Not Too Much Time to Dwell
There was that definite sort of thunderous quiet the second the television had been switched off, the blip of the monitor and the sound roaring in her ears, silence so quiet for a moment that, in comparison, it was nearly deafening. The girl shifted up into her pillows as the sounds all started to settle into the stillness of the room, before all that sounded was the regular in-out of her breath, the sound of blood pounding in her ears, and the steady beep beep beep of the monitor measuring out every last beat of her heart.
In some way, that had to be her strange kind of a biological clock, because there definitely was not any actual time here. Her eyes trailed from the puke green tiles of the floor, with that little chip off the corner by the mahogany table in the corner, to the simple bouquet of flowers plopped unceremoniously into the porcelain vase with the tiny primrose carnations painted onto the front. It was late, very late - the only light that shone in other than the flashing ‘fifty-seven’ on the heart monitor was the flickering light in the hallway, shining a sad kind of glimmer over that same puke-green tile.
It was a strange kind of contrast to the stark white of everything else in the hospital. White so white it stung her eyes, in the middle of the day. White so white that a hospital patient could find himself or herself craving a nice, dull shade of brown or olive or even gray, just to detract from the damned white. Even the sheets were that same bright, fresh shade of color, so stark white someone could practically smell the sterility wafting off them. She clung to the knit of the two ply cotton of the blanket, shielding her eyes from the sheets, her socks, the utterly white hospital gown. At least it matched the floor.
How someone could find themselves longing for something nicer. Something a bit dimmer, she would probably go for, next time. To think that she was going to spend the rest of her life in somewhere so clean, so pure; it was enough to make the room all that much dimmer, even as she glanced to that blazing heart monitor again, the one night light in the room, an ominous sort of forty-three instead of the steady rate it had been pounding before.
Leukemia. At least it didn't leave all too much time more to dwell on the concept.