Crusted Away

Chapter 3 - A doctor's lost empathy

Freya can still recall the moment when her nurse, Kimmy had explicitly lost 30 minutes just to explain Dr Morante's story. Her childhood innocence prohibited her from understanding then, but she finally feels for him, for she has feel into the same situation as him, except she is the one that dies. The one that leaves the significant other to suffer. Who is the significant other you may ask? It is her siblings and family, who else would it be?

***

"Hey Kimmy, why does Dr Morante never smile?" The words slipped out from Freya's tongue and she could instantly feel her face burning up. These words only insulted Dr Morante. Kimmy looked at her with a face of surprise.

"Do you really want to know? It's a pretty sad story if you ask me." Kimmy broke their gaze and looked at the acorn tree outside the window. Her eyes drooped.

"Hey, Kimmy, you can tell me! I won't cry, I promise." That was a promise yet to be broken.

"Darling, I'm afraid Dr Morante will hear me. I don't want him to know you-"

"Pleeeeeeaaaaassssse?"

"Ok, but not a word to Dr Morante, this is just between us."

Freya snuggled into her pillows. Comfy as she could be, she was excited to hear a story that actually happened. But what she didn't know was that stories are only a twisted version of reality.

"Dr Morante had been a renowned dermatologist since he was only 19 years old. Do you know why he was one?"

"No..."

"It's because he wanted to help his best friend Aika from suffering the deadly soriasis, something that you suffer from too. Dr Morante had loved her for as long as I've known him for. But he played hard to get and never showed Aika his true feelings for her."

"Ooh! Is this a love story? Do they kiss? Yuck!"

Kimmy chuckles under her breath but resumes telling her tale to this 9 year old child. "Aika sure was pretty, she had eyes as huge as the ocean, serenity should've been her middle name. She was an angel. However..."

"However?" Freya wasn't suspecting a thing.

"Aika started to get huge rashes along her body. Dr Morante had worked harder at the science lab, so he could make a cure for her. He tried making a cure for her as fast as he could. He worked nightly shifts and didn't even sleep. He was surviving solely on coffee. One day, the nurses told him that she didn't have too much time left, that she would die in a week. Dr Morante was stressing a lot. So on the fifth day, he composed what he supposed was the cure to Aika's problem. He told Aika to drink it down and assured her that she would survive, no matter what. And then..."

"And then what? Aika was cured and Dr Morante and Aika lived happily ever after?" She was following the endings for her story books.

"No...on the seventh day, Aika was in critical condition, so Dr Morante had to treat her. A lot of thoughts were passing through his head. He kept looking at the screen to see if her breathing was okay. Aika's breath suddenly went faster and faster until..."

"Until?" 

"Until it just....stopped. Dr Morante was going crazy and ordering everyone to do everything they know to bring her back. CPR, making the oxygen levels go higher, anything. But she had died....and Dr Morante hadn't realised it until someone had blurted that she was dead. Aika's body was laid on the bed for 4 days, so family members could see her perfectly before burial. Dr Morante visited her too and told her that he was really sorry for not telling her that he loved her sooner. He was sorry for all the times he made her mad. And kissed her soft silky hair that was laid beside her. After that he couldn't bear to see her funeral. Since he was a dermatologist, he tried making cures for his patients. But as each patient died one after another, he lost hope and emotion....That's why he doesn't smile. The only day he will truly smile is when he treats a patient with a cure."

"Wait...That's it? I mean like, can't Aika have resurrected from the dead? That would've made the story more interesting-" Freya wasn't getting the fact that this was reality, not a fantasy story where people could change the setting in just one line.

"But this is reality!" Kimmy blurted out. She made up another line to hide up her sadness.

"Come on darling, it's time for bed."

"But it's just 4 o'clock in the afternoon-"

"Yes, yes now go to sleep."

Before Freya can close her eyelids, a white coat flashed through the doorway. Blonde hair swept past the entrance. Dr Morante.