sHe: THE RISE OF THE NEW BREEDS [Book 1]

Chapter 16

THE WARDROOM WAS SHARED by other three coma patients — plastic screens curtains separated the space in-between the three beds. On the corner of the room in the Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, was Laura's bed that had a window view.

Her head was heavily bandaged and both of her broken arms were in plaster-casts and were levitated. The younger sister, Roberta was sitting beside her bed and she toyed with her mother's 'Mimi' pendant, in the chain worn on Laura's neck.

She walked here every possible day to visit after attending her new school — she talked to her oblivion, older sister for an hour or two before she took the bus back to her Aunt's Flo's swanky condo on the other side of the city.

"When are you going to come out from your coma, I miss talking to you? Yes, I really do, Laura — even though in the past, all we do was argue most of the time. I know, I have never listened to you, and that is why Mum and Dad liked you more than me — yeah, I know that — they even loved you a lot more too."

Roberta had seen on a TV show about a coma patient who moved his fingers when spoken to — she waited for that sign and had not seen it on Laura after being a month in Ohio. She believed that someday it would happen — and all she had to do was to talk more positive things of encouragement to Laura — like reminding her of things back in Wellsville — but sometimes, the talks were more of a reflection in her own personal life...

... after losing her parents and her twin brothers in that span of a month.

"Mum didn't hate me though — but, she always kept on saying I am more like Dad. Mum always said I was always stubborn, who didn't listen and I fought back," admitting to her own cavil nature.

She knew Martha loved Laura more — and even called her 'Mimi' — which used to make her covetous — Roberta teased in a funny voice, mimicking her mother...

"Mimi-Mimi" So, you know why Mum calls you Mimi, right Laura?"

She told the stories that their mother used to tell, about their late Grandpa Ferrell — whom neither Laura nor she had met; who used to call Martha as Mimi when she was little — and after he died, nobody called their mother by that name — so when Laura was born, her Mum nicknamed her as Mimi.

"You remember that don't you, Laura?"

The nine years old Roberta kept looking at Laura's motionless fingers — and that frustrated her at times...

"Come on, show me a sign that you are listening — please move your fingers, Laura."

Roberta curled herself on the chair with her feet up — sulked and spoke aloud of more frustrations for being there for more than a month in Columbus, Ohio...

'I'm all alone with that big, bitching mouth Aunt Flo...'

Roberta hated the loneliness — and her only wish was that Laura would come out of her coma and be well again — so that the two of them can return home, to their dad's farm in Wellsville and stay over there together.

She hated the city — and the school she attended also — an abysmal with a classroom full of whiny girls after all the boys dropped out since the virus came and made them sick too. She missed the rough and tumbling games with the boys she knew back home — rather than playing with dolls at her age...

She laughed when she recalled that Laura had two Barbie dolls that she kept for years, as her own childhood collection — one day after a fight with Laura at home — Roberta snipped the dolls' hair off...