All hope is gone

The heat of the sun makes the skin on her neck tight; she ignores the urge to pull up her collar.  She aches to feel the burn.  She faces the house, carefully considering each of the pinkish bricks, the way they ripple makes her angry; she starts to count them and ignores the rumble of the patio door which tells her Dave is watching her, as stunned as she is.1

“I’m sorry,” he breathes.2

“Don’t bring death into this house!” She snarls, she stares fixedly at the 11th brick, the muscles around her mouth strained, “it’ll come quick enough.”3

The door rumbles shut.4

“That’s right!” she screams, “run away!”  She counts bricks until a cloud goes over the sun and her neck no longer burns.  5

Dave’s back is leant against the inside of the patio door, he is on the floor and his shoulders curve as his taut fingered hands force his head down hard onto his knees.  She enters through the kitchen, squats down wearily and kisses him on the top of the head; his shoulders shudder in anguish.6

“I’m tired.”  She curls up on the floor where the sun has warmed it, her drawn face heavy on the itchy beige carpet, asleep before Dave carefully lifts her head onto a cushion and snuggles up to her.7

Powerlessness hits him, a violent explosive energy.  A pressure so immense, he struggles not to squeeze what life is left in her away.  His every muscle stretched tight, stretched to greater limits than he could ever believe possible.  The fierce screams in his head are so painful, he whimpers wordlessly with their agony.8

The almost imperceptible rise and fall of her skeletal body eventually calms him.  Days, the doctor had said in his sympathetic and plastic voice.  Days, maybe a week or two.  You can stay in hospital or you could go home, it’s your choice.9