The green line went flat on the screen, paired with an ear-piercing tone that cut through the air and hopes of the surgeons in the room. One surgeon read the time- 31, October, 2014, 4:02 PM- and a nurse documented the time read.
Someone had burst into the double doors, a small man, his violet eyes wild with rage and horror as tears fell down his cheeks. He tried to reach for him, for the small, bloodied body, but another man, a larger one who seemed so stoic about it all if it weren't for the tears in his blue eyes, ran after the smaller one and held him back. The smaller man, the one with the violet eyes, fought against his husband's hold, screaming obscenities and begging to be allowed near his son, until he couldn't fight anymore, and all he could do was sink to the floor and weep in his husband's large arms as the doctors switched off the electronics, took out the steel tools from the open chest, and pulled the white sheet over their patient's body, covering the lifeless blue eyes and pulling it over his dirt-blond hair.
What year was it? Peter wondered this as he sat perched on top of the nurse's desk, his chin resting in the palms of his tiny hands. It couldn't have been many years since he didn't grow much, but still...
He looked into the room of a little girl named Lilli Zwingli and watched as her older brother- Basch, Peter learned from overhearing their conversations- wrap a covering around her neck, the ones Peter used to wear whenever his Papa or Mum took him to get haircuts from the friendly old barber who gave him candy afterward. Basch then undid Lilli's pretty braids and combed it out before picking up a pair of scissors and cutting them up to her chin.
He turned his attention to another patient, a boy named Feliciano who coughed in between his laughs from his bouts of pneumonia as his mother and father and older brother tried to keep the life in the atmosphere. If Peter knew Feliciano, the boy was going on excitedly about the pretty nurses caring for him and keeping him company.
Both patients flared intense jealousy in Peter's young body. Not only do they get regular company from family- and nurses and special visits when Feliciano and Lilli ask while Peter couldn't even get one nurse's attention- but they were both getting taller. They were both sick and neither of them leave their beds for months on end, and they couldn't keep their food down for weeks sometimes, but they still got bigger and taller and Feliciano was even getting a little bit of muscle on him (albeit his arms still looked stick-thin), while Peter still was too short. And it stunk because Peter felt completely fine; he exercised, he stretched his limbs daily, and he'd eat his meals everyday and keep it down if he could eat.
The thought of not being able to eat brought in another wave of jealousy in the little boy's heart. All over the floor, the kids here got to eat tons of sweets that Peter loves, from the chocolate pudding cups with whipped topping on it to slices of chocolate and vanilla cakes with a lot of rainbow sprinkles on the frosting, ones that look like the cake Mum bakes for Christmas with Papa. Nothing about this was fair-!
Peter stopped himself, inhaled and closed his eyes. He was getting angry at others for getting things that were good, and the envy was making him sick. To take away the envy, Peter let his mind clear, and then he told himself in his head that it is not good to be jealous for what others have just because he couldn't have it, and that he should in fact be happy for them because they were lucky enough to get them while they were so sick. So he let go of the envy over their familial moments and the delicious-looking cakes and puddings and cupcakes, but the twinge of bitterness over still being tiny remained. Moving one hand from under his chin, Peter flexed his little arm, sighing in disappointment at the barely-there bump on his upper arm. He compared his arm to Feliciano's arms and even Lilli's arms until he got bored of seeing how small he was. He pushed himself off the nurse's desk and sped down the slippery hall of the hospital, past the rooms of other children who were sick or injured or simply there for check-ups and slowed down until he reached the room.
Room B180, the one Peter was assigned... how long ago before they gave his bed away to other, sicker kids? He stared at the glowing blue line on the wall next to B180's door. Hoping that however many years have passed was good on his height, Peter turned around and pressed his back against the wall. He flattened his hair on his head with one hand and used his finger to trace a line above him. He turned back around and looked at where his magic finger left another glowing mark. Darn, it was the same place like last month, like every darn year since he first came here. He pouted, looked from side to side at the crowd of patients and doctors with nurses and students at their side, and turned around again. Instead of pressing his back to the wall first, he closed his eyes and pushed his insides down and away. With the lighter weight, Peter felt his feet lift from the floor and his body getting higher up. He opened his eyes and leaned against the wall, tracing another line above his head for the month.
He descended and gazed up proudly at the line he drew higher on the wall with his hands on his hips. Well, even if he can't grow taller like the other kids, he could at least take pride in knowing that he learned a trick that the other kids can't do. Mum would be so proud!
"Okay, baby, now just put this strand through this loop..."
Peter blinked as the voice cut through his thoughts. Another voice spoke too, followed by bubbly laughter and some small claps and cheers. Peter raised an eyebrow and leaned until his head appeared in the doorway. Sitting on one of the room's beds- Peter's old bed, as a matter of fact- was a little girl that looked around Peter's age. She was tiny compared to her parents sitting in the chairs next to her bed, a papa with long golden hair that Uncle Den would have laughed at and some scruff under his chin, a mama whose skin was slightly darker than the little girl's skin and thick braids of hair was tied high behind her hair, and the girl herself, a girl who had dark brown hair in big, red bows on either side of her brown cheeks. Peter couldn't see what the little girl and her family were making from where he stood, but guessed from the baskets of yarn that maybe they were making a scarf or something. Whatever they were doing, Peter watched on in fascination. He placed the palms of his hand on the threshold and took a step inside the room.
"Am I finished yet, Mama?" The little girl asked. She held up a tiny patchwork that had a red flower in a yellow and white striped background.
"Not yet, baby," the lady chuckled. "You have to do that thirty more times before it's finished.
The little girl puffed her cheeks and lowered her work. "But that's going to take forever! I won't be able to finish it before winter comes..."
"Not with that attitude, you won't," the papa stated. He started to say something else, but someone cleared his throat. All of them looked towards the door, including Peter- who didn't realize that he was floating closer to the family and further away from the door itself- and a doctor stood there with his clipboard in his arm. The papa and mama glance at each other and smiled back at their daughter. "Michelle, we're going to talk to the nice doctor for a moment, do you think you'll be able to work on your scarf until we come back?"
The daughter, Michelle, nodded. "Mhm!"
"Okay, we'll be right back," the mama leaned closer to give Michelle a kiss on the forehead. The papa did the same and they both stood and walked out of the room, walking through Peter and closing the door behind them.
Peter glanced over his shoulder and looked back at the little girl on the bed, watching her fingers turn the needles in and out, up and down, make loops and close them until she made one row after the other of yellow and red and white in such a quick fashion that Peter's eyes couldn't keep up.
"That's a cool scarf," Peter commented, mostly to himself though, since no one can hear him-
"Huh! Oh, thanks!" Michelle grinned. She lifted her work-in-progress up to the light to examine it.
Peter let out a small gasped and looked up at the girl, who seemed to stare back right at him. He looked over his shoulder again, and all around the room. "Were you... talking to me?"
"Uh, yeah?" she replied with a quirk of her eyebrow and looked around the room with him. "Who else am I going to talk to?"
"Oh, sorry, I just..." Peter looked down at his fingers as he twiddled them. "Uh, I never really had a girl talk to me before..." Or anyone, really, he wanted to add. For a long, long time.
"Well, you are talking to one right now, right? It's not bad so far, is it?"
"Oh, no, no, it isn't bad, I just, er..."
Michelle stared at the little boy, waiting for him to say whatever he had on his mind. A minute passed in silence, and Michelle beamed and patted the space in front of her. "Come on, sit down, but not on the chairs because Mama and Papa are sitting there. My name's Michelle!"
"I've heard," Peter said as he floated up and landed gently on the bed with his legs crossed. "Uh, my name's Peter- what?"
Michelle sat there with her mouth gaping open at him, her golden eyes bulging. "Whoa, did you just-?!"
"Did I just what?" Peter asked. He then made a soft "oh" sound. "You mean float? Yeah, I did. Why, did it scare you?"
"No! That is so cool! How did you that?"
"Well," Peter looked down at his fingers again, noticing how dirty his nails looked and wishing that his Papa was here to help him clean them out. "Well, I don't know. One day, I was just able to float and I did it sometimes. It's not as cool as what you're doing, though. My Papa did that all of the time and made me and my brother and even my dog hats and scarves for winter every year so we don't get cold. They were really soft and warm."
"Wow. Are they here with you, Peter?"
Peter shook his head. "No, they're not. They never came back." His voice became softer, and he swallowed so that the lump forming in his throat would go away. He didn't want to cry, not in front of such a pretty girl-
He then froze, sadness immediately replaced with embarrassment. He didn't think that, did he?
"I'm sorry, Peter. Hey, what are you here for?"
"I had something wrong with my heart, Mum said. He said it was-"
"He?"
Peter nodded, now remembering that not many people call their second father "Mum" and that that was a sort of special thing for him and his older brother. "Yeah, I call my other father 'Mum' because he's really mom-like even when he's manly."
"Oooh, okay. Do you call your mama 'Daddy' then-?"
"Michelle, who are you talking to?" Michelle's father asked. He and his wife looked around, concerned.
Michelle gestured her hand towards the empty space in front of her. "Mama, Papa, this is Peter!" She looked back at the space in front of her and carried on with the conversation.
"Eh, Michelle, there's no one-" Her mother gently grabbed her husband's sleeve and shook her head. "What?"
"Francis, can't you see she made a new friend here?"
"Not really, no."
"Francis-"
"Makena, this is not a healthy thing for her." Francis glanced at his daughter and leaned closer to her mother's ear and continued in a hushed voice, "She's obviously been here foo too long and is very lonely, we need to break this habit before it gets to her the longer she stays here."
"I can hear you, yanno," Michelle grumbled. She reached forward and placed her hand on the sheet, her palm cupped as if covering something. "And so can Peter!"
Peter looked down at his hand, which was covered by Michelle's hand. He didn't really feel the touch, but he could tell that her hand was soft and warm. His mouth hung open as his mind tried to sort through the weird feelings bubbling inside him.
By the window, a potted plant tilted over the edge and crashed to the floor.
"Oh, mon Dieu, how the hel- heck did that happen?" Francis hurried around the bed and went to the mess. He crouched and tried to pick up as many pieces of the pot as he can.
Makena grabbed some facial tissue and a pamphlet to use as a makeshift broom and dustpan to clean up the soil.
As her parents cleaned, Michelle turned her attention back to Peter. She scooted closer to him and smiled. "How old are you Peter? I'm five!"
"You're five? Hm, what year is it?"
"It's, um, it's 2025!"
"Oh, then that would mean..." Peter trailed off as he counted on his fingers. "2022, 2021... I should really be sixteen, then!" He sighed and crossed his arms. "But I'm still five and short."
"Being five isn't so bad!" Michelle chirped. She tilted her head and gave that smile that was really starting to make Peter nervous in a good way and squeezed her hand around Peter's, surprising the young boy. "That means we can be friends!"
"Oh, no..." Francis muttered as he and Makena crossed the room to the trashcan.
Peter ignored them and instead returned the warm grin.
Makena Bonnefoy: APH Kenya