Seeds of Change

Merrily, merrily, we all fall down

"Step through here, miss," the nurse says. Ellena looks at the scanner suspiciously. It, in every way, resembles a shower. It is a small white container with three walls and a door. The sterility of the hospital presses in on her.

Something about the scanner screams at her. Get out, get out! Never come back!

Ellena overrides the feeling. She must know.

She deposits her robe in the nurse's outstretched hand, then inhales sharply at the shock of cold hospital air against her bare skin. She steps in, ready for the worst.

I may never leave this box.

Claustrophobia breathes heavily along her neck, making her shoulders ride up and tense. She hasn't felt sick in almost two weeks, but now she swallows down the cough that threatens to become a heave.

The nurse closes the door behind her. Her voice comes through the speaker, a bit drab but at least pleasant, "The scan will start momentarily. First you'll hear the motor warming up. It's loud and can be a little startling."

Ellena suppresses herself from shivering. This will not hurt. One quick scan and then they can tell me what is wrong. She tried not to imagine the bill. The cost of this is likely to come with more zeros than years of college she's completed.

The motor hums. It sounds like the rev of an engine. Nothing as comforting as the pickup but definitely more than an electric whine. It's deeper, a throaty hum that feels caught between a purr and a growl. She closes her eyes, swallows down the anxiety and pictures her mother's face. It is shadowed by her hat and covered in a smudge of dirt. Her mother's dirty hand comes up to wipes the sweat away, enlarging the smear. Ellena smiles.

"Okay, Ms. Mason you may exit."

Ellena bites down to keep her teeth from chattering. She feels so cold all the time. Opening the scanner door she finds the nurse there as though she never left. She holds the robe open for her and Ellena quickly puts it on.

"Please feel free to return to your exame room and dress. The doctor will be in shortly to discuss your results."

Ellena navigates the corridors with some trouble. Before she find the room, Adonis' familiar laugh carries down the hall to her. It is a steady beat leading her home.

Adonis stand outside the exam room chatting up a nurse. She looks young, the two are still smiling as she approaches. This girl is full. That is all Ellena can think. While she is withered and empty, this girl is bursting and full of curves. She glows. Ellena swallows a new king of anxiety, this one called jealousy. He is just that way, friendly, full of life himself and could make a friend out of a door. That's why she loves him. There is so much clean, welcoming energy bursting from him.

The hall is filled with life, but then the nurse sees her and her expression drops. Now the hall is as gaunt as Ellena.

"Hey," Adonis says, holding out his hand.

"Hey," she says back, taking his hand. They walk into the room to wait.

The doctor enters, she can taste the bad news clinging to hi lips.

"I lost the baby," she bursts out. Ellena feels it will such certainty, has felt it every month as the cycle repeated.

"I'm afraid there wasn't a baby. At least not that we could detect. Given the condition your body is in the last thing it will be able to sustain is another life," he stops a moment. He looks as though those words have escaped. He then takes a deep breath. "Ms. Mason, you have Corpoicibum Poscorrumpenia."

"What?" she says.

"It's commonly known as Adexa's Disease--"

"We know what Adexa's is, doctor," Adonis cuts in. He feels defiant. His words are all that he can control anymore.

"Yes, of course you do. It's challenging to escape the news now days. We see it most often in the working poor. It's where the body starts attacking itself. We aren't exactly sure why they are there, but the body has these enzymes that we need to break down certain kinds of foods. In your case, they are out of balance and they begin breaking your body down from the inside out. The likelihood that you could ever be pregnant in the future with this disease is very small. Not impossible, but very unlikely."

Silence fills the room. The doctor shifts on his stool.

"It's survivable. There is no cure, but we have medications to help you manage the side effects and live with the disease. The first thing to do is to start with your diet. Get out of the discount section and start buying some real food. Anything from the produce section. That'll make a big difference to the enzymes, they will have more to break down and they will be less likely to turn on you. Then we will need to start treatments. I will have to refer you because we don't do them here at our facility, but K treatments are the most effective as they physically reduce the number of enzymes in your body. We should have the Adexa's into manageable remission within a year," he smiles at them tightly.

Ellena sits, numb.

Adonis thinks of the costs, of how they will tell her parents, and, somehow, that this is all his fault.

She says nothing.