Keeping the Doctor Away

Twenty-three was too young for someone to face their own death.

Within the confines of the plain hospital room, the little fires in Viv’s brain flared, her tenuous nervous system receiving the full brunt of the painful pangs. It was a cruel trick her body played – making her so exhausted that she spent most of the day in bed, but then jolting her awake every few hours with severe headaches. The waves of discomfort flowed through distinctly each time, making each interruption to her rest a unique experience, one that always kept her on the brink of calling the doctors, yet her inherent stubbornness barred her from doing so.

Just breathe… You don’t need to call the nurse.

Viv repeated that mantra in her head, even as she laboriously shuffled her stiff body out of bed. A little less than a month ago, her condition deteriorated to the point where she lost all feeling and movement in her legs. It was a nasty side effect of her condition.

After minutes of careful maneuvering, she wheeled herself out of the room, unsure exactly where to go.

It was to her left upon exiting when she saw the boy at the end of the dark hall – a short figure that stood in the shadows. The overhead lights, dim as they were, aggravated her already muddy vision. Seemingly unfazed by her sudden appearance and clear discomfort, the boy approached Viv with a calm nonchalance.

“Top of the morning!” he said, waving.

Hearing him speak, Viv placed his age around the early to mid-teens.

Looking for anything to distract her from the headache, she replied, “It’s after midnight.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well then, I should probably go back to bed.”

The boy looked like he had nothing left to say. Had he been sleepwalking?

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Because I’m sick, obviously. That’s what hospitals are for.”

Viv didn’t like this child.

He then asked, “How about you? Why’re you here?”

She quickly scrambled for a reply. “I’m getting some chips from the vending machine.”

“What?” he shot back, not missing a beat. “No-no-no, we can’t be having that.”

The boy reached into the folds of his oversized gown, pulling out something then extending it to her.

“Take this. It does a body good.”

Squinting, Viv got a better look at what he was holding.

It was an apple, granny smith.

“Boosts your vitamin C!”

***

Viv was five the first time she got into a fight.

Her parents weren’t permanent fixtures in her life. They felt more like estranged family members that she’d only see on occasion. To kill time, she’d often meander around the neighborhood, usually in the adjacent forest located far past the affluent houses.

It was on one such occasion that she cut through someone’s backyard to find four neighborhood kids around her age coalescing around a bird. One of them – a blonde boy – pinned it to the hard dirt face up, its wings pinned under his thumbs.

One second, the kids were laughing. The next, Viv had hit one of them square in the jaw. It was all on impulse, Viv not grasping the full impact of what she’d done until the blonde boy wiped blood from his mouth.

As expected, the kids fought back. Hard. Viv was left heavily bruised and bloodied until her friend Austin found her. She might’ve survived the beating, but the bird didn’t.

Her father was home when she returned, and through stuttered breaths, she explained what had happened. Upon listening to her story, he knelt to Viv’s level. Giving her direct eye contact, he told her not to do anything so foolish ever again. And like that, the matter was dropped.

That day, Viv learned that when given the choice to act or not to act, it’s best to select the latter option.

***

Viv had a rigorous bout of rehab. It went worse than usual; she needed to call it quits early.

On the way back to her room, she came across the same boy she met last night. Though this time, he didn’t appear to have noticed her, as he was more preoccupied weaving through the doctors and nurses inundating the hall. Looking for an excuse to avoid going back to her room, she followed.

After handing her the apple, the boy left as quickly as he appeared, making Viv initially believe that the encounter was a dream. However, she asked her nurse earlier in the day if there were any reports of children wandering the halls. To her surprise, the nurse knew exactly who she was talking about, even providing a name – Alan. Apparently, he’d been a patient at the hospital for some time, so he knew the ins and outs of the place remarkably well. But at the end of the day, Alan was ultimately harmless.

Viv followed Alan closely, going up an elevator while he used the stairs. She went up by two floors each time, which was enough time to catch him as he moved up another level. Viv assumed that if she didn’t see him after going up two floors, he must’ve gotten off on the floor below.

He didn’t leave the stairway until he reached the top floor, but almost immediately after he did, he entered another nearby door. Carting herself to it, Viv found that it read, “No Roof Access – Authorized Personnel Only”. She pondered for a moment whether she should continue.

Why the hell not? I’ll probably be dead soon anyway.

She wheeled herself into the cramped space, surprised that it wasn’t locked. In the back of the area, there was a small staircase leading up to the rooftop door. It was creaked open ever so slightly, with a small object keeping it from shutting completely.

Did he take a key?

She called out his name. No reply. She did it again, louder, but once more, nothing. If she wanted to meet the boy, she’d need to do it face to face.

Bracing herself, Viv hugged the railing. There were less than ten steps to the roof, but every bit of progress she made triggered an intense soreness that thrummed throughout her body. It made sense, since her legs felt like sacks of jelly.

Halfway up, she thought she’d puke.

Three-quarters up, she thought she’d pass out.

Viv had no idea how she accomplished the feat, but she managed to reach the top. It felt like it’d taken an hour, but the ordeal likely lasted only a few minutes.

As she opened the door, she realized what Alan used as a door stopper.

An apple – golden delicious.

“That’s for you. Replenish your vitamin C or face the consequences!”

***

Viv was seven when her mother abandoned her.

The night before she left, they sat alone on the front porch. It was a typical summer night – fireflies, the distant sounds of kids playing, the smell of something cooking a house over. Viv probably should’ve been suspicious, since her mother was going out of her way to spend time with her, but she was just a kid. She didn’t know any better.

Like with her father, she and her mother were never close, yet even though their final night was comprised of either awkward silences or mindless conversation, Viv was more than happy just being with someone. Years later, Viv would remember the last thing her mother told her, a final lesson etched into her memory.

“You’ll be mad soon, and I don’t blame you. But you must understand this – people are self-centered at their core. Adults are no exception. If you want to obtain any modicum of happiness, you need to get used to screwing others over, even ones you love. At the end of the day, the only one you should be looking out for is yourself.”

Viv took those words to heart, and before she woke the following day, her mother was gone.

***

“Alan?”

Viv was riding off the adrenaline high from climbing the stairs, so she could still speak, fatigued as she was. On the other hand, her legs had given out, and she needed the doorknob to steady herself. Alan, who was leaning against the railing, stared at her with a vulpine grin.

Viv scrunched her face up, a look that was probably funnier than threatening given how sweaty and disheveled she was.

“You knew I was following you?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said, slowly making his way to her. “I was watching your rehab. I noticed that you didn’t finish, so I thought I’d help you out.”

“I could’ve fallen!”

“Yeah, well… Okay, I didn’t actually think you’d follow me. This was all pretty spur of the moment on my end.”

He left Viv to stew on those words as he advanced past her, heading back into the building. For a moment, she thought he’d left, but it wasn’t long before he was back, having lugged her wheelchair up the stairs. With a great deal of effort, Alan managed to hoist her up, then carefully position her into the chair.

“But why did you try to bait me in the first place?” she asked as he pushed her toward where he had been standing earlier.

“Because I find you a-peel-ing.” Viv didn’t seem to pick up on the pun. She was more shocked at how casual Alan was when he complimented her. “Oh, sorry! I apologize if that sent mixed signals, but I’m just not into older women!”

Old? And just like that, Viv once again found herself not liking him that much. But before she could offer a rebuttal, they had reached the edge of the roof. Past the barrier of the gate, it hit her just how beautiful the view was.

From up high, she saw the city not as a towering reminder that the world was vaster than she could ever imagine, but as a living organism where everything worked in a messy symbiosis. The rooftop was enveloped in silence, with the sounds of the city dampened by their far proximity to it. It was the quietest moment Viv could remember for some time – no incessant dialysis machines, no nurses rushing through the hallways. There were just the cars, buses, an occasional plane, and birds. To Viv, these were oddly comforting sounds of normalcy.

“And how about you?” Alan asked. “Why bother someone you don’t even know?”

She thought intently about his question. Why had she been following him?

“C’mon,” Alan said, “there’s a clown visiting the hospital soon, and I’m looking forward to seeing an adult infantilize himself for my amusement.”

At a loss, she said the first thing that sprang to mind.

“I wanted to thank you for the apple.”

Alan gave her a skeptical look.

“It’s no big deal,” he said. “Weaklings like us’ve gotta stick together, right?”

Alan smiled softly, but Viv thought she detected a hint of melancholy from his tone. That saddened her for some reason.

They stayed up there for a little longer before leaving.

***

Under the hardly present yet firmly guiding hand of her father, Viv coasted through life, keeping her parents’ lessons in her heart.

Age eleven. When Austin got bullied, she pretended she didn’t see anything to avoid being singled out.

Age twelve. When she saw coach Hargrave sneaking into the girls’ locker room after school, she kept silent because she didn’t want to make a big deal out of things.

Age sixteen. When Austin asked her out, she agreed because he was nice enough and came from a wealthy family of doctors.

Age twenty. When Austin broke up with her, she didn’t object because she believed winning his affections back would be a losing battle. Before he exited her life, he called her an emotionless zombie.

Age twenty-one. When her father set her up to work at his car dealership as an intern, she accepted without question. Things went as expected until she collapsed one day, seemingly out of nowhere. Later that day, she learned about her condition. All she could think at the time was, “What did I do wrong?”

Age twenty-two. Her father died; she was alone.

Age twenty-three. Her final connection, Alan, fell into a near-comatose state one night as his condition became critical. The two wouldn’t see each other again for as long as they lived.

***

One week into his quasi-vegetative state, Alan tried moving his fingers. No good. It wasn’t happening.

Individuals with the Alan’s blood type – Bombay – comprise a minuscule .0004% of the population. In other words, if someone with Bombay blood developed a life-threatening condition and needed surgery, they’d be out of luck unless they found someone else with Bombay blood. In other words, Alan was a biological cocktail screwed over by genetics, living at the hospital until a donor liver would arrive for his transplant.

His grandfather once told him about selective memory in later life, how the older one gets, the more bias they have toward remembering solely the good times from their past. Every night, Alan would ask himself if he’d made enough good memories. He was barely into his teens; was that enough time to create a life of worthwhile memories? Because at the moment, it was the unpleasant memories and images that lingered most vividly in his mind.

Those stares from his family, that nauseating look – a mixture of pity, worry, and, worst of all, forced optimism. He really wished they didn’t bring his siblings. Having others see him so broken made it all hurt even worse. For every praise, every time they said he was so brave for making the best of his ailment, every performance he put on to convince them he was okay, he wanted to yell at them. He wanted to scream that, no, it wasn’t okay. He didn’t ask to die young, and he sure as hell didn’t feel brave for suffering.

For that same reason, he was thankful Viv hadn’t come by to meet him. He really did like her. That wasn’t a lie. When he first saw her that night in the hall, he recognized that look in her eyes. Just like him, she felt alone, and that terrified her. Alan found a cathartic solidarity in that.

Rambling through his hectic thoughts gave him some measure of perspective, and he eventually dozed off, praying that he would wake again the next day.

At some point in the night, a person had entered his room.

Accepting that it was probably a nurse, he shut his eyes. As his visitor got up to leave, a familiar voice whispered, “Everything will be better soon.”

Alan’s eyes opened instantly. He tried to get up to see her, but it was no good.

Outside, Alan could hear a bird sing.

***

Viv was declared brain-dead three days after Alan fell into his coma. For obvious reasons, the staff didn’t inform him until much later.

A small funeral was held. There weren’t many people there – a few distant relatives, some of her coworkers, and a former teacher or two. Alan, who was still recovering from his eighteen-plus hour surgery, was there too.

Viv had called up Austin, begging him to make use of his family’s connections to find someone with Bombay blood. It didn’t take them long to find someone in India that fit the bill, and within a few days, the hospital had what they needed for Alan’s surgery.

Alan stayed at her grave for a while after the service ended, not saying anything. He merely knelt where she was buried.

Alan reached into his backpack to get something.

He left one final apple on her grave. It was a Fuji.

Yes, it was stupid, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.