Photo by zinabaggins

The screaming intensified. It seemed to resonate from every direction, amplified by the sterile white walls of the hospital room.

I thrashed around in the stiff, starched sheets of the bed, twisting and turning, trying to avoid the nurses’ grappling hands. Finally, they caught me. Pinned, I watched with increasing horror as the clear tube advanced toward me.

“This won’t hurt a bit. Just cooperate and it will be all over with shortly.”  The voice of the head nurse was calm and cold. There was no expression on her face, a face that had been trained to avoid any show of emotion.

My struggles became more frenetic the closer she came, but the vice-like gripe of the other nurses hindered my escape.

The screaming was still strong, surrounding me, wrapping me in a maelstrom of vibrant pain. It wasn’t until I felt the wind tear my throat that I realized the cry was my own. That didn’t stop me. I howled my pain and frustration into the nurses’ insipid faces, cursing their lack of warmth.

The tube grew closer. Now it was scrapping into my right nostril, forcing itself past skin and cartilage. Deeper, deeper inside me, until it was raking its plastic claws down my bleeding esophagus. It hurt! Oh, how it hurt! Make it stop! My mouth could not form the words, the air escaped me unheard by the occupants of the room.

Across the room, my parents clutched each other, watching me convulse on the bed, shaking from spent adrenaline and fatigue. I cursed them silently in my head, cursed their heartless actions and thoughtless words of reassurance.

How could they? How could they do this to me? Can they not see how much this is hurting me? I HATE THEM! I HATE THEM!

My struggles increased, but the nurses were not done with their gruesome task. The tube was making its agonizing way down, down, until, suddenly, it stopped. The burning, however, did not. My throat was on fire, I could feel the flames licking the opening of my throat. It was pure torture. I knew I would not live through the night, let alone the week already set-aside for my recovery.

“Now we just need to make sure everything is in order.” The despicable nurse was talking again. I wish they would leave. Just leave me alone! Everyone, get out!

A small air bubble was pumped into the tube, and burst unpleasantly somewhere inside my deflated stomach.

“There now, you’re all set for your stay. We’ll just hook you up to the feeder, and then let you make yourself at home. Call if you need anything, we’ll be right outside.” The nurse packed up her tools and exited, trailed by her entourage.

I lay curled in a ball on the bed, far away from the traitors who dared to call themselves my parents.

“April?” I glanced around to see my mother had bridged the distance between the bed and their chairs.

“April, are you okay? I know it was hard, but they had to do it. Can I get you anything? Surely you need something to drink after that?”

She looked at me imploringly, begging me to meet her halfway. Perhaps she already suspected the rift that was gradually widening between my parents and me. I saw how much she wanted to help, how deeply she cared. I wanted to reach out to her, I did, but it was too late. The chasm was too far and too deep to cross now. With an air of disdain, I turned away from my mother, steeling myself for the lecture that would follow.

Sure enough my father, coming to support my mother, who leaned into his proffered arm, chastised my polemic behavior. “April, I know you don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But you’re here because of you. You need to get better and we were running out of time. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

“Hard? You want hard? Try having a fucking tube shoved down your nose! See how hard life is then!” In fury, I flung myself from the bed, seeking escape by the window. Below me, cars rushed passed. It was bizarre to think that everyone else could continue living, that there was a world outside of the hell I had trapped myself in.

Behind me, my parents exchanged knowing glances, and prepared to depart.

“One of us will be back later tonight, April. I’m not sure who. I have to work till eight, maybe your mom…”

“I don’t think I can do it tonight, Will. I have the other two girls to take care of. Brooke has swimming, and I have to cook dinner for them. You know Catherine’s hopeless about meals.”

“I guess I can bring my work with me. I’ll be back around nine, April.”

“Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you both stay away? I would much rather be here alone than with either one of you.”

“That’s not a choice, April. Hospital policy mandates that a parent must stay the night with an underage patient.”

“Underage prisoner,” I mumbled to the chilled glass.

“Besides, one of us would spend the night even if it wasn’t policy. We care about you, April. I know you don’t think so, but we do.” Mom looked at me imploringly, coming to the window where I was perched, like a skeletal bird about to fly away.

“We care about you very much,” my mother insisted, coming up to wrap her arms around me. I brushed her off, knowing that if I accepted the embrace, all my hard-won victories over them would be lost. If she were to comfort me now, I might breakdown, and admit how much I needed her and how much their love meant to me. I didn’t know why, but I just couldn’t let that happen, it would be the ultimate defeat.