Walking On Margins

Daffodils spotted the grass around me and seemed to go on into the horizon indefinitely. I slowly let my body fall into a heap on the floor and closed my eyes basking in the warmth of the sun and listening intently to the birds chirping in the distance. I was in paradise but it felt like a dream that was going to end any minute from now.

"Anna."

My ears perked up at the voice instinctively. It was a familiar voice, one that brought a sense of comfort and safety, but why did my heart do a painful flip? I opened my eyes using my hands as a temporary umbrella. It was grandma, I hadn't seen her for a long time.

"Hi grandma," I spoke.

She took a seat beside me, gesturing for me to lay my head on her lap. She ran her fingers through my hair like she always did. I waited for the manifestation of grandma to disappear but she stayed. She sat with me engulfed in a comfortable silence until she finally broke it.

"You're even more beautiful now Anna."

She would always give fulsome compliments and spoil me into believing I was perfect. It seemed that after all these years, she was still the same grandma. I sat up adjusting my position so that I would be facing her.

"Where have you been grandma?"

"I've been waiting for you."

I blinked. All at once it came back to me. I watched as her body lay peacefully on the hospital bed. She was gone from this world. I cried, but it was tears of joy. She would finally be free from the pain of the cancer which had been slowly eating her alive. It was the end of her journey and now it was also the end of mine.

"Come Anna. Let me show you your ancestors."

"Grandma, I don't want to go... Not yet," I whispered tears threatening to fall from my eyes.

She pulled me into an embrace. She smelt like something I couldn't explicitly define but it smelt like the strange combination of berries, freshly painted walls and the smell of rain. She smelt alive. When she let me go I felt an emptiness rush over me. I reached my hand up to wipe my tears and in that moment the scene changed.

The walls were white with a dim light illuminating the room. I was at a hospital and my parents sat on either side of me holding onto my hands.

"Mum. Dad." I spoke. They didn't hear me.

The sudden beep from the machine beside me sent my frantic parents running out of my room for a doctor. I looked to my pale and thin self in the bed coughing and trying to breathe and then to the door where my parents had left seconds ago. A nurse stood there her face devoid of emotion. It was all the confirmation I needed.

"Goodbye."

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