'Please, let me either sleep or die, damn you all!' added after a weak try to cover himself with his blanket.
Then he forcefully closed his eyes and repeated the weak plea. But there were no more hope in his words...
Darkness all around. Darkness and deaf silence. Even the time seemed to faded away.
Something moved? There, in the hard-to-tell distance a flock of darkness may waved? Could something be darker than dead black?
A shape, sure, hard to describe. Like an ever-changing cloud of blackness what slowly but randomly moves like sharks in the water. Yet it still moves rather purposefully and suddenly two eyes opens and stare like the gates of Abaddon. Two plain white swirls, whirpools in the flowing blackness, cold and eldtritch full of dread and wickedness!
'Well, hello, deary!' sounds like hundreds of weak, tormented echoes. Silent, exhausted voice yet so strong it hurts the mind.
'A dream...' he noted. 'At least I sleep then...'
'Dream?' echoes the apparition with a certain overtune. 'Deary! Everything is but mere dreams! Why so picky with a few while neglect the rest?'
The strange apparition slowly swimmed around him always stare with those sick, swirling white eyes. Being close to it feels unnatural, feels stand in an aura of unfathomable sickness and unsurmountable dread. Yet the apparition remain calm and friendly albeit it literally screams of violence and fear.
'Well, well, deary...' said the wicked choir, the voices of the apparition. 'You not looks very well! Poor little deary! Poor, weak little deary...'
'The heck are you and the heck may this dream means?'
...A fitting question? Indeed. And even logical it may seems...
'You suffer, my poor one! Your question is so weak! You are tormented and... Oh, you see the lack of darkness all around? The Light of Hope vanished! So, you tell me, deary!'
The putrid apparition just circling, swimming or floating slowly around. It's eyes shimmer, fade, shimmer... But deep inside, right at their bottom, there is something desperately familiar! There is an impossible similarity, there is a nightmarish feeling like look into an obsidian mirror...
'Okay, **** you!' he shrike trying to hit the darker-than-darkness. 'All I need is to wake up and this bugged dream would...'
'Deary!' the voices feel somehow angry?! 'Try it but you would not prevail. You are weak, suffers! So do I! See, we are kindred spirits! Why do you not listen someone who understands you, deary? We are asame, poor little one...'
'All you has done so far were **** pile of meaningless words... The hell you think we are asame? You are but a wild dream induced by the accursed...'
'Wrong, wrong and again, wrong! Deary! Use your mind! I see you suffer and I want to help! Yet you are so rude with me! Deeply hurts, deary, so deeply hurts!'
Another vain attempt to hit the apparation. It felt like hit the fog. The result were the same.
'Deary!' weak, laughter-like voice. 'You suffer every day! You lost or soon would lost hope! Why do you still cling to the hopeless suffering?'
'You want me to surrender?! I would die...'
'Deary, oh my sweet, deary!' what a sickly kind and caring voice! 'Sometimes surrender is the best option. And death erase all pains and suffering! None of us need to suffer any further! Would that be not better? Make an end of all these sufferings? Quit the misery?'
Sounds so seductive, so easy... Feels so desirable!
'Listen, heed, deary! End the misery for both of us! Then we could fade away together peacefuly! Is that not better? Feels not better for both of us? Easier for you, easier for me, deary!'
'Saitan tempted Jesus on the cross... Why do you care so badly about me?'
'Deary! Because I got so much from you! It would be damn rude not to return such enormous favour...'
The apparition stopped right in front of him. It's sick, white eyes stared straight into his. That pupilless gaze again seemed so familiar.
...And that sickly caring, kind voice! That meant everything in itself without words:
'What kind of thing should I be if I would not care about my host?!'
Days passed like stunned slugs. Crawled like sick, old worms barely able to move. The only constant were misery.
The sky were grey outside, gently rained, the small drops of water played a monotonous yet atmospheric symphony on the roof. There went some show in the television but noone even blinked toward it. It were to exhausting and granted nothing in exchange. Just more suffering.
An unspoken question filled the air without answer: Why do I still do this? Why not surrender and die?
...Just die. Die and the torments would gone forever!
No more empty urge to vomit inside out. No more struggle just to sit or stand up from the equally uncomfortable bed. No more brawl for a few hours of sleep what at the end not grant refreshment. No more painful hunger when you cannot eat a single bite without torment. No more acheing muscles without even move them. No more burning, fiery pain flow through your veins. No more hopeless feel to fight for the mere next breath. No more misery, suffering and torment...
If that was the treatment death seemed a better option with every passing minutes!
Just die and the misery vanish... So desirable, so easy, so comfortable!
Why do I still do this? Why, oh why!
Hope gone, dreams faded. Nothing shimmered still. Life became a curse. Existence were but damnation.
He closed his tired, burning eyes and tried to massage his temples. He recalled the two white, swirling eyes haunted his dreams days ago. He repeated the question and the option the apparition told.
Why do I still do this? I could choose to refuse and die! Cannot be worse than this...
What cannot kill, weaken you. But there is, at least it seems, infinite levels of being weaker and weaker.
Then why? No promise to bind. Why? Why?!
But somewhere, a weak, defiant thought answers: Why not?
How good the strong exaggeration would have looked. He was flayed, tortured, and exhausted, but at least he was sitting there and able to pay attention again. That is how he imagined himself at that moment. And he suspected there were more truth in that.
The last dose of chemo were a whole week ago. The teraphy were over. His body slowly started to recover. He again started to feel himself a living being and not a suffering creation devoit of salvation.
'The test we done yesterday showed nothing!' the cute oncologist said. 'A wonderful news. The cancer, it seems now, is gone.'
'Finally, I am healthy again!' he sighed with a relief. Hope returned slowly in his heart. He felt he may can dream and plan once again.
'Well, not exactly...' the oncologist added kindly. 'We shall track you, make tests time to time for a while. If everything would be okay and fine we shall deem you recovered and healthy again. Cancer is a vile thing. But your chances were and still excellent!'
'Damn, doctor, it is gone! That is all I need to know now!'
'A brave way of thinking, I like it!' the oncologist handed over some papers for him before they shaken hands. 'We meet again after two weeks! A few test to check as I mentioned... But until then, wish you the bests!'
'Heartfully thank you, doctor!'
His heart were light and happy. His steps were full of relief. The hospital quickly left behind him as he considered how to celebrate the excellent news of the day?
A pizza with ham and mushrooms. Then a nice cup of coffee. Both felt so good!
When he arrived at home, put the rest of the pizza in the fridge, took a refreshing shower and fall in his bed like a happy child. He smiled as he closed his eyes and awaited the refreshing sleep. He not expected any dreams, those were always scarce and rare. And considering the last few of them kept dreams in the row of "better not". And the darkness deepened, the surrounding slowly faded away as he fall asleep. The darkness covered him like a calming, warm blanket, felt like tranquility.
It really did...
'Deary, sweet deary! Isn't it strange how dreams fade and shimmer..?'
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