A final tribute.
I used to be a little bit shy, I kept my deepest feelings inside
Speaking up to you about my emotions has always been hard
But this just can't wait, tonight I feel a little bit brave
So I won't let one more day pass without me explaining what we are
This is gonna sound kinda silly
But I couldn't help but notice
The last time you kissed me
You kept both eyes open
Baby, can you tell me what does that mean?
If you're looking all over your shoulder
Then you don't need to be with me
And I don't need to hold on
*
Don't let me stop you from doing what you wanna do
You don't wanna stick, trust me it's cool
Take no chance gettin' over you
No, no, don't let me stop you, if you wanna leave, baby you can leave
Just don't pretend that you're into me
If it ain't true, no, don't let me stop you
*
A lot of things I can take, gotta high threshold for pain
But let's get one thing straight, I'm not down to share you with anyone
If that's not what you're looking for, nice knowing you, but there's the door
Cause I know that I can find someone to give me what I want
This is gonna sound kinda silly
If you're looking over your shoulder
Then you don't need to be with me
And I don't need to hold on
Even if I end up broken hearted, I won't lie
I don't wanna hear goodbye, but other way I'll be alright-Don't let me stop you.
Kelly Clarkson.
*
Esther's right. This is a fantastic song for me.
I realised much more through a simple song than I ever could with possibly anything else.
And you can probably guess that I have this song playing as I'm typing this entry.
I can't believe I'm being manipulated into doing something I don't want, into someone I'm not, into someone I don't wanna be.
Why? I don't the hell know.
I don't know who the hell you are to me. Why am I letting this happen?
I know I've said I don't mind many things.
Why? Why did I even say that?
PUI. Machaim like so desperate like that. Desperate to keep you near.
You know...
Maybe I can change that. Just wait. or,
Nah, you wouldn't dare. and how about,
If I'm fine with that, you'll still be here, right?I just don't know why it took me so long just to figure out.
But I think right now, I just don't care already.
Why? I'm just too damn fucking tired.
I thought I'd gotten rid of everything that I previously felt for, you know, just for the record. So that I won't be a moping zombie everywhere.
Try something different for a change. Cut myself some slack.
It's hard to support something like this up and hold it together.
Why can't you just screw off and fucking leave me alone?
I ain't perfect, hell I do know. Why don't you go find someone else who is?
Leave me to mope around in my own imperfections, why don't you?
HAH. AS IF.
I don't want to continue psycho-ing myself into thinking that this is right.
It's not. It fucking is not.
Well, so yeah. It's been nice knowing you,
but there's the door.*
It was the final minutes of the last lesson. She had already packed her things, seeing as the teacher had already finished the topic for the day and didn't seem like he was going to continue on. Wrapping her arms around the bag in front of her chest, she rocked on the chair, eyes fixed upon the clock, almost willing the second hand to spin faster around the clock's face.
Suddenly, a vibration coming from her pocket shook her out of the concentration she hadn't realised she had fallen into.
Incoming call. Number withheld. The screen of her phone flashed.
Brow furrowed, she clicked the 'answer' button, flipped her shoulder-length auburn highlights down and put the phone under her concealed ear, silently hoping her teacher, that currently had his back towards her, wouldn't turn around.
"Hello?" She whispers into the phone, apprehensively.
The familiar voice on the other line was scratchy; lost but impatient. "Hey, hey? Come... Come... Get down to Mount. A, now, hurry... please... hurry, won't... won't make it. Don't... Don't seem good... just hurry."
She could almost feel the vibration in her caller's voice, but that was not what that mattered. As the tone went dead, she could almost feel her arm detatching itself from her body. Fingers still clutching the phone in nothing less than a death grip, everything else that connected the shoulder to the wrist fell limp, lifeless. Dead.
"Okay now class, if there is anything else from this lecture that needs explaining, please feel free to stay back for the remedial after lesson. If that is all, thank you class." The teacher's voice rang out.
There was a massive scraping of chairs as the students stood up to greet the teacher goodbye. She felt her legs straighten, she felt her back bend in a slight bow, she felt her mouth move to produce words. But she didn't feel all there, like as if she was watching herself from the sidelines. A sick, sick, motion picture of her own life.
"Eh," her deskmate nudged her. "You staying back for remedial? You did say you were going to, and I don't understand half the lecture. Accompany me, please? Oh, and what was that call for?"
Robotically, she turned to face her deskmate.
Robotically, her mouth moved in the appropriate movements to form the excuse she had perfectly formulated before so that she wouldn't have an escape excuse for situations like this.
"Uhm, no I can't, I'm so, so sorry. My parents just called and said my sister was hospitalised with quite a horrible flu bug. So I gotta run..." She slung her bag over a shoulder and did a backward wave. "Seeya!"
"Oh, yeah sure go ahead..." Maybe her deskmate finished the sentence with a get-well-soon wishing, maybe she finished it with a goodbye. But she didn't hear, she didn't care. She was already half way out of school, fumbling with her phone in the process of dialing a cab.
"Mount... Mount A., please." She told the cabby as soon as she entered the taxi. There wouldn't be time for a bus. As soon as the door slammed shut, the cab driver sped off.
Throughout the ride, she suddenly became very conscious of her bodily actions. Her legs were shaking, no matter how often she tried to stop it. Her palms were getting wet, no matter how many times she wiped them off her sleeves. Her breathing was ragged, as if she had just ran a mile under 6 minutes.
Minutes flashed by as the surroundings whizzed to a change. She had arrived. This place is familiar, those glass doors are familiar. How many times had she walked through those doors? She had long lost count.
Fumbling with the change, giving the cabby a five instead of a ten, a fifty instead of a twenty, apologising for her carelessness, stumbling out of the cab with wobbly knees, she practically tumbled through the automatic glass doors and almost fell headfirst through the reception.
Grabbing a nearby sofa to stabilize herself, she pulled out her phone and hit the redial button. She was going to call the last person whom she called previously anyway, no need for her new-found clumsiness to bring about additional trouble.
"Where, where?" She gasped into the phone.
"Opp... Opp..." There was a switching of hands and a new voice emerged. "Please come to ward 13 on level 3 of the hospice, it's just directly opposite the hospital." This voice sounded practiced, calm and collected, cool. Probably one of the nurses, she imagined.
"O-okay, thank... thank you."
Yet again, she stumbled out of the glass doors. The hospice was a mere 50m away. But the trek there looked highly dangerous, where the obstacles included the hospital carpark, a simple pavement, and another set of sliding glass doors. What if, in her delusional state, she doesn't notice a car coming? What if she trips over a crack or a pebble in the path and falls and hits her head and suffers a concussion? What if she, without noticing, crashes headfirst through the glass doors?
But, she makes it safely across the road. And over the pavement. And through the glass doors.
"May I help you?" A voice rings from the reception.
"W-ward 13." She flusters. Did she get the ward correct?
"Ah, yes," the receptionist's face goes soft. "She just got transferred in today morning. Lift's down the right, do you need me to go with you?"
"No... no thanks, thank you, but no. I... I have to hurry. Thank you." She manages to say. At the lift, it takes her three tries before her lifeless fingers were able to press accurately onto that single, small UP button.
She rushes forward as soon as the bell rings, almost banging into the unopened lift doors. Once inside the lift, she leans against the sidepanes, unknowingly catching her reflection in the dull aluminium. Although it highly distorted her otherwise attractive features, there was no mistaking the pale tinge in the clammy, wet skin. She runs her sleeve over her forehead, wiping away cold perspiration she never knew had formed.
The lift 'dinged' open again, and she ran all the way to Ward 13.
She slammed through the doors, only to be greeted by sights of red, puffy, teary eyes, trembling hands, and weak smiles. Everyone had gathered round the single bed there, like some sick procession.
She drops her bag at the side of the door, or rather, her bag just slumped off her shoulders and happened to land at the door posts. Slowly, she inched her way toways the bed. The people cleared the path for her. She heard her breathing become ragged, torn again.
She has now reached the side of the bed, looking upon the mangled excuse for a patient lying upon the blue sheets. A drip was attached to what remained of a hand, and the hospital pajamas looked too big although it was already the smallest size.
She leaned over and smoothed out the rainbow-coloured skull cap, before pulling it off. Too colourful for the picture, it just made her sick. She grabbed the hand, although it lay still and skeleton-thin within her palms. It was cold. Very cold.
Without realising it, she had already put a finger under the nostrils of the patient, as if uncertain about the heartrate meter on the side.
The patient was so wasted, so, so much like the face of Death itself.
"What...?" She whispers, hoping someone would answer her unasked question.
"Speak to her, she can hear you. Although she's mostly respirator now..."
RESPIRATOR?
The patient's eyes were wide open. They look scary. She doubts they see a thing. There was a faraway could hanging over them. The patient wasn't there with them anymore.
She leans forward again, to put her face near the one she loved so much.
"Turn it off."
"What, dear? I'm sorry, I didn't catch you."
"The respirator, turn it off."
"Why dear? She'll get better, you know it!" Fake enthusiasm spilled out of this person's mouth. Who is this person? She cannot differentiate now.
"Turn. It. Fucking. Off. I can't have her like this. She's gone, already." Her voice was going to break, and she knew it.
"We wanted you to have the choice, you know, that was why we waited..."
"I DON'T FUCKING CARE ABOUT THAT. TURN THE FUCKING RESPIRATOR OFF." She burst out, before slumping onto the chair that was beside the bed. Her vision goes blurry, she feels her senses numb. After a temporary spill of tears, it suddenly ceases to a stop.
A doctor was called in. She eyes him as he approaches the respirator, the only thing keeping the one she loved so alive, or surviving, right now. She watches as his finger flips a switch. She watches as the patient's chest ceases to fall and rise in that rhythmic motion she used to fall asleep on. She watches as the heartrate meter slowly decreases, decreases, decreases and finally bleeps to a stop. The patient's gone. The patient is no more. As of now, the patient is non-existant.
The single, wailing bleep of the machine is suddenly topped off by several wailing cries of the other people of the room.
Silently, she slips out.
At the funeral, she is confused. Who is the corpse around here?
Is it her? Walking around like a zombie, being just about as responsive as a rock, as emotional as a pebble.
Or is it one lying in the coffin, looking beautiful even in death? She made it a point to give credit to the make-up artists.
She saw, heard, and felt many people come up to her to talk. But within herself, everything has been turned off. She saw, heard, and felt nothing.
It was just as they say:
At the time, you're numb and you try to block it out. Yes, you know that person's gone and all, but it's like you're in this fog. Subsequently, life kind of gets into a routine, and you absentmindedly follow it. Before you know it, you stop thinking about it so much, and you move on. You also realise that there is no other choice.*