Suzanne+Vignette

As I lie in bed, I wonder. Why has this happened to me, this sickness? Why has my city been flooded? Why is my house underwater? My mind is full of these questions. With my mother, father, little sister and I living in the attic of the house, you would think that the small space would be bustling at all times. This was not the case because I had come down with this new water-borne illness, and it seems that the flood and I brought the morale of the place down considerably. Other things were on our minds as well, like the fact that we may never see my two older brothers again because they were away at college, and couldn't enter Memphis with the quarantine underway. Incidents of pain and misfortune have always seemed so distant. It occurs to me that natural disasters happen frequently, whether it be hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, or the earthquake in Haiti, but they were distant because I was never affected directly. It was always just a fundraiser on TV, a radio broadcast, or a prayer sent to the heavens. Now I’m in the opposite position, and I suppose the rest of the country is having fundraisers for us now, and praying for Memphis, Tennessee. How unreal...

My parents interrupt my trance.

 "Honey, how are you feeling?” My mother asks as my father looks at me with his tired eyes. “It's been six hours, do you need more painkillers? Did they help at all?"

"Sure, Mom, that'd be great." Even though I know the medication didn't help at all, I don’t want my own mother to feel that she’s useless, and can do nothing to help me. What if your daughter had an illness without a cure? In an age of vaccines and pills for every illness, it just so happens that your own child comes down with one of few sicknesses that cannot be cured? I would be speechless.

"Okay, I'll go run and get them," She says, Dad following behind her as she leaves one end of the attic for the other, where we kept the medicine.

We were running out of food, and had nowhere to go to get more. The attic looked awful because the humidity had caused the paint to peel and flake off. Once I overheard my parents talking about the bad stability of the place.  "Our house is already old, how long do you think the attic will hold up?" My mother had said.  Dad responded, "Who knows, but there's nothing we can do."

In terms of a cure for my disease, there were rumors of secret vaccines being hidden somewhere in St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital of Memphis, quietly tucked away until needed by some important man. The mere idea of this scandal caused riots outside the hospital, which had been secured as soon as the rioting started, but nobody knew whether these vaccines actually existed. As my mind began wandering off again, I thought of the one question I hadn’t yet asked myself- When am I going to die?