Has No End

• Narlene Arthur, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2008

Epilogue:

It was the warmest day of the summer, yet the wind was cool and forgiving against Ella and Kayden’s skin. They were sprawled by the side of the clear, winding stream under the shade of an old, knotted willow tree, its slender branches swaying gently in the light, breezy wind.
“Look! I think I saw a fish!” Ella exclaimed excitedly.
Kayden neared the twisting stream but when he peered below, all he saw was their rippling reflections. Ella; small and petite, her long, dark red hair tangling in the wind, her blue-green eyes wide with glee and he saw himself, Kayden; tall and lanky beneath a mop of dark hair, bright brown eyes studied himself.
“Oh, it’s gone now.” Ella said with a tone of disappointment.
Kayden suppressed a snort and layback down on his side, facing Ella, the Ella he had known for nine long, precious, eventful years.
“You’re my best friend.” He said sincerely.
A small, pleased smile lit up Ella’s appealing features.
“You’re mine too.” She replied softly.
“Always?” Kayden persisted.
“Always.” Ella vowed.


Ten Years Later …

A poster for dental hygiene swam before Kayden’s tired eyes. He searched earnestly amongst the sea of faceless people for Dr. Long, however a blond-haired nurse smiled ruefully at him.
“Ella is ready to see you now.” She said.
Kayden nodded, rubbing his eyes into alertness. He walked soundlessly to Room 624 but before entering, he gazed through the small gap the dusty curtain gave.
Kayden saw the frail, emaciated body of Ella, hooked up to half a dozen machines, looking so ailing, Kayden’s throat constricted. It was so sad.
He must have made a noise because Ella was talking to him.
“Kayden, is that you. Are you hiding?” She called in that monotonous voice that wasn’t hers.
“No, hello,” he pushed open the door and sat in the hard-backed chair. “How are you?”
“Okay … I guess.” She said sketchily.
“Are you sure that – that this is the right time?” He inquired, hoping to hear a different answer to the one he had heard so often.
“Yes,” Ella sighed with a slight shrug. “I am.”
“But why do you greet Death so readily?” Kayden asked feebly.
“Kayden,” Ella’s tone was cautiously measured but her expression betrayed her. “Death is inevitable. We will all die, one way or another. I am tired of fighting. So damn tired, it makes me ache.” Ella’s voice shook involuntarily.
Kayden knew that he had crossed some invisible barrier.
“Sorry,” he said hastily. “But I don’t want you to die.”
He flushed, knowing that what he had just said was so childish, even to his own ears.
“I love you more than my life, that’s why I must give it up, living is haunting you. I see the pain and revulsion in your eyes. But when I tell you this, look at me.”
Kayden, looked up, startled at the harshness in her voice.
The blue-green colour that usually reminded him of the Caribbean Sea looked bland, plain but that wasn’t even anything compared to how they taunted him. They looked hollow; empty; dead.
“I’m sorry,” Ella’s voice was low, somehow more human. “But can’t you see how horrible it is for me, in my position?”
Kayden nodded but refused to meet those dead-looking eyes that betrayed his very existence.
“Ella, Ella,” he was pleading now. “Live for me. Love for me. Fight for me.”
“I have,” she smiled faintly. “I have lived and fought for you for seven months. Long, hard months. I have known and loved you, have I not, for nineteen years, so it is you that I request a last, dying wish.”
“Huh?” Kayden stammered confusedly.
“A dying wish. Take me to that paddock we used to go to every summer when we were kids.”
“The one with that stream and that huge willow tree?” Kayden had a fleeting reminiscent of the nine-year-old Ella grinning ecstatically. “Why?”
“Because I was always content there, with you. Always.” Her last word echoed her promise, all those years ago.
“Okay.” He kissed her slightly warm hand.
He bowed his head but looked but alarmingly when Ella had started to cough. Blood splattered the white linen and her front. Before the scene had processed in his mind, he knew that – she was dying.
“Don’t go. Stay with me.” He pleaded, hovering anxiously over her.
“Goodbye.” She spluttered.
Two masked doctors entered suddenly, one forcing Kayden out with uncanny strength.
“No! No! Let me be with her.” Kayden sobbed but no one seemed to care.
Once the doctor had triumphed in pushing Kayden out, he closed the door firmly and Kayden slumped against the wall.
Hot, angry, regretful teas distorted his vision; almost impatiently he brushed them away with a fist. Years, decades, centuries passed before a sallow-faced nurse with sharp, beady eyes gave him an unconvincingly grief-stricken smile.
“Your friend, Annabella, has passed away.”
A huge block of ice seemed to have settled itself determinedly in the pit of Kayden’s stomach. He had a strange urge to smile at the mention of Ella’s real name but the impulse vanished when he realized he would never be with Ella ever again.
“She wanted you to have this.” She pressed a small, glass phial into his hand. Without the say-so, he brushed past the nurse and incredibly Ella was beautiful again. Her eyes were closed; dark lashes fanning out over porcelain-like cheeks, her waves of that red hair, so unique and striking, her hands were relaxed at her sides and the blood had been wiped away. Pathetically, he hoped she was only sleeping, that the experts had made a grave mistake. But her chest moved no more with breaths of life but lay quite still.
His fists were so tightly bunched that he almost broke the phial within. Gingerly, he held it to the light; it appeared to be full of dirt. But it just wasn’t dirt, he remembered that wonderful, rich colour as the soil from the banks of the stream in their paddock. In a way, she had achieved her wish. But he was bringing the paddock to her. And without knowing how it came to him, he sprinkled it over her; it fell like brown, chocolaty snow over Ella’s pale body.
He stood there, just gazing at her beautiful face before crouching down and kissing her once-warm hand. Kayden turned to leave but before he had turned the doorknob, her stole a glimpse at Ella again.
Smiling slightly, he left, got in his beat-up car Ella had always teased and drove and drove, without knowing where the journey was taking him but soon, he saw the knotted willow tree in the fading daylight in the distance. As he neared closer, he though he heard delighted laughs. Getting out and breaking into a run he stopped short of the figures of two young children, one a boy, tall and gangly and the other a girl, slight and little standing side by side, facing the rushing stream. His loss seemed diminished as he watched the two children splashing each other gleefully. Slowly, he turned and got back into his car.
As we live, people die.
And as we die, people live.
It’s a cycle that has no end.