Abstract Tales

Resurrection

This is one of my favorites!
11/13/19

The first time he saw her he was 9. She had poked her small head inside the door, only clutching the frame with pale, bony fingers. She peered around the room passing over the bland walls, broken television hanging off the wall, and the ridged curves in the ceiling that allowed the dirty curtain to wrap around his hospital bed. Her electric blue eyes lingered on the oxygen tank that sat next to him and the white bathroom that had never been used during his stay.

A gust of wind from the open window blew the curtains up, sending the paper airplane he made earlier into the air. It departed from the brown square table, avoiding the plastic vase of fake flowers and took a couple of turns with a few flips before landing gently in the girl's black hair. She gently plucked it off of her head and took short steps into the room. She hesitated, playing with the handmade toy, not meeting his eyes.

"You can have it," his high pitched voice unwillingly squeaked.

She smiled at him and he swear he's never seen anything in his life more beautiful. He finally saw her full face which was decorated with small freckles under her eyes and a small button nose. Her smile was pure white, the front two a little larger giving her buck teeth. Suddenly she was right in front of him, shutting his mouth with a thin pointer finger.

"Don't waste your breath," she whispered.

He could hear bells ringing in her voice. He wanted her to talk again. The sound of rapid footsteps echoed outside of her door. She turned around, spotting the shadows under the door that grew bigger every second. The girl leaned back, giving him a small smile, then suddenly disappearing before his eyes.

The door burst open, the room filling with frantic nurses and doctors. He tried to open his mouth, but he couldn't. His jaw was burning, starting from where the girl closed his mouth. The feeling spread, his body tingling. He fell back onto the bed, unable to move while the people in white grabbed his body and tossed it on the mattress with wheels. They hurriedly detached the oxygen tank and started running the gurney out of the room.

"She was here, we have to move!" His doctor shouted.

Maybe he was hallucinating, but swore he could see her floating above him as they wheeled him down the hallway. He blinked a couple times, each time it was harder to open his eyes and the lights seemed to dim. He faintly heard a bang as the surgery doors made slight dents in the wall. The last thing he saw of her was a wave from her bony fingers as a new oxygen mask was placed over his immobile head.

Three years later, he stood in front of the same hospital bathroom mirror he's stood in front of for the past few years. He was skinnier than the average 13-year-old should be. He was too skinny, but that would be the result of his condition. The reason his skin was almost translucent, why his dark chocolate hair was thin and bald in some spots, why his eyes were slowly losing that green sparkle they had before he was diagnosed. The only thing he had going for him was his height, so instead of looking like a starved marshmallow he looked like casper the ghost crossed with a scarecrow.

He sighed and turned away from his reflection. Disappointment was the emotion that visited him the most often. The feeling rented a place in his head and never left. He got dressed and exited the cold chamber making his way back to the main room that gets lonelier with every passing day.

"Luke," a bell like voice declared, "your name is Luke."

He froze in his journey to the scratchy sheets of sleep. He raised his head and inevitably found the girl standing at the end of his bed studying the chart that the medical people tampered with. Her skin was more fair then he remembered and her hair was darker than night. Her eyes seemed to glow more more intensely as she made eye contact with him, glueing his feet in place and stopping his breath. She had grown older since their last encounter, probably the same age as him, maybe a year or two older.