The Darkest Days

PREFACE

Another day, another concern to Hillary. Last night, she was injected a dose of sedative, of course she didn’t wriggle, or crazily destruct her room. It was Sunday, with a warming atmosphere, some tiny birds for this summertime were analogously singing together, like a hymn echoing from somewhere in paradise. Hillary wasn’t off the hinges like yesterday, since she felt being sympathized, the humanity left, for these darkest days. She coughed more, at certain degree, it paralyzed her body, and her health was extremely bad; Hillary lost everything, from the privilege to get further education, to her beloved relatives, Timothee – her only confidante, eventually was no longer present in this world.

There was a patient whose name was Jasmine, she got lung cancer during the time living in a smoggy state like Texas; sitting on a bench under the comfortable shadow of the oak, Jasmine was attentively reading something.

“Hi! I’m Hillary.” Hillary started conversing with Jasmine by chance, because she sensed that Jasmine was somewhat similar to her, from Venus look, even though it wasn’t obvious any longer, to her distinctive mannerism as a professionally cultured person in the university.

“I’m Jasmine. Are you the person who rebelled the whole infirmary yesterday?”

“Yes.” Hillary was reluctant to answer, embarrassment, and rage. She didn’t remember what she had done last midnight, she just had some clues of writing for her father, and then throwing away some stuff to mollify her inner madness.

“Why did you act like that? I mean pretty childish, and foolish. I’ve been staying in this nauseous place for three years and five months, I clearly understood how other patients insanely acted when they wasn’t able to withstand the loneliness themselves.”

“I don’t know.” Indeed, Hillary couldn’t recall of anything, but via Jasmine’s narration, she did visualize that scene in her head more transparently.

“What’s your meaning of life, Hillary?” asked Jasmine.

“My parents, and Timothee.” Hillary sadly responded to Jasmine, she got stuck in thought since they no longer existed in her life.

“Who is Timothee?” As an inquiry for Hillary, it must be a special person to call her name aloud.

“She’s my soulmate, my friend when being so young at the cathedral, under the conscientious nourishment of the nuns. And you know, she killed herself in our dorm, just for the reason that we’re separate.”

“What a pitiable person.” Jasmine took a deep breath, and staring at some patients joyfully playing in front of her.

“And you?” Hillary asked again, to know about Jasmine’s concept of meaning of life.

“The absence of numbness. I’m alone thirty years, no whereabouts, no shelters, no affection, no cash, everything just happened and went on like that way. My life is bland, and toxic, all day did I spend my time on relentless working, nothing to concern, except tasks.”

“We’re the same, Jasmine. I could feel the numbness in you, and in me.”

“Well, it’s time for therapy. See you soon!”

Hillary didn’t want to respond with hollow words, so merely nodding her weakling head, and leaving. She returned to her room on the sly, heavily steeping upstairs, and sleeping for a while; her astrigent life, was quite diffcult to accept – fighting against this chronic disease, and fighting against death.

A seditious crowds were breaking all facilities of this infirmary whilst Hillary fell asleep, her room was isolated, so she couldn’t hear anything from the outside. They smudged every wall, ceiling, they did amiss to some employees, and robbed certain valuable belongings to escape.

“Hillary, leave!” Jasmine’s voice was obviously audible, waking Hillary up from her beautiful dreams. In the midst of two windows in her room, Jasmine tried to slap Hillary and talk to her.

“What happened?”

“We need to seek a sanctuary for both. This infirmary is turbulent, our chance to escape from this has come. Go with me!” Jasmine was in a hurry, she did not have time for explaining to Hillary everything occurring now.

“It’s time for you, Jasmine.” Hillary unbudgable beviour scared Jasmine a lot. She was too tired to leave, now Hillary regarded this place as the best one to harbor, from those outlandish beings out there.

“Don’t you intend to be reborn again, Hillary? Do not waste our time!” Jasmine was all of a dither, and in a quandary also. The hesitation hindered her from breaking out of this messy circumstance.

“I do. But for another life. You can go, bringing your desires to survive ahead. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I really appreciate your ideology, you’re such a resilient and reckless person I’ve ever met. Keep your aspiration forever. Good luck to you.” Hillary clutched Jasmine’s palm the last time, and let her go. For her, staying or leaving was nearly the same thing, if she stayed, she would continue to live this monotonous life, and if she left, the numbness of people would kill her someday. It wasn’t her choice.

Hillary gradually became a thrall to drink, she couldn’t give up drinking though her health status was worse than before. She made a mockery of those people who had escaped from this medical place, fairly stupid and naïve; she was drunk anytime, and crazily acted as a sociopath. Hillary missed the cordial smile of Jason, Timothee, and her parents too, the oppressive air of her room made everything more morose actually; furthermore, the obtuse pains tortured her on the inside, sometimes like a blow flush in her face, sometimes like a mourning lion waiting for its death. For the sake of herself, she had to withstand and overcome, but there was no encouragement to move forward – the paucity of people, or embrace frightened Hillary so bad, her bland existence was futile to her, and the blank despair in every nerve always called her intuitively. Hillary had attempted to appease the situation, by singing her favorite song every Christmas, a point for being reunited with her family, somewhat gloomy and dreary for a beautiful Monday. The song, in contrast, aggravated the atmosphere extravagantly, and made some birds standing on the oak’s branches moved away. Her inferno-like sequence of days being coased into obedience with doctor’s guidance has ended since that munity, the discrepancy of this infirmary and her was the energy, she wanted to find something bright, but this place gave her tons of pressure, from bitter pills to nurses’ witchlike attitude. She was one of the most wretched people in this world, losing everything, and caging herself in her murky room, no remedy for her at this time. All her efforts were trying to be fakely happy. She remembered of caustic words that her peers spent on her weird look, or the complacent of certain professors whenever successfully argued with her. Hillary’s baffling countenance expressed everything, for the pitiable person who invariably suffered from a multitude of miserable things during her lifetime; she planned to be a distraught patient, someday, could master her fate individually. She had been living under the dogmatic criticism of human beings, so she could clearly understand what she had to do if needed, the genesis of her trauma, or her leukemia, originated from people; in fact, people’s intricate mechanism of behaving others in different ways was indecipherable, perhaps they would treat someone courteously, but with Hillary, was extremely impolitely; they considered her as a menace for their success, for the reason that she stole their opportunities to illegially climb the ladder. This night’s moonlight has lightened Hillary’s soul, and abcated her wounds; the crystal surface of that tiny pond anyhow reflected her silhouette in it, she glanced at it, and smiled with satisfaction. On a weakling branch of the oak, the last leaf has fallen, as an omen for Hillary’s upcoming decease.

To all patients, the moroseness of this infirmary made them nauseous, and disgusted. Hillary was clutching her hands as if everything will be supposed to vanish; then putting her deepest fears into tears rolling down her swollen cheeks. Six years ago, she moved her whereabouts to Texas, in which her spindly appearance could be hidden behind smoggy air. As an obvious fate to her perpetual sequence of dreary nights, this leukeamia has been frantically torturing her fragile body on which she had to count. There was no precious moment that Hillary could sink those sorrowful rendezvous into oblivion – where she had met Timothee, a benign peer who was presumably trustworthy to her. Now, being isolated in a separate special patient room covered with darkness, only a newly-scattered window sullenly looked at her pitiable goings-on, she had no actual aspiration to forge ahead. Thinking of death, afterlife, and heaven, she unconsciously cried as a baby hugged in mother’s warmest arms. Pills were merely all of viable stuff that she could talk to; just waiting for her death coming so close, whether or not it would be peaceful.

Sometimes when everything seemed to be on the brink of annihilation, the moment all of her inner cells were broken into pieces, and acute pains gradually became a penal servitude for the rest of her life, Hillary had been reminiscing of her soulmate, Timothee, as the optimism before she said ‘farewell’ to this despondent world. She suddenly threw her view of out the window, the oak resiliently withstanding in the midst of two boundless fields turned out to console her. Finally, she found a solace in harmony between her and surrounding nature. Even though Hillary herself did not mean to get into a groove – being pessimistic and continually transforming into a rigor mortis without commiseration. Her last hope was being able to hear everybody mourning for her disappearance. The bell of nearby church rang; it was her last day before ending her miserable life, and to her expectations, she had a craving for drowning herself into the serene sea forever. Apparently, Hillary had escaped from that disgusting infirmary in order to find the actual freedom, to die alone, and to mollify deadly pains that have tormented her for days. She intentionally found this placid sea ideal for her evaporation. The night before, she had written to Jasmine: “Don’t care about me any longer, I’m satisfied with what I had and everything I have been through, sounds messy yet worthwhile. You will find me in another body, in another life, without a languid face. I would send my small remains to the ocean. And as my last words for you, Jasmime, I eventually bore the palm myself, for not allowing this malicious disease to govern me anymore”. A shrill sound abruptly appeared, Hillary finally ended her gloomy days withstanding leukeamia. No struggle appeared to this scrawny corpse; the endless ocean, where she would be embraced and kissed tenderly in the void of tranquil waves by crumbled aches of soul, at least, she purely fell asleep without morosity encircling her tiny frame. No longer did she suffer from fatally tortured days of listlessness and disease. Such a paradigm of an isolated oak squirming with the deadly gust of wind fiercely blowing for years, now she could permanently lie on her sweetest and coziest spot, and nobody knows.