terminal

Fog

Chemotherapy: Round Three - it was unforgiving

so much so that Aviana started to forget who she

was or why she was at appointments, once, even

forgot that she had cancer; Aviana's parents started

asking her grandparents to help get her to treatments,

which felt like the final blow to her heart - but she couldn't

quite remember to be mad at the right times, so, sometimes

Aviana would blow up at random times that didn't make

sense, like when she took a bath and her sister would

come in to check on her instead of her mother, or

when they would go out to eat and forget a jacket

knowing she'll get cold in the restaurant; they've started

calling her unreasonable and complaining during

support groups; Sometimes she heard them saying

very negative things but she would be too weak,

or disconnected, to remember to say something to

her sisters or parents or counselor; in fact, even

teachers at school were noticing that she just wasn't

very present and always irritable; This is when her parents

had a private meeting with the doctors over the computer,

they decided that she needed to take time away from school

and wrote a letter recommending a prolonged medical

absence; she was too sick, too tired, too confused; Avaina -

was - everything she knew about herself was past tense;

Every memory was hidden behind a deep grey fog - a mist -

a block of smoke that she would try to wave away, only

it would never move; Aviana's memory had become blurry;

It was unclear how much of her life was before and how

much was now the after; Cancer continued to take and take

and take and take - and now she didn't even know what

was taken and what was left; Aviana and cancer were now

just one in the same; they were synonymous; Aviana

started to live in the part of her mind that left her separate

from everything else, considering the cancer the only

thing that would be with her until the very bitter end.