Bring Glory(Us) Life

Chapter 14- Supporter

        She lived in a small building, with only a few rooms. Kilay herself had a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and living room, smaller in total area than most of the rooms in Lachlan’s house. She didn’t have many possessions. Dying made a person realize what was truly valuable in the world.

        Rain pattered lightly against the window, lulling her into a doze. The tiny woman lay curled on her couch, heavy blanket draped over her frail frame. She was always cold these days; she didn’t have enough body fat to keep herself warm. An alarm was ringing somewhere in her dreamscape, eventually ringing out. The rain continued, and she slipped away, slowly, into a world of cotton soft darkness.

        She woke to incredible pain. Choking, Kilay fell off the couch, muscles seizing up. Her body jerked and she struck her leg on something. The fragile skin broke and blood rushed onto the wooden floor. Her chest was on fire, she couldn’t breathe. Her head felt like it was going to explode.

        The alarm, vague in her clouded memories. She had missed a dose of her medication. Summoning her fading strength, she tried to crawl, one armed, to the kitchen where the syringe lay on the counter. Her body contracted again savagely and she coughed blood onto the linoleum.

        “Fuck!” she hissed, splattering fine, crimson droplets across her floor. Darkness was encroaching on her field of vision. If she didn’t get to her meds, she wasn't going to make it. But she didn’t even have the strength to hold her eyes open.

        Lachlan had decided to meet his driver a couple blocks away from Kilay’s house, so that no one knew exactly where he went. He padded toward it now, squinting through the drizzle. It was growing dark out as the sun, hidden behind thick, dark clouds, sunk into the far off ocean in blazing glory. There was a cramp in his gut, and a buzzing in his head.

        Lachlan came to a halt, looking back toward Kilay’s building. There was a sick pit in his stomach, as if something bad had happened. Something was wrong, he could feel it.

        Kilay’s door was locked. When he knocked, there was no answer. If she were out, there would be a sign on her door. He had seen it a couple times in moments of weakness. But there were no signs now. Something was definitely wrong.

        “Kilay! Hey, Kilay, open up! You ok in there? Kilay?” He pounded on the door furiously, rattling the handle until he was sure it would fall off, but it didn’t.

        “What’s going on out there?” one of the neighbors called, leaning out his door. Lachlan looked at him frantically.

        “I think something’s wrong with Kilay. I have to get in! Call an ambulance!”

        “Now now, sonny, no need to get worked up. Here, I’ll go get the landlord and ask for a key, and we can check on your friend, ok? Stay here and take some deep breaths.” Lachlan shook his head, wrenching his neck.

        “No, there isn’t time for that! She might be dead, or really close! Don’t you know she’s really sick?” The neighbor shrugged and padded down the hall. Lachlan gave a frustrated cry of desperation. Searching the hall, he spotted a heavy looking table with flowers on it. With unknown strength, he lifted it up and slammed it down on the doorknob on Kilay’s door. It broke off after the third swing, and the door opened.

        She was lying very still on the kitchen floor, having what looked like a seizure. There was blood everywhere, oozing from her foaming lips. She writhed violently, jerking fragile bones and jostling failing organs within. A wordless cry escaped Lachlan’s lips as he leapt to her side, trying to pin her down. Her eyes rolled toward him and blood bubbled at her mouth.

        “Syringe. Syringe!” she burbled, voice thick with blood, before dissolving into another attack. Her body heaved backwards and there was a sickening crack as one rib burst from the skin. Lachlan hurled himself at the counter where she had pointed and grabbed the precious object. The needle was huge, much bigger than any needle Lachlan had ever seen at his checkup visits to the doctor. It looked like a very large epi-pen, the side scrawled with writing. The boy fumbled with it, trying to read the jumping words.

        Returning to the woman’s side, he pulled off her shirt, locating a spot above her heart where the skin was marked by scars from thousands of injections. Upper body nearly bare, he could see thin, red scars left behind as reminders of her too many surgeries. Ripping off the cap, he shook the syringe, pushing Kilay to the ground, plunged it to the hilt in her chest, right at her heart, and compressed the plunger.

        The syringe hissed as it ejected liquid into Kilay’s body and Lachlan fell back, pulling the needle out as he did. Kilay stretched out, whole body taut, muscles bulging from her paper thin skin, then went still.

        At some point another neighbor had seen what was happening and called an ambulance. Lachlan crept forward, cradling his friend in his arms, holding her sideways so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. She wasn’t breathing much, chest rising time to time in an irregular breath. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, only the whites showing. They were shot through with red. A gentle hand grabbed Lachlan’s shoulder and Kilay was drawn from his arms by a paramedic. A man, who assured Lachlan that he was Kilay’s doctor, knelt by her side, examining her, injecting things. Then she was placed on a stretcher and carried away.

        “You did good work, giving her aid when you did,” the paramedic told him. “You should go home now.” Lachlan shook his head.

        “No. I’m staying with Kilay. She doesn’t have anyone else, but she has me. I’m gonna be there for her.” The man sighed.

        “You do realize she doesn’t have much time left, and this attack could have cost her a lot of it?” Lachlan met the paramedic’s eyes and held them, suddenly feeling as if he could hold up the world, like Atlas.

        “If she’s going to die, then it won’t be alone. I’ll be by her side, I swear it on my honor.” And he left, racing down the road to the hospital a few blocks away.

        The waiting room stank of disinfectant, grief and tension. It was cold and unforgiving. At one point a nurse came by and asked if he would like anything to eat or drink. He said no.

        His phone had ten missed calls, all from his parents, leaving messages that were increasingly angry and horrible. He deleted them without listening to them, then threw the phone in the trash.

        There was a woman across from him, awaiting the news of her son, who had come in with a severe asthma attack. In a corner there was a big tank of fish: red and gold, green and blue, small and big. They swam about, unaware of the misery poisoning their waters. They moved in a sluggish fashion, as if slowed by the anxiety thickening the air with lightning. There was a light bulb going out in one of the big rectangles of lights, flashing on and off like a horror movie. It was incredibly tempting to throw something at it and make it stop. In the back, someone whistled a slightly off tune, slightly dry song that was as grating as sandpaper in Lachlan’s ears. He had never been closer to actually murdering someone.

        A door opened and the doctor who had tended to Kilay, a tall, thick set Russian looking man with thick dark hair and beard, walked out. He wore a white lab coat and black walking shoes, a clipboard in one hand. He pulled up a seat across from Lachlan and looked at him hard, face serious, grim.

        “She’ll be ok, for now. I can’t guarantee it, but she’ll probably be back on her feet in a week or so. But I can promise you one thing: she won’t be the same person you knew. She took a big blow with that episode. It’s getting harder and harder to fight her symptoms. They keep getting worse. She’s almost out of time. I don’t think she’ll make it to winter.” Lachlan nodded, fighting tears and, for the first time he could remember, smiled.

        “It’s ok. She’s alive right now, that’s all that matters.” The doctor considered Lachlan for a long time, then nodded with approval.

        “I’m glad Kilay has a good friend like you. She’ll need it over the next few weeks. Take good care of her.”

        “I will,” he said, and for the first time in his life he felt at peace.