Melissa
at twelve, i started dreaming of a girl. she had long blonde hair that slumped heavily down her back and pacific blue eyes that rested on my face and made me feel like we had all the time in the world.
soon, my dreams of bmx races and underwater train rides had subsided completely to leave room only for her. even today, when my thoughts turn to soul mates and ideal partners, her picture still comes to me. from that first image of a twelve year old, she has gone through puberty, rebellious twenties, family life and day jobs, menopause, and, now, she is the woman who sits by my side and watches the world scatter past.
back then, in my dreams, we would walk through parks so over-grown with flowers that we could duck down, and hide under a spotted roof of colour, penetrated only by needle thin rays of light that played on the soil and filled our cavern with tiny lights. we'd lay there for hours talking and playing. when i was with her, i couldn't think of anywhere i'd rather be, or anything i'd rather be doing, but, at the end of every dream, she'd be swept away by a river, a wind, a parent’s firm hand or anything else that desired to separate us.
three years after the earliest dreams, i met Mel in real life. she was exactly as i'd dreamed her. the lazy blonde hair, the eyes, the gentle nature. from the first time we spoke, i loved her unendurably. in part, because i was of that age where love came easily and, in part, because of the unbelievable number of similarities she shared with the girl from my dreams. i didn’t know much about the way the world worked, but i knew enough to count myself among the lucky.
our friendship didn’t last very long. it quickly turned into first love.
i soon learned that the things that the movies tell you about love are
patently untrue. the things i loved about Mel and the things that i
miss today were
the smallest things. had i not spent so much of my time focusing on
her so intently, i might have missed them entirely. like the way she pushed
her
hair back behind her ears before she tied it back. it was a simple
motion – just
a small arc made with both of her hands at once – but it drove me batty.
perfection comes in the weirdest of packages, all with the shortest of used-by-dates. i'd often be just about to go to her house and receive a phone call saying that she had a tutor coming over, a family barbeque, or some other pressing appointment she couldn't escape. every time it happened, i'd shrug it off. at fifteen, the pessimism i now harbour simply didn’t exist. i still know that i loved her, even though i'm unsure if i've loved since.
i had just come home from school one day when i received a phone call. it was Mel's mum, carol, telling me that she'd pick me up in 20 minutes and to be ready. i was naturally suspicious but not too fazed. carol had become somewhat of a mini-cab for me and regularly picked me up to go over. i simply assumed i'd be paying another visit to Mel, my dream girl, my innocent love.
carol's familiar white toyota pulled up outside. i made hasty farewells to my parents and ran out the door. i knocked on the window and carol unlocked the passenger door. she seemed absent and couldn't look at me when she told me why she'd come....
"Mellie's sick." she said. the somber tone didn't sink in. i assumed with the flu, "she has been for a long time. it's her heart. when she was a baby, she had a virus, which caused complications. the virus is gone now, but it's left her with a weak heart and it's been eating away at her for years, sometimes she can't even get out of bed by herself."
"she doesn't want you to know. she thinks you'll pity her and she doesn't want that. she wants to enjoy what she can. the reason i'm telling you this is she had a heart attack today at school – just collapsed in class – and had to be taken off in an ambulance. they stabilised her but she's still in a coma and they don't know how long it'll be before she wakes up."
i turned away and fell back in the seat. i breathed deep and slow. shaking, i began to cry...
i don't remember any of the half hour trip to st. francis', nor do i remember walking the long, sterile hallways to find her room but i remember the printed name on the door, "Melissa Ely". normally, those two words brought a smile to my face. today, they were made of lead. they forced me to realise that this was real. she was here.
"can i see her?" i asked. i wasn't sure whether i hoped carol would say yes, or if i hoped she'd say no.
"yes, you should." carol left me to have some time alone with Mel.
i opened the door and stopped quietly in the entrance, as if i was frightened to wake her from the slumber that i had been told enveloped her. the room was a plain, boring, pastel yellow. a wooden crucifix was hung up on the wall above her feet. i was sort of upset by the fact that jesus would be her first sight. that is, if she ever showed her blue eyes to another person in this world. the crucifix appeared quite insignificant, however, when compared to the 24" tv which sat high up in the corner of the room. opposite me, the fourth storey windows revealed an all-encompassing sight of the bay. Mel wouldn't like it, she hates heights. on the right of me was a door which i assumed lead into some sort of bathroom or toilet. i knew what i was doing. the walls and windows were much easier to comprehend than the corpse they contained. i hesitated, and slowly continued into the room.
as i came around the corner, i first saw the clean, pressed sheets of the bed she was in. they were faded green, but created a stark contrast against the walls. i saw the drip, a bag of god-only-knows-what chemicals slowly seeping into her bloodstream. i saw her arm. it was out of the blanket, lying flaccid where it had been put by whatever nurse or orderly had moved her to bed. the drip line ran along it and fed into her muscle about halfway between her elbow and wrist. a bandage was tied over the point where it entered the flesh. i saw her shoulder. it was covered by a loose-fitting, white gown. all over it were the thin, blue letters of sfxh. i saw her mouth. it was stretched thin and a pale sort of purple colour. i saw her eyes. only, i didn’t see them, they were closed to tell everyone that her mind was elsewhere. i saw her hair. it was tightly tucked up into a surgical cap and i wondered how they fit it all in. this was her. this was my dream girl, in a dream world of her own, attached to a life support machine that sat sentient next to the bed.
the tears didn't come yet. she lay still and blind. i kissed her on the forehead. her skin felt clammy and i realised that this was the first time she'd ever failed to respond. she was a mannequin, a soft mould of the girl i loved. i knelt down beside her and placed my head on the bed. over the eternity that i was there, i felt the bed-sheets dampen. i stayed there, sobbing weakly into the cheap cotton until, finally, carol came into the room. she didn't move to comfort me, but instead looked down on me with a fondness and understanding that Mel had been lucky enough to have been granted her whole life. i lifted my head from the bed and looked at Mel with red eyes. i quietly whispered "i love you" in the hope that it'd penetrate to her mind, which was trapped somewhere in this lifeless form.
the rest of the night was a blur. at some point, i'd been told to go home and sleep, a nurse helped me up, walking me out of the room, still sobbing. i didn't want to leave but they made me. i was driven home and i walked in the door late at night to be greeted by soothing noises from my parents. i'm not sure how they knew what had happened but i assume carol rang them. i wanted to curl up in mum’s lap and be held like a toddler. eventually, my parents decided to put me to bed and there i lay, sleepless, dreamless, until the first rays of sunlight broke over the back fence.
the next day was a thursday and my parents decided that one spent at the hospital would be easier for me than one spent at school. as much as anything, i think they had decided that they wanted to meet the flesh sculpture that was tearing me apart.
again, i entered quietly, but not so curiously. i knew what i would find this time, not that the knowledge made it any easier. just opening the door to this cold, dead realm was difficult enough. turning the corner without the mum's guiding arm would have been impossible. again, Mel's face was pale and clammy. again, tear followed tear down my face as i stooped down on her and pulled my dream girl's limp body towards me in what may have resembled a hug but was really my attempt to cling to this once beautiful, now absent, creature. my parents disappeared to go and find some lunch and, again, i was alone with Mel.
i sat beside her, in the chair that i suppose was left in the room especially for this purpose.
i told her about everything. how much i missed her. how much i loved her. how much i really didn't think her band sucked (i used to say it did just because it would wind her up, i loved her band). i even got onto my opinions of bottled water and how much of a waste of money it was, because i used to work in a bottling factory and the water that they sold was actually just tap water (the illusion being that nowhere on the bottle did it say anything but "clean water"). i was sure she could hear me, there was just something about her that made it look like she was listening.
a long while later, a nurse came in to tell me that in twenty minutes Mel would be off for tests. apparently, they needed to find out how extensive the damage from the heart attack was. i resented the interruption to our conversation, especially when i knew what the results would be. Mel had been listening to me prattle on about nonsense all day. she was just out of it a bit. she'd be awake in a couple of days.
three hours later, Mel was diagnosed brain-dead. the entire right hemisphere and over three quarters of the left were completely dysfunctional. after hours of ferocious sobbing, carol decided to switch off the life-support machine. at 11:45pm that night, my love was carried away for the last time.
now i'm trapped in this world alone, while she's playing with all my friends on the underwater train ride.
This story was the first that I wrote for the sake of needing to write. I've left it much the same as it was. Only tidying up grammar and spelling and deleting some of the really embarrassingly bad parts.