A Different World

Charlize steered across the hospital parking lot, stopping for some pedestrians that were crossing. She found a good parking space not far from the entrance, but as had become the ritual, she stopped for a moment to meditate. She thought sadly back to the better times, before Ava’s bad habits had become too inflated and serious. She never had heeded anyone’s advice, and soon she was vanquished, bedridden, and trapped beneath those gaudy sheets in the hospital room. Sighing, she exited the van and walked laboriously toward the entrance. The hospital, despite its peculiar smell, was cosmopolitan, and oddly she was relieved that Ava had made it here, of all places. Lost in thought, she realized she had come to the patient’s room, and quietly opened the door, sliding inside. She looked at Ava’s wan features; Ava’s face so akin to her own. The IV pulsed beside Ava’s bed, transmitting the vital vitamins to her blood. As she stood, thinking deeply, the nurse with the rather impartial expression came in, carrying a tray of meager but nutritious food on it. She set it next to the bed, then seemingly without recognition towards the other people in the room, sped out, off to attend to just another patient. Charlize removed her coat, setting it down on the extra chair, thinking desperately how much she wanted to be a part of Ava’s new life, not the imposter that she felt she was. She sat, quietly conversing with herself, a monologue of sadness. In a sudden rush of memory, she remembered the tragedies of Ava’s accident, and instinctively reached to grasp Ava’s hand. She held it, staring forlornly at the patient’s elongated, deformed arm. Something felt wrong, terribly wrong. It wasn’t this room. It wasn’t this hospital. It wasn’t the world. It was…Ava. There was no Ava. No one belonged to that arm. No one inside that body, that shell. She was an empty shell. No pride ran through those veins. No comfort came from those cold, lifeless hands. The silence became oppressive, so she screamed. A sudden burst of emotion forced all those past afflictions out of her body, out of her soul. She screamed and screamed. She became weary, weighed down by this sudden, extreme sadness that she felt no one should ever have to endure. The doctors rushed in, a wave of expressionless faces, trying to understand the reason for the woman’s earsplitting screams. But Charlize did not succumb to their grasps, to their quizzical looks. She did not wait for hear their verdict, because she already knew. She had no need to be told, because she had been the first to discover. Her parting words as she left that room scented with death were screamed louder than she thought humanely possible:
“THIS IS A HOAX! IT MUST BE A HOAX! IT HAS TO BE A HOAX….THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE!”
And she ran, as fast as she could, away from that terrible place. The elevator, open, empty, offered a desperately needed reprieve, so she stepped inside, and wishing to be alone jabbed the close door button. She rode down, down, down. A neon poster on the elevator wall advertised a hospital gala. How could anyone celebrate at a hospital, this place of death? She rode on: down, down, down. She could not take her eyes away from that poster. It was there, bothering her, reminding her, watching her! Suddenly she lost her rigid composure and uncontrollably her arm came out. It snatched the poster off the wall and her sweaty hands tore it to pieces. She exited the elevator at ground floor and burst outside. She felt gratitude for the cold evening air that subdued the fire within her. But as she crossed the parking lot, it hit her: her world, Charlize’s world, would never be the same.