Chicago, 1918.
Chapter 1
I can feel myself dripping with sweat. My blanket has gone from white to a dirty mix of green and brown. The pillow I am laying on is the only thing they refresh every now and then, so the illness won't spread. I don't think that is the truth, more like a theory. But I don't care, I am asleep most of the days, and whenever I wake up I have no idea what time it is. Not that a clock would help, my vision is unclear, I can't move my head to the side if I would want to. I am dying, and there is nothing I can do to make it less painfull or less disgusting.
I wonder if they left the bodies here just to rot, or would they bring them to a place where they could burn us? They won't bury us and give us nice ceremony, we don't have the money. Or the people to attend to our funerals. The only person I have left is my mother, Elizabeth Mason. Our father was the first of us to pass away. He got infected by the Spanish influenza in early spring, somewhere around the 4th of March. It didn't take long, he got very weak very fast and we didn't have money for medicine. When he died, my mother and I, we knew we had to get ourselves vaccinated. So we would be immune to the illness. When we got to the local hospital it was chaos. Everyone screaming, people crying, dying. It was dangerous to even be there. There were posters everywhere saying that you were entering the building on your own risk. It didn't matter if you were already infected, you could die in there. I remember my mother crying, holding my shoulders and telling me we would be fine, we would be okay. I also remember screaming at her, telling her to go in there with me, so we could live. I kept screaming and crying as we walked away from the hospital and I can still see her there, holding me close to her, as if someone would steal me from her.
It was only five days later that anyone infected by the Spanish influenza was called out to gather at that same hospital. So we could be treated there, they said. It wasn't like I believed that they would acutally get us better, but it wasn't pretty when they told us we had to stay here until it was over, and they couldn't give us all medicine so they would give no one. To keep it fair, so to put it.
I try to close my eyes again, thinking about anything gives me a headache. I think I threw up like four times today, if I'm correct on the time. The puke doesn't get far, because turning my head without help from a doctor is impossible. I hear my mother waking up now. She's mumbling. Not being able to talk is one of the side effects of dying. I can hear her coughing. Coughing leads to throwing up. That's her fifth time today. I don't mind suffering as much as seeing- hearing- someone else suffer. I flinch by the sound of the door opening, it's too loud for my ears. A pang goes all the way through my brain and it feels like my prefrontal cortex has been fried. I hear a doctor- I assume- walking towards me but I keep my eyes on the ceiling, the pain is less that way.
"Hello Edward," a female voice says- the doctor. She's keeping her voice low. "Let's clean you up a bit." At this I manage to shake my head slightly. "Eliza...beth," I breath. "Mom." The doctor seems suprised, I never really try to talk to anyone. "Alright dear." She whisperes. I close my eyes.
Chapter 2
I can hear a choir sing to the beat of a piano. The sound comes from the church at the end of the street. I imagine being in that church again. Laughing, and playing. Singing along to the songs. I never believed in God, but I loved going to church. I don't think going to church means you believe in God, I think it means respecting the fact that other people get their strength from such an admiration for someone else. Whoever or whatever that someone may be.
