We're apart of each other, sharing the same room, lying in beds that align opposite to each other. Both of us suffering from the same disease. I wonder why they never spelled diseasewith the word die. The English language was crafted by strange people who only had the intention of avoiding the truth, masking reality. Beating around the bush was probably something they came up with as well. Euphemisms for euphemisms.
But between the two beds, I knew I was going to be the first to go. June would leave through the doors with flowers and bears from the gift shop. Of the more creative gifts, he got handmade cards, homecooked goods and a girlfriend that sometimes spent the night in the chair next to him. Ray wasn't here, hadn't ever stepped foot in here, and all the above, which is just another euphemism for "He didn't give a shit, May."
Occasionally June took pity on me. "Want some chocolate?" he asked, pointing to the Sees one pounder box that his friends had left. Sees candies were extremely rare in Japan, in fact, non-existent. Those were probably left by his Canadian girlfriend, who traveled to the States every once in a while for a modeling shoot. We all traveled for the job.
"Do I have to get up for it?"
June's smile was as weak as his movements. He shakily got out of his bed, his hospital gown slid up a bit as two twigs moved step by step towards me. From his wrist, a long IV tube trailed back with the machine rolling seconds behind. He gave a ordinary laugh as he shook the chocolates towards me. His arm as thin as mine were. Eating disorder was another good euphemism, so politically correct that it had me arguing with the doctors who were just doing their best to make me eat. Sometimes it came to a point of force-feeding, but they don't watch you for 24 hours. Anybody paid to care never actually cares.
"I got up just to give one to you..." he ushered the box closer to me. The act was so easy to read. I could tell that he was really sorry for me. A sick person feeling even more sorry for another sick person. This was really the lowest of the lows. I felt almost obliged to take one, but the bitterness was too overwhelming to be kind. I crossed my arms. June continued that banal smile. He headed back to his bed, leaving the pity chocolates behind.
When June left, he left before me. He left before my father, before the doctors, before Ray even called to ask about me. He left the hospital bed, before his mother, who cried by the bed side for her unresponsive son. How I survived, smoking, ignoring, and alone, like misery thorns of a bush, while he - the flower - withered away, was an unfair act of justice.
We never chose this sickness, but I knew I deserved it. Somehow I escaped, a slip through the cracks of Death's closed fist. Even the tightest grip has a place for air to move in and out. I couldn't help but think about how the doctors told us there was no chance of recovery. It would be a miracle - a miracle I was physically a witness to. The moments we shared in the jail of a room, between the space of the pasty green walls, were ours to keep, and had me think. Thinking of how misery seemed to outlast joy. But June always managed to put out the darkness with some light. His family, his girlfriend, his friends came like buckets of water, soothing his pain as he smiled cheerily during his moments of pain.
I looked at the empty bed. It's been like that for two days now. An empty bed that could be easily collapsed and moved over to my side so that I would have a queen. A queen sized bed where no one slept on the other side - it would only serve to remind me of the lonely nights. A room without photographs, without personality or flair, without any part of me that segmented my being from the hospital room. I was becoming a staple piece of furniture. The thought made me miserable. When the nurse came around for the check-up, I asked her to bring the phone over so I could call Ray. I figured that sometimes fires can be extinguished on your own.
