Sweetheart
A woman lies on a bed, paper skin stretched over her bones. She’s all rattling lungs and delicate movements. Her breath accompanied by wracking coughs that shake her slight frame. In her chest beats a defective organ. In her blood run defective cells. She supposes she had it coming for a while. Dying, that is. It wasn't as if there were anyone still waiting for her.
She suffocates in the silence of an indefinitely permanent hospital stay. Indefinitely permanent, as in living forever in and out of clinics, strapped to life-support. She is aware, though, that she won’t even make it to Stage 4. She feels it already, her life ebbing away, sucking the energy out of her like a leech. Every day, her body tired.
Shifting her head to the side, she looks out the window by her bed. Flimsy lace curtains drawn to the sides, she sees the city, bustling with people, each unaware that she is inside. She glimpses police cars or protesters, everyone involved in their own lives, their own problems. Too tired now to keep track of all the hurried bodies, she turns her blurred gaze to the potted house plant on the windowsill.
The woman lifts it up into her lap. She thanks it for being light, as she's almost uncomfortably close to the window. She threads her hands through the musty soil of the pot and rolls the small grains into dust with her fingers. Philodendron scandens, Heartleaf philodendron, Sweetheart plant. It is the first time she felt earth since she's been admitted to this place.
She thinks back to her last trip to the rainforest. Recalls the looming Kapok trees protruding from fertile earth and the countless insects skittering across the wild flora. She remembers watching the river atop the Andes, its winding body cutting through the forest. Light filtered through the canopy above, a white shaft illuminating the floor to her view. She thinks back to the philodendrons there. Heart-shaped, glossy leaves hanging from brown tipped stems, vines trailing up ancient trees.
She watches her singular companion in this lonely room. Long after she goes, it’ll remain. Unmoving in its spot while someone else takes her place in the bed. It’ll continue to grow.
Perhaps accidentally, her nail pierces the plant. A small trickle of liquid drips out. Full of countless living cells, each working properly, trying their best to help what they had made. Even now, binding to mend the wound she has carved on its body.
Her hands tighten around the smooth-painted ceramic pot, tips of her fingernails turning white. She wonders if it would break if she flung it, watch it shatter like a heart. Bring it to its end in this shitty monotonous room.
Carefully, she returns the houseplant to its spot on the sill. She exhales deeply and smoothes the creases on the spotted hospital gown. Her ID bracelet stands out starkly against her skin, her information staring back at her from the crisp Arial font. It's the afternoon, and the last tendrils of sun stretch into the sky. There's another siren in the distance.
The next day, the bed is empty. The sheets are stripped clean, and the bottle of water sitting half-empty on the counter is thrown away. A nurse opens a window, hoping to chase out the smell. On its shelf near the window, a houseplant sways, its heart-shaped leaves shifting in the breeze.
