Surviving Cancer

Tylar Green

"DOOOO NOTTTT!"

"DOOOO SOOOO!"

"HOW IS HOPE BAD?!"

"I SAID FALSE HOPE, THERE'S A DIFFERENCE!"

"Hope is still hope!"

"No! no! It's just not right Abele" he shouts.

"What's not right? Help? Living? Doing something with your life?!" I scream.

"No"

"Then what?"

"Abele... don't you see what you have done here? Look around at the people here why don't you?" he says. I stare out the door at the paled patients and the slow movement. The press conference had ended, Tue reporters are gone. All that is left now is the patients, the slowly moving zombie like patients. However, they don't look sad because I gave them 'false hope', they look sad because I'm leaving, which would make sense.

"I don't see it" I say.

"Of course you don't"

"So tell me what I'm supposed to see Tylar"I say. He laughs and sighs at the same time as he moves to glare out our inopenable window and up into the starry night clouds. I reach my hand out onto his shoulder.

" Don't touch me" he says. I take my hand off his shoulder and begin to get nervous.

"What is it ?!" I shout.

"You know, ever since you started that stupid 'I'm Able' campaign and it got sponsored by some sick idiots thinking their doing us a favor, you've been a real jerk Abele. Brag brag brag, compliment compliment compliment. You think you did this huge heroic save for this place when really all you did was make being here more miserable!" he yells. He walks across the room and points out the doorway at a group of new kids in the game room.

"You see those kids Abele?! Do you see them!"

"What about them?! What horrible thing could I have possibly done to them if I haven't even met them yet Tylar!!" I yell. And that was true, I hadn't met them. New kids came here all of the time now, I don't even know their names. I used to know everyone, but it was hard to keep track of who was released, who was new, and who was dead. It's not easy remembering hundreds of names while being campaign leader. Tylar doesn't know that.

"YOU GAVE THEM HOPE ABELE!" he shouts.

"And so what if I did" I say. Tears fall from Tylar's eyes as he quickly wipes them away with his shirt, but of course any sympathy I could have for him right now is being overruled by the anger fueling my current adrenaline. He called my campaign a joke. A joke.

"You don't get it, but you will. One day, when your cancer comes back, and you get sent back here over and over again and thrown around and drug tested , treated like a lab rat! You won't have any hope left"

"I will always have hope Tylar"

"Well then good for you. But us, here, we lost our hope a darn long time ago, and bringing it back to us will never do any miniscule amount of good for us. These people here, there's reasons we're here, a reason we can't go outside, a reason people stare at us and cry for us when they think we aren't looking, a reason we're dying. 'Fore you came, we we're all doing fine, we accepted the fact that we were only getting a fraction of the life we knew we deserved and would spend almost all of it in this place, basically might as well be hell on earth. No... but you couldn't let that be. You just had to go and change things in which you thought was for the better, but it's not Abele"

"That's not true, none of it and you know it's not. It's pure bullcrap. I inspired people here, and for some reason you're just denying the fact that you could be inspired too one day. Hope is all we have."

"Hope is the disease! Hope is the problem! You can't just give hope away like it's some priceless gem to people nowadays! Cause you know what happens when people get hope when their hopeless ?!" he yells. I don't answer and fall back against the door as I slowly slide down onto the floor and cover my head into my legs. I've never been treated like this in my entire life, never been told that the only thing I thought I knew , was wrong.

"They take that hope and they get happy, the start to think 'hey, maybe I'll get better', they start making plans for a future they're never going to get. And when they die, everyone around them feels it, and that idea of a future, it starts to slowly slip away from their minds as more and more good people die. Is that really what you want Abele? To put people through that unnecessary hell? You give them dreams knowing they'll never be accomplished. You set their goals as a mice trap knowing there's only one way out of it. You give them a balloon knowing one day it's going to pop. You play sounds of old classic CDs knowing their deaf. You buy them shampoo even though they're bald. You--"

"Okay Okay...I get it" I say.

"Do you Abele, do you really?"

"Ignorance is bliss" I whisper. It is the last defense I have.

"Ignorance is death" he says. I wipe my eyes and move to my bed, packing up my things.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"I'm leaving" I say.

"Why?"

"I can't be here anymore". He moves his hand to my suitcase and pushes it downwards back onto the bed.

" You don't have to leave " he says.

"Yes I do" I reply. He throws my suitcase onto the floor and the picture of my dad falls out with the frame as the glass breaks onto the floor.

"Oh , well isn't that just great" I say in a mocking tone.

"I'm sorry-- I didn't mean to..-- Look I just"

"Just forget it" I say. I bend down and pick up my Dad's picture as I zipper up the suitcase.

"Okay, fine. Have a safe trip out of here, try not to catch another cancerous disease on your way out will ya? Wouldn't want you to have to ever come back here again" . He goes to lay down onto his bed and turn on the TV. I look at him in disgust.

"I don't even know who you are anymore" I say as I storm out of the door and slam it shut.

"Yeah well....maybe that's a good thing you don't know who I am anymore" he mumbles. You'd think id just move to another room right? Wrong.I huff and head straight to the opening and closing sliding doors.

"Abele? Where are you going?"asks Kate. I can hear her tiny white little nurse shoes tapping the tiled floor behind me, but I keep going.

"Home" I say. She grabs me by the shoulders and stares down at me confused.

"Okay, Okay, let me just call your mom and maybe she can come and pick--" . I shrug her off and keep moving.

"I have to do this myself " I say. Surprisingly, she doesn't run after me, instead she gives me the unpleasant feeling in my stomach that tells me she's going to stare at me until I'm out of sight, only then will she move closer to me, when I'm out of sight. Too bad she didn't anticipate I was going to run as fast as I could once I turned the corner of the building, far far out of sight.