Listening to Comptine D'un Autre Ete: L'Apres Midi by Yann Tiersen and thought of this. A one-shit sample of Dr. Banner's work in a hospital setting in ghetto India. Reflection time.
To see such suffering always unsteadied the cored of his being, blooming a need to save every struggling life form around him. It was a selfish endeavor, done for the sake of projecting a sense of self upon the world that continually opposed the truth. He hated to see such suffering, yet he hated his own more than anything. If he could only save enough souls to save his own, he could die a happy man.
He couldn't even do that. Death was impossible for him. His life would run in a cycle of self loathing until his mind finally bent and broke from the pressure of it.
Dr. Banner sighed, the expression following through bodily in a perfect display of wilting. He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, displacing his aged glasses with the motion. When he righted them again, the room came into focus. Children and adults alike lay in disarray around the room, their eyes and focus long gone from this place. Their bodies remained, suffering, gasping, coughing, choking shells no longer fit for a soul. He pondered if humans really had such. If monsters had souls.
He sat, hunched, in a chair at the far end of the room, watching the make shift nurses bustle around and attempt to comfort the sick and dying. There was never enough that he could do to save these people or ease their suffering. To the left of this make shift, ramshackle building leaning crookedly in the suburbs of the poorest district in India, a little girl was curled tightly in the fetal position. Her face was scrunched tightly in pain, her body shaking with feverish coughs. He went to her, placing the palm of his hand against her sweating forehead. Her eyes opened a little, gazing where she thought he was, but her mind unable to comprehend his place beyond her pain.
"Shh..." he hushed. They were out of medicine, their reserves emptied of even the most basic first aid. There was nothing left but the human spirit to prevail. It was a pathetic and powerless weapon in the face of microbial attack. Science was a cruel mistress, nature the cold driving force. Often, it felt like punishment for some unknown ill.
"They...dnt...bel...", she spoke in broken English, her voice a small croak. He had to lean closer to make out her words. "They... don't believe.. in me." He looked at her closer, his brows knitting together.
"Who don't believe in you?"
"Mama... papa...", she coughed violently, her eyes squeezing shut tightly with the force. "Think I will die." She opened her eyes again, staring at where she thought he was. As weak as her focus was, there was a wicked determination in those dark brown eyes when she opened them again. She was determined to live against all odds if only just to prove them wrong. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to nod encouragingly and make it happen. Instead, he remained squatting on his heels, his hand on her head, frozen at her words and the contradictory sight of her. He was a professor of microbiology, and the closest thing to a medical doctor these people could comprehend. It was a sad story in his book. He was only here, on the run, to avoid the people that wanted to experiment on him or make of him a mindless raging slave to their militaristic needs. He was just as powerless as every dying soul in the room, really. Yet, he still felt this unyielding need to make something more of himself. To redeem himself of the monster he'd created within himself.
Further towards the truth, perhaps that monster had always been there. A sense of impatience, a little bit of greed and envy, and he'd created a physical manifestation of all that he hated within his troubled self. The hulk.
He looked at this starving, sick child and wished that the hulk could be the hero everyone but himself believed he could be. No amount of rage could save her. No amount of determination, even. They'd probably sent her here to die. It wasn't uncommon to remove the sick from the healthy before they could contaminate anyone else. Quarantine them in a place that lacked the proper equipment to handle the sick and dying. They had probably already held rites for her. Perhaps her culture and her family already perceived her to be gone from the world. The likelihood of them being correct was strong. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. The world was cruel and unfair, quietly unjust and immoveable in its sick sense of pride.
He pulled up his chair, leaning into the back of it and crossing his arms. He watched her through the night; what her suffering. Some might call him cold for it, but inwardly he rooted for her through every coughing fit, every violent chill, every wrenching session of vomiting. The sun had yet to peak over the hills, the chill clung in just the way it did before sunrise. He could feel that the new day was starting, yet he was watching a sun set just before him.
"Powerless." He whispered, more to himself than any one else. Her breaths were fast, accelerating for her failing heart. He removed his stethoscope from his neck and placed them in his ears before reaching forward to listen to her heart. As he predicted, the beats were intermittent, rushed and faltering.
She was dying.
He wanted to save her. He wanted to prove them wrong, just as she did. Science spoke against him, his own lack of faith weighing heavy, and his limitations frustrating. His own heart rate accelerated at his sheer helplessness. He reached out and coddled her, pulling her halfway into his lap. He held her tenderly, waiting out for what seemed hours, but were perhaps just mere minutes, while she died. He held her still, even after her death, and pondered the worth of a world that let a child die. A world where parents didn't believe in their own children. A world where people valued realism and practicality over acknowledging the suffering of others. This child died alone, forgotten, believed by all dead before she ever really was.
It made him bitter. Made him angry. He ground his teeth, feeling his pulse strong and deadly. He gently lay her back onto the makeshift cot before placing his hands firmly on the sides of his chair. His eyes looked at the dead child, but his mind was elsewhere. He took deep, steadying breaths, calming that boiling anger before it erupted into its ugly manifestation.
He never wanted to be this powerless again. Looking around the room, he realized he really did want to help these forgotten people. He really did want to save them. A door in his mind opened, revealing a part of him he hadn't known existed. Or perhaps it was always there and required a tiny, helping hand to fling it wide, to outshine the inner monster that constantly haunted and darkened him purpose.
He'd never known her name, but he knew that she and her determined brown eyes would stick with him forever. Their imagery would drive him toward a better purpose, he hoped. He would fight that powerlessness until he proved them wrong.