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Disclaimer-I own nothing. The show belongs to its creators.
Author’s Note-Thanks to all who were kind enough to review: Faery Goddess, E2K, Leela’s Tears, Spice of Life, Chels-Dawg, doogy, Brat Child2, and Out Of Tune.
Unfortunately, I have been having some serious computer problems. To be frank, my computer will not start. Period. So, I have resorted to using my father's old laptop (which is a '97 Compaq...ugh...), which does not have a spell check, so I apologize beforehand for any possible spelling errors.
The Way It Is
By: Lamia Astaroth
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
-Emily Dickinson "Hope is the thing with feathers"
Staring at these four walls again
I'll try to think about the last time
I had a good time, everyone's got
Somewhere to go, and they're gonna
Leave me here on my own and
Here it goes. I'm just a kid and
Life is a nightmare. I'm just a kid
I know that it's not fair. Nobody
cares 'cause I'm alone and the
world is having more fun than me.
What the hell is wrong with me?
-Simple Plan "I'm Just a Kid"
CHAPTER SIX
Kyle Broflovski lay in the still silence of his room; a silence that was frequently interrupted by the electric beeping of the heart monitor. The heart monitor--God, what an annoying invention that was. It was Kyle’s only proof that he was still alive, and he listened to the beeping nervously, as though, at any given second, his ears would be filled with a long, high-pitched single bleep, and then bam! Life was over, he was gone.
The continuous beeping did not stop, however, but it was enough to worry him. He reached over to his bedside table and picked up a glass of water--“Perfectly clean, filtered water,” his nurse had told him, as though dirty water would somehow make his situation worse than it already was.
Absolutely nothing could make this worse, he thought. He had not said that to the nurse, of course, but had rather accepted the water with a general politeness. He guessed that the nurse did not get polite kids in very often, because he later overheard her telling his father what a “sweetheart” he was.
Kyle sipped from the glass, swallowed, and then set the glass back down on the table. Stan was right, he thought, shifting around uncomfortably beneath the covers. I should’ve told my parents right away, when I first started feeling sick. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have can…can…
He shuddered; he could not even bring himself to think the word without either, one, wanting to throw up, or, two, completely freaking out.
He felt such a severe amount of guilt, fear, and embarrassment--caused mainly by the whole falling asleep on the park bench thing, which he still, for the life of him (Ooh, bad analogy, he warned himself), could not remember happening--that a small part of him wished that he could find someone who would just pull his plug and end it all, before it got any worse.
Of course, he knew that, at that present time, he did not exactly have a plug to pull; what he had was a growth in his brain; turning off the machines would not exactly kill him.
He shuddered again, more rigorously this time, his hand flying up to his hatless head. The doctor had apparently removed the hat when Kyle had first arrived, and it was now sitting atop a chair on the opposite side of the room from where Kyle was lying.
His fingers rubbed at the spot where the doctor had explained--using many x-rays and pictures--his tumor was. For a split second, he was sure he could feel it…and then he remembered that that was impossible; the tumor was nowhere near the surface, and was still relatively small. Letting out a small sigh, he dropped his hand back down to the clean hospital sheets.
He let his head flop down on the pillow and stared up at the blank white ceiling, moaning inwardly. “Oh my God, why is this happening?” he asked the ceiling in a soft, slurring gasp. He covered his face with his hands, letting out an exasperated grunt. This just isn’t fair! he thought, inhaling. He could smell the faint scent of rust on his hands and wondered if it had come from the park bench.
"Hello Kyle," a cheerful voice greeted, breaking through the depressive thoughts that Kyle had been immersed in. Kyle looked up and was met with the dark brown eyes of his nurse, Margaret--eyes that were surrounded by tired wrinkles. Probably from smoking, Kyle had thought when he had first met Margaret. She looks like a smoker.
And she did; no older than thirty five, Margaret's face was already covered by deep creases. Trying to conceal them, Margaret applied a cover-up to her face once every hour, Kyle assumed. Kind of ironic, a nurse being a smoker, Kyle thought in amusement.
Margaret walked up to Kyle's bedside, her fingers wrapped around a small plastic cup. "I have two aspirin here for you," she stated, handing the cup to Kyle. Off of Kyle's confused look, she added: "Just in case you get any headaches."
"Oh...okay," Kyle replied, his voice low. He again picked up his water glass and, one at a time, swallowed the tiny capsules. "Thanks," he murmured, handing the cup back to Margaret, not looking her directly in the eye.
"Sure honey," she replied, and Kyle could not help but cock an eyebrow at her. He wondered if Margaret was trying extra hard to be chummy with him, what with the "honeys," "sweethearts," and other numerous nicknames she had called him in his time at the hospital. It's pretty messed up, Kyle thought to himself as he placed the water glass back on the bedside table. But hey, at least she's not a bitch, right? I could've been stuck with one of those "I'll only respond if you're dying" nurses.
"Is there anything else you want?" she asked, as though Kyle had asked to have the aspirin.
Yeah. My friends. My family. My life, for God's sake. Got any of that? Of course, Kyle did not say any of these things to her, but simply shrugged. "No, thanks," he said, picking at the fuzzes on his comforter. They were white, just like all of the walls, the floors, and the ceilings of the hospital. He let go of the fuzzes and watched with mild interest as they floated away and hid within the camouflage of the walls.
"Okee-dokee," Margaret replied, happily, and Kyle rolled his eyes as she turned her back to him. How could she possibly be so cheerful when she was watching over someone--a child, nonetheless--who had cancer? She's probably trying to lift up my spirits, Kyle thought. Well, hate to break it to her, but...not working.
Kyle sighed, and then went back to picking the excess fuzzes from the blanket. God, I wish Stan and Kenny were still here. It'd give me someone to talk to. Hell, I wouldn't even mind if Cartman were here. Maybe if he'd piss me off, I'd have something else to think about. I wonder if Stan and Kenny have told him about me yet. Well, everyone's going to find out tomorrow when I'm not at school.
Kyle leaned forward, looking at the bedside table once again, this time at the small digital clock--which was, of course, white. It was nearly five in the afternoon; everyone was probably at home eating dinner or cooking dinner or watching television--which Kyle had the option of doing, but it was not the same when he was alone--and, in essence, living their lives. His body ached to leave this room, leave this hospital, and run outside in the fresh air; the hospital air was sickening--a mix of latex gloves, medicine, and tears. And death. Lots and lots of death.
For amusement, when he was not watching television, Kyle resorted to staring at the digital clock beside his bed, watching as the minutes slowly creaked by. How could time move so slowly? It was as though time was moving in slow motion just for him. There were even moments where Kyle was sure that time had completely frozen, until the sudden changing of the minute digit proved his paranoia wrong.
Tomorrow was the day of his "Second opinion" testing. One of those tests that were designed to give hopeless cases a small string of hope so that they would not go completely crazy before there was time for treatment.
His other doctor--not Dr. Lockwood, but some really old guy named Dr. Roland, or something like that--had come in at exactly two fifteen that afternoon--Kyle knew that for a fact; he had been playing "Watch the Clock" at that time--and explained what they were going to do. Basically, it was the same procedure as the first time, except, this time, Kyle was expected to be conscious for it.
"Kyle?" Another voice rang through his ears, causing the red-headed boy to look toward the door, where his parents, and a squirming Ike, were entering his room. "How are you feeling, son?" Mr. Broflovski asked, walking over and patting Kyle's shoulder in a fatherly way.
"Ehh," Kyle replied, giving his father a "so-so" hand gesture. I can't say "shitty," he told himself. Not because they'd get mad at me for cursing, but because they don't want to hear that I'm not doing well.
"Well, don't get too used to this place, Kyle. Give it a week or so, and you'll be back at home, watching TV with your little friends, just like before," Mrs. Broflovski said with a sad little smile.
Right, Mom, Kyle thought, but smiled back at her, nonetheless. "How're you doing, Ike?" he asked, looking down at his little brother.
Ike stared back into Kyle's green eyes, and Kyle could sense that, as young as he was, his brother could understand what was happening; why Kyle was at the hospital. Ike opened his mouth and began to respond with a series of incoherent babbles, followed by a crystal clear, "...miss you."
The smile was still frozen on Kyle face, and he reached down and ruffled his brother's hair gently. "Don't worry about me, Ike. Mom and Dad say I'm going to be okay."
"'Kay," Ike replied, but his eyes were still shining with a sense of worry, a sense of doubt. Ike reached up and took his mother's hand in a vice-like grip, staring at the white hospital floor.
Mr. Broflovski chuckled nervously. "Yeah, poor kid. You've only been here a few hours and he's already asked about a hundred times where you are, when you're coming home, why you're here..." He chuckled again, thought better of it, and quickly turned the chuckle into a cough. "He's smart for such a young boy."
"You're a smart boy," his father's voice told him in his mind. Kyle nodded. "Yeah,"he replied, although he had barely heard his father's statement about Ike over his loud, ongoing thoughts. He pushed his thoughts aside and tried his hardest to focus on his father's words.
"...ready for tomorrow?" Kyle caught the final words of his father's question, and it was all that he needed. His father wanted to know if he was ready for the "Second opinion" test the next day.
Pursing his lips, Kyle considered his father's question. The tests the next day were going to be the "final thing." While it could end up having the best news he would ever hear in his life, it could also end up being his breaking point. Kyle looked up at his father and replied, honestly, "No."
Sharon Marsh cleared her throat in a way that told her husband that she wished to be the one to inform Stan of the information. "Yes. Stan, honey, it seems that Kyle...well, Kyle has--"
"Oh, God, I know!" Stan spat, slamming his fork down on the table. "Kyle has cancer. I overheard the doctor telling his mom and dad," he added, off of his parents' bewildered looks. "It's not fair! Why'd this have to happen?" he demanded, angrily, crossing his arms so tightly over his chest that it looked as though he was embracing himself.
"Oh, Stan, I'm sorry that you had to find out that way, but Mrs. Broflovski told me on the phone that, tomorrow, Kyle is going to have another series of tests, just to make sure that he does have...that he is sick," Sharon quickly rearranged her words, seeing how obviously flustered her son was. "Doctors make mistakes all the time."
Stan looked at his mother, a small tint of hope shining in his blue eyes. "Yeah, maybe they were wrong. Maybe...maybe Kyle is...is okay. I can visit him tomorrow after school, right? At the hospital? I don't want him to be alone."
Mr. and Mrs. Marsh nodded simultaneously. "Of course you can visit him after school, son," Mr. Marsh replied, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "But, you know, Kyle won't be alone; he has his family there. You don't have to worry about that."
Stan shrugged. "I guess...but, it's just, Kyle's going to need a friend there. Sometimes parents aren't good enough, you know? Especially if the news is bad; he's going to need a friend there."
Sharon and Randy Marsh smiled kindly at their son and gave him a nod in agreement. "You're right there, Stan," Sharon said. "Maybe you can cheer him up a bit. Shelia told me that Kyle seems pretty upset by it all; but she said he's doing a good job of trying to hide it, too."
Well, of course he's upset, Stan thought, picking at his food with a lack of interest in actually eating it. It's not exactly news that makes you want to smile and go, "Oh, well, that's interesting." He fought off the urge to roll his eyes and make that sarcastic remark to his mother. "Mom," he said, placing his fork down again. "I'm kind of tired; can I go to bed?"
"Of course, sweetie," she replied, glancing at her watch. "Why, Stan! It's only eight thirty, are you sure?"
Stan nodded. "Yeah. G'night," he said, standing up from the kitchen table. As he walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs, he noticed that Shelly had not tried to beat up on him at all that night. Maybe it was her way of showing that she felt bad about Kyle. The thought made him smile; his sister did have human feelings. What a discovery! he thought, smiling even wider.
He opened the door to his room and walked inside. Without even thinking about it, he pushed the door shut behind him and walked over to his bed. Flopping down on his stomach on his bed, Stan buried his face in his pillow in a desperate attempt to block out everything. The pillow felt cool, and smelled of a pure cleanliness; an indescribable smell, to say the least.
As he settled into a complete sense of consciousness, Stan felt his stomach vibrate. Perhaps he should have eaten some of his dinner, but he could not bring himself to get up from the bed and leave the safe haven of his bedroom. He did not want to hear his parents go on and on about Kyle--how "horrible, absolutely horrible it was." Stan had accidentally overheard his mother telling his father about Kyle after Mrs. Broflovski had called. I've really had a knack for overhearing things like that lately, Stan thought, sighing into his pillow.
He jumped slightly at the sound of his phone ringing. He groaned in exasperation, reaching over and picking up the phone from beside his bed. He lifted his head and muttered a barely audible, "Hello?" into the receiver.
"Stan?" a high-pitched voice said, and Stan instantly shifted around on his bed so that he was sitting upright.
"Hi Wendy. Yeah, it's me," Stan replied, trying his hardest to sound as normal as possible. "How are you?"
"That's what I was going to ask you, Stan," Wendy replied, and Stan furrowed his eyebrows. Had Wendy found out about Kyle? How was that even possible? "I ran into Kenny about an hour ago at Stark's Pond," she said, answering Stan's unspoken question, "and he told me all about Kyle. Oh, Stan, I feel so bad...are you okay?"
She feels bad? Stan asked himself. Why? She never seemed to really like Kyle. Maybe she just feels bad for me. "I'm...I'm..." Stan stammered, struggling with Wendy's question. In all honesty, he had never truly given himself a chance to see how exactly he felt. "...I don't know. It...it hurts," he replied, voicing his emotions as best he could.
There was silence on the other line. Stan momentarily wondered if Wendy had hung up on him; but no, he could hear her breathing softly into the receiver. "...I'm sorry," she said, finally, as though she (for once in her life) had no idea of what to say. "The...the next time you see Kyle, tell him...tell him to get well for me."
Stan swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat, and found that he too was at a loss for words. "I will...I think I'm going to see him tomorrow, after school--"
"Oh--"
The sound of Wendy's one short, curt word cut him off in mid-sentence. He paused. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Oh, it's...it's nothing," she began, her voice about two levels softer. "It's just that we...had plans tomorrow..." She trailed off. "No, you should go and see Kyle. He needs you more than...than I do."
"Uhh..." Damn it! Stan shouted in his mind. I totally forgot about that. I can't just not see Kyle; like I told my parents, and what Wendy just told me: he needs me. But I can't ignore my girlfriend, either. I like her so much, and I don't want to lose her. Again. "Well, maybe....maybe we can go out right after school and I'll go and visit Kyle right after." Stan heard the words trail off of his tongue and immediately felt like the worst friend ever. Your best friend might have cancer and you're still ditching him! his mind scolded him.
"Are...are you sure, Stan? Because it's okay--" Wendy attempted to sound unsure, but her voice held such joy in seeing Stan that all doubt that had been in her voice evanished.
You can't blow her off either, Stan. You probably made tomorrow's plans with her so long ago; she'd hate you, another part of his mind told him. "Yeah, I'm sure," Stan replied, his voice wavering. "But," he added, not wanting to mar his best friend, "only for, like, an hour. I really need to get to the hospital."
"Of course. That's okay, Stan," Wendy replied, the happiness in her voice nearly overwhelming. "I'll see you tomorrow at school, okay?" she asked.
"Sure," Stan muttered in response, rubbing at his eyes. "'Bye."
"'Bye." He heard the click as Wendy hung up the telephone, and he did the same. He sat on the edge of his bed, unmoving, for what felt like an eternity, staring at nothing. He could still hear Wendy's elated voice pulsating throughout his mind and, without any control of his own, he thought, She is a bitch.
Night was beginning to fall; Kyle could see the sun sinking slowly through his window. He wanted desperately to go to sleep, but, not only were the remains of the sun shining directly into his eyes (he would have called in Margaret to close the blinds, but he simply felt too tired), there were far too many noises from different rooms leaking into his own room. Sometimes he could hear the sounds so well that it sounded as though the events were occurring right next to him.
He could hear people crying, others calling their nurses to straighten their pillows, get them food or water, or whatever else they might need. The crying was the worst, because there were never wails of happiness. It was always a family or friends of a patient, crying over a loss. Or it was the patient himself, crying because they have no chance--Kyle assumed that, given a few days, he was going to be that sound that flittered down the hallways, and other patients would hear him, and they would think, "I'll never be able to fall asleep with that crying."
He bit the inside of his cheek, fighting the overpowering urge to cry, mainly from embarrassment that someone would hear him. Which they would, undoubtedly.
After a few minutes, the last remains of the sun melted from view, and Kyle's room was nearly pitch dark, with the exception of the light that leaked in from the cracks on the door. Kyle closed his eyes; they had been open for so long that his eyes actually burned when he closed them. But not a painful burning; a pleasant burning.
Kyle's eyes snapped open at the sound of murmuring directly outside of his door. He held his breath, trying to hear the conversation. "...think that Gordon would be okay here," Kyle heard Dr. Lockwood say to someone. "There's a young boy already here: Kyle Broflovski. He's got the same diagnosis as Gordon, so it might actually be best if they're roomed together. Someone to talk to."
"Okay, that should be fine," a voice Kyle did not recognize replied. The voice, a voice of an older woman--a mother, possibly--sounded distressed, even weepy. Kyle sat upright as he heard the doorknob being turned.
Dr. Lockwood opened the door to Kyle's room, leaned inside, and flicked on the lights. Kyle winced under the sudden change in lighting, blinking quickly. "Sorry, Kyle," Dr. Lockwood apologized. "We've got a patient in, and we need him to room with you."
Before Kyle could agree or disagree, Dr. Lockwood had disappeared out into the hallway again. This gave Kyle a chance to see the owner of the voice that Dr. Lockwood had been talking with. It was a middle-aged woman, as he had suspected. Her eyes were outlined with red and she had a tissue held tightly in her hands.
"Okay, bring him in here," Dr. Lockwood directed, appearing back in Kyle's room. He was closely followed by two nurses--a man and a woman--wheeling a gurney. They wheeled the gurney behind the white curtain that cut off Kyle's view of the room beside him. The curtain was snapped back by one of the nurses and Kyle was able to get a good look of who was on the gurney.
It was a boy, only a few years older than him, at the most, and it looked like he was in bad shape; he was terribly pale and he looked as though he weighed about ninety pounds. Kyle remembered what the doctor had said about this boy having the same diagnosis as him, and instantly looked away.
"Kyle," Dr. Lockwood said, causing Kyle to look back over at the bed beside his, "this is Gordon Lanni, Gordon, this is Kyle Broflovski. I wish I could stay longer, but it's a very busy night tonight, not to mention your mother needs me to talk to her," he added, addressing Gordon. With that, he quickly left the room, the two nurses trailing behind him.
Kyle swallowed, looked over at Gordon, and said, weakly, "Hi."
Gordon locked eyes with Kyle--his eyes were a deep, deep brown, nearly black--and replied, "Hey...so, I hear you've got the same diagnosis as me. Brain tumor, right?"
"Uhh, yeah. I just found out today, so--"
"That sucks. I found out about three years ago. They kept sayin', 'Don't worry, Gord, you're gettin' better,' but that was just a load of horse shit. I've only gone from bad to worse. Shows what doctors know," he added, under his breath.
Kyle stared at the kid for a moment. "So, how old are you?" he asked, unsure of why he was so curious.
"Thirteen," Gordon replied instantly, as though he had been expecting the question. "I've been back and forth from my house and the hospital. I'm here tonight because the headaches have gotten so bad that I can't even read or listen to music without wanting to tear my eyes out just to make the pain stop."
Kyle frowned. Was that what was in plan for him? Coming to and from the hospital at the blink of an eye? He shuddered, hoped that Gordon had not noticed, and turned his gaze toward the door.
"Maybe you'll get lucky, though," Gordon said, and Kyle instantly wondered if he had been talking all along. "Maybe you'll get rid of the tumor and you won't ever have to worry about it again." He coughed, then sniffed, wiping at his nose. "Maybe you'll get better."
Kyle did not reply, because he could tell that Gordon did not expect an answer. He snuggled deep into the bed, turned on his side facing away from Gordon. "Maybe you'll get better." Kyle snapped his eyes shut and, quicker than he would have ever believed, slipped into a deep state of sleep.
To Be Continued...
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