Maya Nelson was ordinary. WAS. Past tense. Then this 16 year old caught an extremely rare and new disease normally only seen in 3rd world countries. She and others around her age with the disease were moved to a hospital in America, a ten hour fligh...
Maya I was better off than them. Their lives were full of terror then. Some had no families, some needed translators to talk to the doctors, some couldn't be understood at all.
I lay on a hospital bed, sweat coated my fever consumed body, surrounded by machines that prevent me from peaceful sleep at night with their insistent beeping, all I could think about was when will the discomfort end. The pain ended, only to be replaced by this itching and dull throbbing. My hair had been a birds nest for weeks now and my normally vibrant eyes lost their joyful glimmer after a month in this god forsaken room. I was never allowed to leave and neither were they.
My bed was situated in the corner of the long room with them to my left. The youngest, 5 years of age, was directly next to me, his attempts at communicating to anyone thwarted by his inability to speak a language recognised by the translators. A nurse worked his way down the line of nine beds, mine being the tenth, and reached the boy. The face of the nurse was kindly but there was dread visible as he reached the ninth cot. There was no translator slumped in a chair by this bed and no calming this boy down. No explaining why the needle pricks were required to prevent further pain.
His hands visibly shaking, the man took a hypodermic syringe from his plastic tray and gestured for the boy to sit up. The frail body took a second and then registered the need of the nurse, obeying mutely. With tentative kindness, the nurse rolled up the boy's robe sleeve and inserted the needle into the boys non-existent bicep.
He screamed, an animalistic yell of pure fear and rage. The patient swung his free arm over the bed, in an act of unaware self defence, and punched the poor nurses torso.
A resounding crack filled the room. He broke his rib. Shock filled my mind. A five year old child just broke the rib of a grown man in a single punch. The screams of the child were joined by the lower ones of the nurse and yells for help by the translators. I stayed silent.
Men, not doctors exactly more like security guards you would see in a shopping centre, clothed in black uniforms rushed through the doors of the room. Two went to the child next to me struggling but succeeding to grab him by the wrists and undo the brake on his bed at the same time. A second pair went to the injured nurse, and using less effort than their bulky companions lifted him to his feet and escorted him outside. The others split, nine of them in total and each came to a different bed as if to guard us from ourselves. From out of nowhere they produced chain like straps and secured us each to our beds by our hands and feet. What on earth were these people doing? They were meant to be helping us, not locking us up so we can't move. It's not like we could go anywhere if we wanted to; this hospital is as bad as a prison for us.
Once they managed to restrain the boy who caused the commotion and began to wheel him away from me, the doors opened a second time.
Instead of a burly bully, in walked a man with the same hue skin as the other patients. Who is he?, I thought. Not a doctor I recognised nor a nurse. He walked like he was used to being the centre of attention but not in the snobbish way of a celebrity who is asking for fame. More like the attitudes of the politicians I used to see and one day hoped to join on the world's stage. Actually, maybe I could use my experience now to be a doctor or a lawyer who defended people's rights in court. To be honest, the present hurt too much to think about the future.
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