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Xplayer -> RE: A Rush of Inspiration ~A Collection of Short Stories (6/9/2010 17:24:15)
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The Cost of Coffee
If the seconds of a car accident can seem like an eternity, imagine how long four years of waiting for nothingness feels. Day after day, week after week, the same unchanging news reaches my ears. The only thing that drags me to the hospital bed every Friday is an empty hope, a foolish assumption that everything would eventually be alright. A drought cannot last for an eternity. Once a doctor said to me, “No illness lasts forever. The only thing that lasts forever is death.” I’m not sure if he was trying to comfort me, but if so, he did a lousy job.
There is another force that pulls me to visit Olivia each week, love. Of course, this love is very much one sided, but I’d like to believe that she is still asking the question she asked on that fateful day, “Do you believe in true love?” Every week, every day, my answer is “Yes Olivia, my true love is you.” To love is an addiction almost as fruitless as any drug. The more of yourself you give, the more love demands of you. One reaches the point that one’s entire self is given, devoted to love. Even then, love still demands more, more than everything we have. I’ve seen everyone from Freudian psychologists to priests on the matter. The psychologists say that this excessive demand of love is just a mask for one’s own excessive demand to be loved, that by loving others we believe we will receive equal love in return. The priests say that whenever we love truly, we love God, and God’s love is unconditional and infinite, so it can never be matched. The demands of love are simply a futile attempt to match God’s love. Honestly, I don’t know who to believe, but I have concluded one thing. With love there is no such thing as equivalent exchange.
With these thoughts running through my head, I sat at the bedside of my beloved, Olivia. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows and lit her face. If one were just sleeping, this spotlight of the sun would probably cause one to wake up, but I had to remind myself every week, “She’s not just asleep.” I’m foolishly thought that sometimes; she’s so tranquil in her bed. Her skin was soft and pale, but to me seemed almost radiant. I thought of washing her silky black hair, but I felt that would disturb her.
There I go again, assuming she’s asleep.
At times I’m angry at her, angry that she couldn’t control her dog, angry that she wouldn’t wake up. Throughout high school, I’ve built friendships, but no formal relationships. I was afraid that she would wake up and find me with another girl at my side. I closed my heart to others to the point of almost becoming cynical. I feared the consequences of another commitment, the possibility of another loss. My relationship with Olivia had not even begun before it had ended, and I couldn’t imagine the pain I would feel if I were to lose a friend whom I loved as deeply as I love her now.
Today, I was as far from those feelings as the sun is from the earth. In fact, I felt guilty about wallowing in self pity. I wasn’t the one who had been hit by a car. I wasn’t the one trapped in a coma, unable to socialize with others, unable to live my life. “Who is the victim here?” I reminded myself. The guilt drove me to tears, and I held Olivia’s hand in hopes of consolation. There was none.
A nurse entered the room. Having visited the hospital every week for four years, I’ve gotten to know some of the hospital staff. This nurse was unfamiliar to me; she had long red hair, glasses, and was unusually tall. Her presence signaled the end of visiting hours, so I left the room after giving Olivia a peck on the cheek. I still haven’t kissed her; that would be unethical. I want her first kiss to be consensual. I want her to kiss me back.
The hospital was relatively close to my house, so I often biked there. I walked through the sterilized hallways and took the amazingly fast and smooth elevator down to the first floor. I left the lobby without a word to anyone, not even my mother at the reception desk. By now, she understands. I unlocked my bike and rode down the main artery of the small town. It connected us to the big city, so it was often packed with traffic of people from the suburbs going to or from work. Rumor has it that a drugstore I passed as I rode down the road was considered for use in a major Hollywood production, but the producers and government officials were unwilling to close down the major street. Distracted by this thought, I almost ran into a pick up truck pulling out of a video rental store. Thankfully, we were both able to stop in time. My relatively slow mountain bike (that is, slow compared to a road bike), can stop on a dime, and the pickup was moving slowly to begin with. I crossed the main road carefully and promptly arrived home. My father was ordering a pizza, and my two younger siblings were watching television. I, on the other hand, had to do homework.
I checked my e-mail on my laptop and found much of it to be spam and chain mails. One e-mail that caught my eye, however, was titled “FW: FW: FW: Universal Healing.” After scrolling past the other addresses, I saw the body of the text.
I heard about the Universal Healer from my friend who had been healed by her. She claims to be able to heal any physical illness or infirmity; even those which are incurable or permanent (like chronic pain). My brother had a heart condition which forced him in and out of hospitals almost monthly. He was a sickly man, but highly intelligent. He had ideas which would have certainly helped our society, if he were able to implement them (my brother was an inventor, but that’s beside the point). Our family got in trouble with the insurance company and our debt with the hospital grew continuously. Desperate, he contacted the Universal Healer, and the next day he was completely cured! The doctors who examined him were amazed at his miraculous recovery from what was thought to be an untreatable condition.
To contact the Universal Healer, e-mail your name and date of birth to the address bellow. If she is interested in curing you, she will contact you within 24 hours of you sending the e-mail. Please do NOT include anything else in the e-mail, as it will automatically disqualify you from healing.
This is NOT a hoax. Also below is a list of doctors who have seen and can confirm the results of the Universal Healer.
At the end of the message were an e-mail address and the list of four doctors and their contact information. With Olivia fresh on my mind and little rational thought, I composed an e-mail to the given address giving my name, Patrick Clark, and my birthday, July 16th 1991. Before I clicked “send,” I did give some thought to the possibility that this could be a scam or virus, but I figured, “What is someone going to do with a name and birthday?” I sent the e-mail with no regrets.
That night, I had a dream so lucid that I never realized I had fallen asleep. I was sitting on a soft cushion, the ones people use to meditate. I was surrounded by four walls made of light brown, translucent paper. The room was small, only about a hundred square feet in area, and in the center of the room there was a can of burning rosemary. Despite no obvious light sources, the room was lit as if there were electric lights on the ceiling.
The wall across from me slid open, and a girl walked into the room from the darkness beyond. She was Asian, Japanese probably, and had hair longer and silkier than even Olivia’s. Her eyes were a strange sort of grey with a hint of green and seemed to change between the two in the light. She knelt down next to the tin can and added more rosemary without even looking at me.
“Who are you? Where am I?” I asked.
The girl sighed, as if she had heard the questions many times before, and said, “My name is Yui, and this is the room in which I contact people for a universal healing.” She finally looked at me with questioning eyes. “I assume you aren’t the one that needs healing though. You come for someone else, do you not?”
Deciding not to ask her how she knew that, I replied, “Yes, her name is Olivia Martina. She’s…”
“In a coma, and has been for the past four years, I know,” Yui said. “I know everything about your life, your love, your dedication, your tears. However, be warned. Nothing in life is free, and nothing happens without reason. By healing Olivia, I upset the balance of good and evil in her life. In order for that balance to be maintained, an evil equal to the good of her healing must happen. Since you are the one to contact me, this evil will happen to you. I have no control over the evil, so I can’t tell you what it’s going to be. I just know it will be an equivalent exchange of fate. If we are to proceed, I will need her birthday.”
Weighing these words in my mind I said, “That’s fine, do it. Her birthday is December 31st 1991.” I guess I was being selfish.
Yui sat on the floor with her legs crossed. She folded her hands as if in prayer then extended her right hand in front of her with the palm facing the sky. An orb of blue fire mixed with white light appeared in her hand. She was chanting something, but I couldn’t hear the words. The dream slowly dissolved around me, and I woke up.
The next day, Saturday, I received a phone call from Olivia’s mother informing me that Olivia was awake and well. As fast as I could, I grabbed my bike, forgetting about everything else in the world and pedaled to the hospital and went to the second floor. Still dressed in the clothes in which I slept, I ran past the nurses and entered her room. Olivia was surrounded by doctors asking her questions. Without thinking, I pushed my way past them and grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Are you alright Olivia?” I asked her.
She stared at me with those beautiful hazel eyes and asked, “Who are you?”
Shocked, I simply stood there holding her hand until the nurses pulled me away from her. I stared into nothingness; I felt like I couldn’t move. This was the cost, certainly. In a trance, I performed my regular routine, elevator, lobby, bike, and road. I almost was hit by a car when attempting to cross the street during a red light, but I barely cared. I locked myself in my room and cried for most of the day.
That afternoon I heard a knock on my door. My father was holding the phone. He said, “It’s from Olivia.” Invigorated with new life, I snatched the phone from his hands and said, “Hello, Olivia, it’s me Patrick.”
Her calm, sweet voice on the other end spoke words of disappointment, “I’m sorry Patrick; I don’t remember you. I don’t remember most of my friends. But my mother told me that you’re a precious person to me, and I’d like to…I don’t know how to say it.”
I tried to get over my shock. So it’s true, I thought. Finally, I said, “Let’s start from the beginning then. My name is Patrick Clark.” Just hearing her voice again warmed my heart and alleviated my selfish sorrow.
Every morning during the weekends, Olivia and I would go to the local coffee shop for a drink and an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves. I never mentioned my trips to the hospital to her, although I suppose her mother must have told her about them. I was more interested in hearing her talk about what she experienced during four years in a land of nothing but dreams. Besides, self praise is nothing but narcissism and certainly not a good way to impress someone. I would always pay for the coffee out of a mixture of love and guilt. Not a day has gone by when I haven’t wondered who truly paid the price for Olivia to wake up. If it was me, I think the coffee was a bargain. If not, I feel like I hold an outstanding balance.
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