At the age of five I stood at the side of my mother's hospital bed; completely oblivious to what was going on around me. I remember Mumma's words as though they were only spoken to me yesterday.
"Do you want to play a game, my sweet?"
Her voice was harsh like the scraping of sandpaper on brick. Thinking back on it now it brings tears to my eyes. How could I have been so unaware of just how ill she was?
"Okay, sweetheart, I want you to walk out that door and close your eyes. No peeking. And don't open them until you're told, don't open them for anything. No matter what happens around you. Not until this lovely nurse says otherwise."
She coughed and splattered but continued nonetheless, giving my five-year-old self careful instruction knowing fully well that I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a game.
"I love you Chino, with all my heart."
How did I not pick up the strangeness of her last words to me? Was it not odd that she had chosen such heartfelt words when all we were doing was playing a game? I curse myself every day for not saying the same thing back to her, for not staying in that room just a few seconds longer, and for not grabbing her by the arm one last time in a bid to gain one final form of contact from the person I loved most in this world. . . who I still love deeply.
However, I did not do any of those things. Instead, I skipped out of the room, the nurse my mother had pointed out close behind. I stopped directly outside those doors, hands slapping in place to cover my eyes.
And in the darkness, shortly after my giggles rang out and the sudden thrashing sound behind me stopped, a long drawn out beep echoed through the halls.
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Plantaesapien: An Unlikely Beggining
Teen FictionAt the age of five, Chino Finch lost her mother to The Unlikely. Now, twelve years later, Chino lives with a group of people known as Plantaesapien, the only thing close to a family she has left. What she doesn't know though, is that these people ha...
