Fate Carries You Away; Drifting Further and Further

Chapter 2: When You Come Across A Banana Fish

Aslan Callenreese

5 Jul. 2018

A new caretaker? That's really the only thing they could think of.

Nothing seems to be more important to Max. After I stopped trusting him with caring of literally my life, all he could think about was getting me some inexperienced nurse; instead of starting the process of developing a cure for this terrible disease, he got a rookie to take care of me.

"Since when do they employ kids?" I ask the foreign nurse, Eiji Okumura, as he's clumsily trying to get the bottles of medication for the higher cabinets. It's actually a mean move of Max to have them standing on the shelve that he can just get to them; he's so much taller than this kid.

"I am—" Eiji balances on the tips of his toes, just reaching the bottles. "—older than you, actually." He turns around to me with an annoyed expression on his face.

I look at him pouting face, and seeing that he has the biggest baby face I've ever seen on someone, I cannot possibly believe that this boy is older than me. He's fourteen at oldest.

I lean against the wall behind me, shrugging at his statement before looking out of the window.

I can see the entire courtyard from here, and even though it looks most beautiful around this time of year, I don't feel like going outside. Just looking at it whenever I sit in the windowsill is enough to make me feel a lot calmer.

"Here, I got your medication." The only thing that's disturbing my peaceful and terribly short life, is this kid. With his awful accent and his vibe that screams rookie; he actually serves meds on a plate.

I look at the plate filled with everything from two types of anticonvulsants to inhibit my seizures all to way to the basic painkiller to make muscle wasting and headaches less unbearable.

"First off, you don't have to serve them on a plate. Secondly, I don't need them," I mutter, turning away from the nasty medication that they're forcing into my body daily with disgust. "It's just junk."

"What do you mean, you don't need them?" Eiji asks me, placing the plate with medication next to me on the floor. "They're making sure you don't feel pain every single day."

"Yes, like you say—" I turn back to Eiji, making sure to look him in the eyes when explaining, "—these pills make my life more comfortable, it's not like they're helping me have a longer life."

Eiji frowns, clearly not getting what I'm saying. Because who would, all nurses and doctors think having a mildly comfortable few years to live is so much better than just being able to live a full life. So they fill you up with antidepressants, BETA-blockers, Diazepam and other junk every day just so you can live a so called comfortable life; these drugs don't even take away the worst pain.

"What do you mean?" Eiji asks. "I mean, this medication sure must do something good, otherwise they wouldn't be giving it to you for, how long? Three years?"

"Five," I correct him. "And no, they don't do anything. I'll just rush through the stages just like everyone else, and in the end, I'll die from this disease." I close my eyes briefly. "Believe me, I've seen it all happen up close; you wither away and die, that's just what Banana Fish does."

"Banana Fish?"

I wince while biting my lip; I've said it wrong again. I promised myself I wouldn't call it by that name ever again, not after—

"My older brother, he called it that," I explain. "I mean, it has many names anyway. You call it B1. Professors call it by its long Latin name. And me? I call it how my brother called it."

I always thought calling Banana Fish made more sense than calling it B1 or whatever its official name is. Griffin explained it to me one day, once I was old enough to understand. He told me that he had read about Banana Fish in a novel once, he always loved reading, and he thought it really applied to this disease.

He explained it like this "when you come across a Banana Fish in the sea, you suddenly feel like dying" and we both knew very well that once you enter stage 1 and the symptoms set in for the first time, the nightmares you start to have whenever you're not wide awake will have you feel like dying.

But I don't tell that to Eiji, even when he sits down beside me with his legs hugged to his chest eagerly waiting for me to tell him more about this alternate name; it's a thing between Griffin and me, only the two of us call it that, and telling it to some outsider would feel like betraying Griffin.

When Eiji seems to realize that I'm not going to tell him more, he appears a little disappointed. And just when he seems like he's going to open his mouth to ask another annoying question, the door swings open with a lot of noise.

"Good morning!" a cheerful voice echoes through my room as Shorter walks into the room with a breakfast tray. He does this every morning, some days I even get scared out of my nightmares like this; my only friend storming into room with a derpy-looking hairnet covering up his illegal Mohawk and smudges of food staining his white apron.

For as long as I remember, Shorter's been helping out at the hospital. Until just a few months ago, he wasn't old enough to get an official contract, but he still helped out daily ever since he was seven. Because his older sister works in the hospital's cafeteria as cook, he's been that cheerful boy who brings patients their breakfast every morning. And since Shorter's only one year older than me, he and I soon became friends and have been for almost twelve years now.

"Morning, Shorter," I reply dryly.

"Wow, you're cheerful as ever, I see?" Shorter sarcastically answers, placing the tray on the over-bed table before walking over to me. That's when he spots Eiji sitting on the floor beside me. "Ah, so you're the young caretaker they employed?" He sticks his hand out to Eiji and winks. "Good luck."

I roll my eyes. "Thanks for scaring the new kid."

"I'm a grown up," Eiji snaps back at me, before looking back to Shorter. Eiji gets on his feet before shaking Shorter's hand and saying, "Eiji Okumura, nice to meet you—"

"Shorter Wong," Shorter replies, smiling wide at the Japanese boy. "I was just joking by the way; Ash's a good guy." Shorter looks at me, holding out his hand to help me on my feet, even though I don't need his hand. After I push his hand away, Shorter adds, "But he's just a little grumpy."

"Funny." I squint my eyes at him when he winks.

After that I get on my feet and saunter over to my bed. I crawl under the blankets and roll the over-bed table closer so I can properly reach my food. It looks okay, but my appetite is gone as usual.

"Anyway, enjoy your meal, Ash." Shorter walks tothe hallway where his cart with other trays waits for him. Before he closes thedoor behind himself, he turns around and tells one of us, or maybe Eiji as wellas me, good luck. I guess we both kind of need it in the end.