A little story I wrote..

This was a little story I wrote for an English readers and writers club thing I went to a while back (when living in Japan and not yet applied to train to be a Speech and Language Therapist) and is pretty much the first (and last) thing I have written since school.. Anyways, we were given the topic of "birthday" and this is what I came up with. I'm kinda proud of it cos it's not absolutely terrible, but also I hope it gives the merest sense of feeling as to what someone with a communication problem feels like. Hope you like it.


Arthur

A single candle lit his haggard face. It was his birthday. As I gazed upon him, wrinkled wise like the spine of a book, yet with softness like the folds of a duvet, I realised this was no cause for celebration.


It has been almost exactly a year since I was brought into this hospital. I cannot communicate properly or express myself. I am bed-ridden... Trapped in my own world, the lines between reality and make-believe are becoming increasingly blurry. I am a stranger both unto others as well as unto myself.
Who is this man staring at me?


As I stared deep into his weary eyes, I wondered what was going on behind them. “Happy Birthday Arthur..”, the words came out as if I were a depressed robot. I could not even bring myself to say it with feeling. It was meant to be a celebration of his birthday whereas in fact it was the exact opposite. Life was ebbing away from him and there was nothing that could be done.
I dab at the corners of his mouth to put a temporary stop to the seemingly never-ending flow of saliva. I stroke the wisps of white hair emanating from his scalp. I do everything I can to comfort him. How did he end up this way? Was there anything I could have done?


He is still there.


As his frail curled hands clasped to my fingers, any semblance of happiness left in me disappeared. My heart skipped a beat. As I looked at him through blurry eyes, for some reason I just knew, this was it. “Make a wish...”


365 days, 8760 hours, 525600 minutes. Death could not come one second too soon.


He passed away that evening,
Arthur. My son.