Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The Hospital Consumed the Silence.

Chuck Wendig Challenge. Use a random sentence generator to produce a story. limit 1000 words any genre.
I have to say I am not so happy with this piece. But I missed the last couple so I was determinded to do it this week.


The Hospital Consumed the Silence.

May lay on her bed. Sweat beaded her upper lip and a glassy sheen stared from her eyes. She bunched the sheets between gnarled fingers. Thin skin barely covered the blue veins that snaked across sharp aged bones. She pulled at the blankets and moaned softly. The nurses checked on her every ten minutes but it was no use. Even trying to keep her comfortable was becoming more and more difficult.
One of them was with her now, her starched white uniform pained Sams eyes ‘not long now’ she said frowning at her watch as she checked Mays pulse.

Sam sighed. There was nothing to do but wait for the end. The doctors had been around earlier mumbling something about catching it earlier. But Sam knew they were lying. They wouldn’t meet his eyes. Except for the boldest one, he looked straight at him and through him. ‘There is nothing we can do. Perhaps if you came earlier?’ They wanted you to believe it wasn’t their fault. That after years in college and working in the hospitals they still knew squat about anything unusual. He had made Sam uncomfortable they way he had looked at him. Sam wondered if he knew something about them.

And what was unusual about ‘Parsis’ fever. Nothing much. Just your common or garden viral infection. Causing the usual high fevers and hallucinations. And of course eventually killing you off. That’s the nasty part. Oh and it’s been eradicated for over 2 centuries.

That caused a lot of questions once they figured it out. Of course that was what threw them these mugs playing at doctor. It wasn’t supposed to be here.

Trouble was Sam didn’t think they’d be able for the truth. The truth about May or him for that matter. Would two old souls who had managed to survive death for five hundred years blow their minds?

May had been talking about being in Egypt and Persia and meeting Isis but the nurses had put it down to delirium. After all their tiny brains couldn’t cope with the idea of immortals. That was the stuff of legend.
Sam snorted at the thought of it. ‘Did you say something love?’ the nurse asked. But Sam only shook his head very slowly.

Immortal. If only that were true we wouldn’t be here. That’s what got us in to this mess.
Sam cursed himself. If he hadn’t gone out for some fresh air leaving her unprotected. If that old witch hadn’t got it into her head to drink our sons blood to gain immortality. If she hadn’t been infected with Parsis. If May hadn’t tried to fight her off. So many if’s.
May never really got over that. It was a bite from that old demon that had infected her. She’s had Parsis for nearly four hundred years but now Sam couldn’t care for her any more. He was tired. He was waiting for her to pass on into the next realm. And then he would go out into the forest like his ancestors before him when they had tired of living and let the life force flow from him. He felt lighter already having made his decision.

May’s breathing had steadied to a very shallow pull on the air around her. Her hands released their grip on the sheets. She sank back into the pillow. Sam watched the life force flow out of her. The room grew silent without her moans and raspy breathing. The silence grew and grew until suddenly the hospital consumed the silence.

2 comments:

  1. Nice. I felt the helplessness and hopelessness without it being melodramatic. Interesting premise and nicely done. I enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Thank you for your kind comment A.K. Grein. Much appreciated.

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