Mathias
Star Chaser
Nelson drifted in and out of a dismal, restless sleep. He tossed and turned, his eyes only half closed, while his mind searched frantically for the place it had just vacated.
It was Nelson's fifty-seventh day in this awful, hard, white bed of doom. He had counted every one of the days as they crawled by.
Where he lay, the cold night air drifted through the open window and cooled his hot face. He opened his eyes blearily to watch the star filled sky. Slowly, painfully he rose into a sitting position, pulling the white sheet closer to his thin body. He frowned in concentration, trying to remember what he had just seen - an open space under the night sky, so clear and beautiful and... real, in fact. It had seemed so real...
Maybe it was just a dream, but a good one all the same. There had been stars, like those outside his window - perhaps they were the very ones, shining through his eyelids into his dream. Nelson had a fascination with the sky, a pull towards the night and its glittering occupants that he had no explanation for. He had made a pact with his best friend - or at least once his best friend - that they would reach the stars together; make careers and get out of their gloomy care home and the oppressive granite city.
Now that dream had little chance of being fulfilled, Nelson thought sadly...
After a while he averted his eyes from the heavens and leaned back on the cold pillow again, closing his eyes and once more falling into an uneasy stupor.
Nelson opened his eyes again to find that he was in an open space under the sky; he was back in his dreamland! Now that he was here he saw that it was a meadow, large and full of flowers and tall, green grass. In the distance, a low hill swept gently away from the grassland.
But it was morning now; the stars had been erased to be replaced by a blue oblivion, and the sun was just peering out from atop the shimmering horizon of the far off hill.
Nelson looked around, there was nothing moving but the tall strands of grass, waving pleasantly at him in the slight breeze, and the occasional butterfly fluttering past. Or was that all? Something else was moving - running it seemed - towards him. To his amazement he saw that there was a girl darting towards him through the grass.
She was pretty, a year or so younger than Nelson, with blond, curly hair. She wore a red dress and was smiling brightly as she ran barefoot, seemingly unaware of the twigs and acorns under her feet. Where she trod upon flowers and grass, the plants seemed magically to mend and rise up again, waving in the wind as before.
Nelson watched the girl intently, but as she came closer the meadow faded and he found himself back in his hard bed.
A dream... of course that was all it had been, and all it would ever be. Nelson sighed and lay back in his bed. Morning had arrived while he lay in the meadow, and the sounds of approaching feet could be heard beyond his door. A nurse entered the room.
‘Good morning Nelson,' She smiled at him. ‘Are you feeling any better today?'
Nelson grunted moodily and glanced at the food tray she was carrying, full of bacon and eggs - no doubt for some other patient who was capable of eating normal food. Of course he wasn't feeling better! What did she think?
The nurse came over to Nelson's bed and felt his forehead, checked the tubes that were fastened to his arms and refilled his pillbox with a fresh set of inhabitants.
Nelson had cancer: blood cancer. Leukaemia.
To begin with he was capable of walking, even for long strolls in the hospital gardens, but he was worse now, much worse. His joints ached so badly he could hardly stand, making his existence unbearable. Even when he was lying in bed or simply sitting at his window, watching the sky, the pain would shoot through his body. His cough had gone from bad to worse until his chest was so constricted that even talking was hard.
At least Nelson now had an excuse not to chat with the nurses and doctor.
His chest hurt all the time and his unsteady breathing made him angry. He wanted to run in the meadows with the young girl he had seen in his dream. He wanted to be free, not tied to some tube that fed him drugs that made him feel ill.
Once, before that fateful day he had fallen over coughing on the training field, Nelson had been a runner - a good one too. He ran every day, along with his best friend, Will. But no more, Nelson's running days were gone and so too was Will. When Nelson had returned from the doctor on that cold eve, fifty-eight days ago, all the other kids had kept away from him, as though he were contaminated and infectious. The word cancer seemed to scare a lot of people. Nelson had been upset, but the thought that Will at least would stand by him had consoled Nelson and made him smile when there was little other reason to.
But Will did not stand by his best friend; he did not even give Nelson a look, not a single glance, until the day he was sent to hospital. On that dreadful day Will had sat with the other kids, throwing Nelson sidelong glances and giving him as wide a berth as possible.
The nurse left the room with her food tray, and disappeared from sight.
As Nelson lay in his bed he wished he could fall asleep again; and sure enough, not long after the nurse had left, he fell back into his restless sleep.
The meadow seemed somewhat clearer now than it had done the last time, and the sun was rising steadily over the hill, into the sky. The girl was coming closer; he could see her quite clearly, her red dress, blond curls and bright smile. She was only a few yards away when, just like last time, she faded along with the midday sun.
Opening his eyes, irritated, Nelson looked around to see what had disturbed his dream and saw the doctor in front of him. The kind, thoughtful, naïve idiot that maintained everything was lovely when all his patients were dying.
‘Heeello Neeelson!" he boomed. ‘What a beautiful day!'
‘It was before you came,' Nelson whispered under his breath.
‘Anyway,' the doctor continued. ‘I was thinking you should get some fresh air - it's wonderful outside!'
Ten minutes later Nelson had been dragged out of his bed and into a wheelchair, then trundled out into the hospital grounds.
The sun was shining down on him and birds were singing all around.
For the first time in ages Nelson smiled. He was actually enjoying himself.
The hospital itself reminded him of the care home he had lived in nearly all his life, but these grounds were finer than anywhere else he had ever been (apart from his dream of course). If only this were not a hospital but a park; a park for walking, running, being with friends; a place to watch the sky, either while sitting on a bench under the sun, or at night, lying on your back alongside someone else, gazing at the stars. Nelson longed to see the meadow again, and the beautiful girl in her red dress.
The nurse who was pushing his wheelchair parked him under a tall willow tree with branches hanging low, blocking the sun from view.
‘You mind sitting here for a while dearie?' she asked.
‘No,' replied Nelson slowly, not bothering to look at her.
‘OK, I'll be back soon.'
Off for a smoke no doubt, Nelson thought. He didn't mind really, it was fine just sitting here, listening to the birds and thinking, without someone breathing down his neck, urging him to go back inside again.
As he sat under the willow, Nelson drowsed contentedly.
The girl was only a few yards away now. She came over to Nelson and settled down beside him. They sat like that, together, for a long time, just enjoying each other's company as the afternoon sun blazed above them.
‘All right then darling,' it was the nurse again, running towards him, stuffing a packet of cigarettes into her pocket. ‘Time to go in I think.'
Nelson spent the rest of the day sitting in the cafeteria, thinking about the girl from his dreams, all the time breathing unsteadily and massaging his aching joints. His lungs hurt more than ever. Later that afternoon he was given another injection to stop the pain, but he felt little better. The doctor even put his cheery smile away as he conversed in grave tones with one of Nelson's nurses.
When they decided to put Nelson to bed to see if his pains might recede slightly, he didn't even protest, for he wanted to be with the girl again. He thought back to the time he had last been in the countryside, but could only remember vague details: images of his parents laughing and smiling down at him where he lay in his pram played over and over again on the back of his eyelids, like a film caught in a loop, repeating itself forever.
They had died not long after in a car crash. Nelson had been raised in the gloomy municipal care house on the outskirts of the city, until the day that changed his life. He could remember sitting in the doctor's office, coughing and waiting for the results from the test. The doctor had entered the room with a sad expression and said slowly: "I'm sorry to say that you have cancer, Nelson."
After that the world had changed for him, his whole life turned upside-down in mere days. Nobody ever visited him, apart from some of the staff from the home, but they did it out of duty, not genuine affection. Nelson had hoped that perhaps, one day, Will would come and see him. So far however, there had been no sight of him and his untidy, blond hair. The two friends had looked a lot the same before Nelson had started taking the dreaded cancer medicine; now Nelson's head was smooth and pale looking like a beacon when hit by sunlight, or a star in the dark of night.
Although he desired it, sleep took long to find Nelson, as his body was still sore and stiff. He lay for a long time staring blankly at the window and the starry heavens beyond, looming like a great mouth that was about to swallow him into the darkness.
Finally it came, sweet waves of sleep that sent Nelson from his conscious state and into his dreamland, far away.
Nelson looked up. The girl was still beside him, but she was even clearer now as if she were real, and the meadow too had lost all its dreamy qualities. It had suddenly become so lifelike. Above him stars glowed like pebbles at the bottom of a black ocean, specks of light in a sea of dark.
‘Do you want to come and run with me?' the girl was speaking to him. It sounded so real that Nelson was amazed.
‘Do you?' she asked again, smiling at him.
‘I can't,' he said sadly. ‘I have cancer.'
‘No you haven't,' the girl smiled. ‘Not here. No one is sick here.'
And to his amazement Nelson sensed that the aches which usually throbbed through his body had faded, his breathing was back to normal; he was breathing warm, fresh night air.
‘Where is here?' he inquired.
‘This is death Nelson. Here is death...' she smiled at him again, then said, ‘So shall we run? I can show you the stars if you like! I could take you there...'
‘Yes,' said Nelson. ‘I'll run with you,' and then, almost as an afterthought, ‘Reach the stars with you...'
And so they ran, ran through the meadows towards the hills beyond, towards the stars - suddenly so much closer and so clear.
So this is heaven, Nelson thought happily. This is heaven...
