Questions

• Alicia Malden-bullard, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2010

Questions-

Would you play a game even if you knew you were going to lose?
Would you jump even though you were destined to fall?
Would you hide even if you knew you would be found?
Would you fight even if it meant failure?
Would you live?
Or would you die?

It’s a plague, surging through my veins, intoxicating my blood, numbing my senses until all thought just disappears into one dark synapse. The hair falls from my head like little clumps of snow, gracefully dancing on air as it floats down to earth. Blood spurts from my mouth, running over my lips like a waterfall before pooling in my lap. Doctors rush around me but in my eyes, everything slows and everything feels heavy. My eyelids fight against the dark haze of sleep that threatens to engulf me, struggling like Atlas to support the great weight they are holding. However, eventually, inevitably, the world must come crashing down

Originally my life was measured in years. Then it was months. Then days. Then hours. I’m wondering when it’s all going to stop. And don’t tell me that you haven’t either because everyone wonders; how, when, why? Everyone questions but not everyone gets answers. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? But then again, life is the poster-child for being unfair.

Cancer; it’s a term that’s used to group together different diseases. By placing that word next to the name of a body part, people are able to understand what it means a little better or at least, that’s what they say. Breast cancer; lung cancer; brain cancer. They all collectively mean the same thing; death. The doctors, they try to prolong it for as long as possible but there’s really no point in fighting the inevitable. That’s what I tell myself as I close my eyes, ready to fall. But they won’t let me.

Would you walk into the middle of a battle field, unarmed? Would you ready yourself to fight? Even if the odds against you winning could pave a path all the way to hell? That’s what the doctors are forcing me to do. My body’s given up; the cancer has won. But the doctors can’t see, can’t understand or comprehend. It’s their job to make me live; as a cancer patient, is my job to die? I’ve been fighting for so long and now I’m not even sure what’s left to fight for. All the blood tests, the bone marrow aspirations, the kidney transplant; every time the doctors remove something, they’re taking a part of me, of who I am and who I wanted to be. There’s nothing left but the air travelling in and out of my lungs and the knowledge inside of me that it’s time.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And yes, but only after you lose a game, fall when you jump, hide and then be found, fight and fail.
Only after you truly live.
Then it’s okay to die.
There, questions answered.