53 The visit! 41 ---------- 2-"I.. Don't know how to tell you this." 1The doctor took off his glasses and looked down at the floor. 2-"But.. You haven't got much longer to live. I'm terribly sorry. There's nothing I can do I'm afraid. You could go through a beam-prosses, but that would only make you live for maximum two months longer, and by the help of heart machines and some proffesional systems we could keep you alive, physically, but your brain would be non-functional... I... Don't think there's much else to say... .I'll just let you make up your mind." 1 He sat up from the hospital- bed. Shook his head. Repeated the phrases that he was trying to learn by heart. He had been trying to formulate a perfect way of telling her this, but the words just never seemed to flow. He kept on seeing the 16 year old girl. So full of life and youthfull exitement, melt into a heep of sadness before his eyes. Her skin became white, her eyes red. He could see a small, wet river running from her left eye, down past her nose, and into her half- open mouth. He handed her a hanky, but she didn't take it. She just laid as paralyzed. Looking straight through him. No!!. Couldn't tell he... he wasn't strong enough. He knew she would react like this. He 14had been telling people these thing many times before, but when you've been a doctor in over 20 years, you will always meet new challenges. He had often said this to eldery ladies and men, but if was the first time that he'd been feeling like this. Such a little girl. Beatifull eyes, long brown hair that ran like a river from her head, down to her shoulders... When she first had entered his office, he had been certain that it was just a normal cold, but as the weeks went, he saw that the girl never got rid of her "cold". He started worrying for her. He had been taking some simple test, but they never showed anything but symptons of a normal "cold". But he was at that stage fully aware that something wasn't like it should be. She got more and more sleepy and exhausted for each time she visited him at his office. He often told him that she had to force herself to eat at maximum one slice of bread a day. And her hair become greyer, her eyes looked more and more like wet pieces of glass. He could look right through them sometimes. And inside the outer eyes, he could still see the young girl. Deep inside her mind, the longing to be a perfectly normal child waited to be released. To be free from this prison called sickness. She had begun to loose her hearing, her seeing. And she got thinner and thinner every day. Then he thought she might have been struck by Anorexia, but he just couldn't 41convince himself that it was so simple. So he kept on examining her, until February the 16, 1992. He was working over-time. Had some important papers to check out and sign. He had just finished the last document, when he glanced at the x-rays, taken three days before. He laid his bold glasses on the desk beneath the hypro-pump. Went over to the x-rays, hanging as clothes on three small wires, attached to the medicine closet and the tie- racks. He took the latest one down from the wire. It was a grey picture of the brain, from upper view. In the upper-left corner, with green pen, it was written with small letters; 2 "Back-loam, upper-view. 27/2-92. Maria Greenfield(1/6-75)" 1 He was just putting it on the wire again, when he suddenly spotted a small grey area on the right side of the parasymetrical- brain- wave. CANCER!!! He first thought that it was just a fault with the exposing of the picture, but after re-taking the x-rays he saw. The spot did not go away... He was frantically running around. Not knowing what to do, except not to tell the little girl about this tragedy before he was 100 % sure. Something he actually was at that stage, but he just couldn't convince himself.. He was too tired, too exhausted to think clear... Small candles burned in the corner of his window, and outside, the last rain of England poured down. He went to bed.... 14 The next morning he woke up earlier than normal prosedure. The sun was setting in the sky. Small birds outside the window, probably pigeons. Nibbed in the after- winter grass. Digging for worms, or anything to eat. There was a moist feeling in the air. A fog laid over the village as he pulled away the curtains. He felt terrible. Just wanted to dissapear into nothing. To be erased from everything, into nothing. Be among the dust on the shelf in his office, among the bubbles in the water in his secretary's drink.. He wanted to get away, but he couldn't.. He had to tell her... He just damned had to!! He cursed himself, nor' he had non of the blame. But an piercing thought went phsycadelicly through his mind. He had to be dreaming. That's it.. It's just a horrible- dream. I've heard that such thing can happen to one if one is stressed. And.. There has been alot to do at the office lately. But the dream had just lasted to long.. He pinched his arm.. Aaauch!!.. Shit!!. It was really true.. He sank down in his chair, looked straight through the harmony outside.. He faced only sadness... Five days went... The doctor was almost never seen outside of his house anymore. His postbox was filled with parcels, bills, letters from crying old people. The milk-man saw only the shadow of what used to be a man. 2-"They say he's ill.." -"Yes, I've heard.. something about the job, they say.." 24-"Poor man.." 1 March the 12th; The doctor walks slowly towards the entrance at the hospital. It was a dark morning.. The sun had left the sky, and big dark clouds lied over like a carpet, covering the beatifull sky with it's dark shades. His hand touched the handle. Gently pulled it down as the door slowly sank foreward in front of him. He went in... He walked with fast steps over to the elevator. The door locks behind him. 7th Floor... The door opens. He looks around. "Too bad.. Too bad!!", he mumbles in silence as he passes the rooms.. 317.. 318.. 319.. 320! There.. He opens the door, enters the room. The white room strikes at him like a cold wind. The bed stands near the window. Flowers decorate the bedside table at the left of the bed. And there, covered in white, lies the little girl.. 2-"Maria.. How are you feeling today!" 1 She smiles at him. Her lips are dry and carved. Her eyes is shimery, but not as warm as they used to be. Her hair is more grey than brown. He tries to remember the warmness she held inside when he saw her at first, two months ago in his office. She was different then. She had greeted him with a gently smile that stuck to him forever. And he had told her about how cold it was outside, and he had been saying; 2-"It looks just like a normal cold" 14 He could then see the relief on her face. See how the nervous lines melted into a warm and gentle girl's face that he just couldn't forget. And now. She laid there in front of him, and could hardly speak clearly at him. He takes her hands. Clutches them softly. Feels her warmess pierce into his veins, making it all up to his heart. Melts it like ice. She tries to speak... 2-"Doc.. Doctor... How.. am I??" 1He opens his mouth. 2-"Maria.. I have something I have to tell you..I don't know how to say this but.." 1 His toungue seemed to curl in his mouth. He felt the tears pushing their way to his eyes. He felt so tired. He saw the expectasion in her eyes. They begged him, "Please tell me I'll be all right!" His hands were shaking. He stared at a picture on the wall. One by Rembrandt. A lovely young girl sits on a horse, and the handsome young man helps her saddle the horse. 2-"Maria.. I... How can I..." 1 The first of many tears ran down his cheak. He saw her eyes become all wet. Maybe she had understood. "No Maria... It's just a dream. An awfull one. But you'll wake up. Don't worry." 42-"You'll be all right my child. Everything will be just fine.." 1And the doctor leaves the room... After his last visit. 35PS.I got an S (A) on this story at school!! (he he he) Tom/Paragon.