Weekly Drabble #303: As Light as a Feather (Patreon)

This week's prompts are 'death comes as a whisper' and 'a new persona' from Accipter_Ater and Taelel. Enjoy!

~

As Light as a Feather:

Michael – Mikey to his friends – Layton looked at himself in the mirror. He was about average height for a young man of twenty-three. He ran his hand over his chin. He was clean-shaven, save for a short frizzle of curly dark hair on his scalp that he was growing back in. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Sickness still looked mostly normal... mostly.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He might end up looking a bit lighter-skinned, like someone could mistake him for being Hispanic or something like that. Or maybe not. Sickness might look mostly normal, but there was a still a creepy pallor to her. Maybe that would happen to him, too. He’d become – to use a term that he never imagined applying to himself, but might be incredibly apt – deathly pale. Sickness had told him to invest in makeup. She’d even offered to teach him how to use it.

On his bed was a three-piece suit that he couldn’t have dreamed of affording until now. It was part of the hiring package. Michael touched it. Even that physical connection didn’t make the sense of unreality he’d been experienced any easier. Nothing about this situation felt real.

He headed downstairs. The smell of toaster-cooked breakfast waffles filled their small kitchen. His mother, dark circles under her eyes from the extra shifts she was pulling, smiled when she saw him. “Michael,” she said. “Good morning.” She looked at him. “Are you all right? You look-”

“Morning, ma,” he answered. “I’m fine, promise.” Before he could say anything else, the doorbell rang.

“Can you see who that is?” his mother asked. “I’m still dealing with breakfast.”

Michael’s stomach tightened. He knew who it was. He went to the door. He thought his hands would shake, but they didn’t. On the steps was a young white woman. She was dressed in an expensive women’s suit, made by the same tailor that had done his. She was rail-thin and walked with a cane – no, not a cane. A staff that she would lean on for support. Her light brown hair was bleached and had grown out, making it two-tone and her eyes were grey. She smiled when she saw him. It felt at least partially genuine, but their relationship wasn’t that of friends. It was mentor and student and he, three or four years older than her, was the student. “Hi, Michael. Are you ready?”

“No, not yet. I still have to-”

“Michael?” His mother called from the kitchen. “Who is it?”

“It’s no one ma, it’s-” before he could tell her not to, she came into the hallway, her eyes widening as she saw his visitor. This wasn’t a bad neighbourhood by any means, but women like Sickness didn’t come here. They certainly didn’t appear on your doorstep.

“Oh,” his mother said, look from Michael to their guest. “Mikey, who’s your friend?”

His mind raced. He’d never wanted to tell his mother anything about... anything. He’d never wanted her to see his ‘recruiter’. “This is...” he couldn’t introduce her by her name. “...Ness,” he said. “Nessa. She’s my, uh...”

“Orienteer,” Sickness volunteered without prompting. “For the company, to get him settled in at his new job. I’m picking him up today.” She switched her staff to her left hand and held out her right.

“Oh,” Michael’s mother repeated, her fluster abating. “That’s very nice. Michael hasn’t talked about his job that much, but he said the company was very supportive.” She took the young woman’s hand and shook it, but darted her hand back immediately. “I’m sorry,” she apologized as she realized that might have seemed rude. “It was just-”

“-cold, I know. It’s all right,” Sickness assured her, flexing her fingers. “I forget sometimes. Poor circulation. You’re not the first person to notice.” She looked over at Michael. “Shall we go?”

“Just give a moment, okay?”

She nodded, heading down to the black town car parked in front of her house. Michael turned back to his mother. “I’ve got to go.”

“You haven’t had breakfast, though. You could invite Nessa in and-”

“No. No,” he repeated slower, trying not to sound on edge. “No, I should get going. I’ll grab something at work. I want to make a good first impression.”

“You’re not wearing your suit, though...”

“It’s okay for the first day,” he assured her. “The company likes it a little more casual. Something about making employees feel more at ease before.... before we start. Besides, I don’t have the job yet. I need to get through today and then I’ll...” he bit his lip. “I’ll put it on later, okay? Once I have the job.”

She smiled, touching his face. “You look so handsome in it. You’ll turn heads.”

He smiled back, taking her hand. Then, he threw his arms around her. His mother, working so hard since dad died. Killing herself with three jobs to pay for Lisa’s medical bills, putting up with him. He’d been such a shit since dad, cruel to her and Lisa. It wasn’t until Lisa got sick that he realized what a douchebag he’d been. He’d cleaned up his act, or at least tried to. That’s what this new job was about, to make all that right. “I love you, ma,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a better son.”

She hugged him back. “It’s all right,” she told him, but it wasn’t. It wouldn’t be until he took this job. “I love you, too.”

“Take care of Lisa. Don’t let her sass you the way I did, okay.” He pulled back. “I’ll see you... when I see you, okay?”

“I’ll see you later tonight, Mikey.” If she hadn’t been so tired from overworking herself, his mother might have noticed what he was really saying. She might have tried to stop him and in a way, he was glad she was exhausted. He didn’t want this harder than it had to be.

Michael gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. “Goodbye, ma.”

In the car, Sickness handed him a handkerchief. “For your face,” she told him. It wasn’t until he looked in the mirror that he knew what she meant. He didn’t even know he’d been crying.

~

Their first stop was Chesterton Memorial Hospital. Michael had insisted and Sickness had agreed without complaint. He went up to the pediatric oncology wing. This was the place he’d first seen Sickness. She’d been walking the ward, dressed like a nurse. He still didn’t know how, but he’d known at once that she didn’t belong there. Or... she did, but not as a member of the staff. He reached his sister’s room and his heart leapt into his mouth.

Lisa was sitting up. Not just sitting up, but ravenously devouring a bowl of hospital food, while two doctors and a nurse watched over her, speaking in hushed, stupefied awe. He didn’t have to eavesdrop to know what was so confounding for them. Yesterday, Lisa had been terminal, her tiny body ravaged by fast-spreading tumours that sprang up out of nowhere like a ticking time bomb in her genes. She might have held on for a few more weeks or a month or two. The doctors had never said there was no hope, but they’d told him and ma to prepare for the worst.

Now she was as full of energy as she had been a year ago, before the cancer slithered its way into her. “Mikey!” she shouted when she saw him.

He smiled and stepped into the room. “Hey brat,” he told. “You look good.”

She threw her arms around him. “Doctors said I’m better!”

“You look like it.” He glanced at one of the doctors. “How is she?”

“Your sister is doing very well today,” the man told Michael. “We have some tests to run, but this is...” he didn’t want to say ‘miraculous’, but that’s what it was. “Unexpected, but extremely welcome.” They hadn’t contacted ma yet. Probably because they didn’t want to know what was going on and didn’t want to get her hopes up. When she came in tonight to visit Lisa, though... everything would be different. He talked to the doctor a little more, then spent a few minutes with Lisa. He couldn’t stay long. If he did... if he did, he wouldn’t be able to leave and he had to. He gave her a kiss on the forehead and told her to go easy on ma, and that her big brother loved her.

He met Sickness in the hallway. “You see?” she told him. “Full remission.”

“And completely gone when I take the job?”

“Like it was never there. Exactly what you asked for.”

“And it won’t come back?”

“Not even if she starts playing in a toxic waste dump. Once you’re a part of the company, she can look forward to a life full of entirely new potential health problems... but this cancer will be gone.”

A huge weight lifted off his shoulders. Lisa, so small and growing smaller every day. Weaker and desperate to hold on, but losing against the corruption choking the life from her. Ma, working herself to exhaustion to make sure Lisa had the best care possible, but losing bits of herself every day too. Their family had been drowning since dad died, and Lisa’s illness would have swallowed them up. Now all of that would be gone.

He’d made it right. There was just one thing left to do.

“Okay,” he told the pale young woman leaning on her walking staff. “I’m ready.”

It was a lie, but one he needed to tell himself. Just one more thing.

~

They walked out of the hospital along the city streets, finally pausing at a crosswalk with the DON’T WALK sign lit. “How...” he began. His voice caught in his throat. “How do we do this?” There wasn’t much traffic right now. The intersection was mostly empty. It was just him and Sickness waiting to cross. Further down the street, a large truck swerved onto the road.

The woman was standing straighter than he’d seen from her before. She nodded at the crosswalk signs. “When that says WALK, cross the street.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He’d thought there’d be something more to it. Maybe this was metaphorical? Like a literal crossing over? Then he glanced back down the street. The truck was barrelling along. City drivers were bad, but... “He’s not going to stop, is he?”

“No,” Sickness told Michael. “He won’t.”

Michael’s heart pounded in his chest. “I...” he started. He couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t even know what it would have been.

“I’m here,” his recruiter told him. “When the lights turn, take the step. It’ll be quick. Remember why you’re doing this.”

He did. Lisa, smiling for the first time in weeks. Ma, getting worn down to nothing to try and keep their family together. All the stupid shit he’d said and done. The chance to make things right for everyone. His left foot lifted off the curb. The truck was getting closer, still not slowing. Its driver was in a hurry or... or maybe Michael wasn’t the only one Sickness was here for. The lights turned yellow.

“I can’t,” Michael said, unable to make himself move. He knew he wouldn’t be able to step into the street. “I know I... I want to, but I... but I can’t.”

“It’s all right,” Sickness told him, putting her left hand on the middle of Michael’s back. “It’s okay, Michael. It’s okay. I couldn’t do it either when my time came.”

“You couldn’t?” Yellow became red, but the truck still sped towards the intersection. It didn’t even attempt to slow down. Across the street from Michael, the blissfully unaware signs switched from DON’T WALK to WALK.

“No,” Sickness told him. “Someone had to help me, too.”

And with that, she pushed him into the street.