The Prince's Visions

Chapter One

        Strolling down the familiar white and gray hallways that I’ve walked at least one hundred times in the past three years of my life, I stare sullenly into each of the rooms that I pass. I’m met with the usual sights. Children lie on long beds that are covered in pale, steril blue sheets as overly enthusiastic nurses tell them what a great job they are doing and that everything is going to be just fine. The parents sit by their children’s sides with forced, animated smiles that seem to say “You will make it through this. You’ll see”, but a practiced eye like mine can see the pain and torment behind their unsuccessful facades. I know those looks by heart. The ones that are given to you by the doctors, the nurses, and your own parents. Their wide eyes and bright smiles match their words, “You are perfectly fine”, but their eyes swim with pity, knowing that you are a lost cause. I know these looks because I have been given them for the last three years.

        I was diagnosed with Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia when I was sixteen years old. The news was obviously heart breaking for me at the time. Most teenagers are only worried about the guy they like or going to the mall or catching a movie at the theater with their friends, but I had to worry about something that most adults don’t even worry about most of the time. Death. When the doctors found the cancer in my body, they broke the news that it was a Stage C, meaning that I only have about 3-4 years to live if the cancer is not cured which is a relatively long time to live with cancer. Well, I’m nineteen years old now, and the ominous and ravaging disease is still overtaking my body with every passing moment. I am one of the unlucky people whose cancer never fully left. I mean, there’s been several times when things seemed to be getting better, but the rollercoaster that is life seems to favor fast, stomach-curling drops downward for me.

        I remember the look on the faces of my parents the day that the doctor broke the news to us as if all of this happened just yesterday. The grief and the horror. These three years they’ve tiptoed around me, never saying the words death or sickness, but we all know that I am going to die eventually. Two months ago at one of my regular appointments, my doctor told me that I only have about three months to live. My body cannot fight the cancer much longer.

        In the world, we teach our children that the good always defeats the bad. We teach them in stories and in movies that goodness will always prevail, and in some cases, it does. But what a lot of people don’t understand is that the good doesn’t win for everyone in the world. When people find out that I have cancer, they say that they’re sorry, they show pity, but they don’t truly understand what I’m going through. They don’t understand what people who have cancer or any other life-altering ailments are going through. They don’t know the true meaning of loss or the self consciousness that comes along with not being able to have long, beautiful hair. They don’t understand the physical and mental pain. All-in-all, they don’t understand death. The only way you can honestly empathize with a person like me is if you are going through the horror of the disease, too. So, for me, the darkness is winning. Goodness left my life the second the news left the doctor’s mouth and reached my young and naive, attentive ears.

        Most people would be horrified by the news that they are dying, but I am not. Honestly, I welcome death. When you’re in pain all of the time and you can’t do the things that everyone else does, it sucks. You get depression. You get self conscious from the stares of others. I know this because I have been living through this hell for almost four years. Some people hate needles, yes? So do I, yet I have to be poked and prodded by them regularly. I had to do chemotherapy which was truly horrifying for me. The machine is what I like to refer to as a dinosaur, and it makes a freaky buzzing sound as it does its job. Being on medication isn’t a walk in the park either. I have to take several different pills in the morning and at night before I go to bed. I remember I once asked my mom if there was a possibility of me having an overdose before I ever have to deteriorate from the cancer. She only glared sharply at me for even thinking such a thing and has watched me closely as I take the medicine ever since. I hadn’t meant that I was going to try to commit suicide. I’d never do something like that. I had just been curious.