Chapter One
Every conversation with my mother begins with a twitch of the eyebrow and a worried frown from her, with an "Is everything alright, dear?" or "Are you okay?". I was rather unhappy about this, because through this I can see that the only thing which troubled my mother is me. I have seen her alone in the garden with her beloved flowers before. That night, I woke from one of those tripping-and-falling-awake-with-a-jerk dreams and looked out from the bedroom window. I saw her lying on the grass, eyes fixed on the shimmering worlds that lie forever beyond humans' reach. Above her was darkness crowned with shiny white stars, and oh did she look young. She was different from the way she usually was. She was smiling. My mother was smiling. And her one good eye twinkled the way I've never seen it twinkle before, not since Recnacdo Ol' Berara changed my life – and hers. That night, I realized that my illness did not only affect me, but the people around me too.
"Honey, what's the matter? You okay?" Just like I said.
"Yeah, I'm perfectly fine, Mom. See, I got this idea: Why don't I set up a foundation for cancer patients who wants to help cholera patients? It seems that this will actually work! Cancer patients, as you can see- "
"Why don't you," she cut me off, "worry about yourself first? Your next check-up is within the hour. You should go pack your stuff. I'll drive you there."
End of conversation. Duh!
I had expected that to happen, I really did. I went up the stairs to my room and closed the door. Sisyphus was there, waiting for me.
I put the hamster into the ball, one of those big, transparent ones which allow the little guy to run around the house. Sisyphus, I recalled, the king to forever be worthlessly burdened with the boulder. I still find it funny how I chose to give the name to the thing inside the sphere instead. Perhaps I wanted to show King Sisyphus a jollier way to handle the boulder. Who knows? Sometimes I don't understand myself either.
I changed into my favourite light blue tee and dark jeans. I do not look 'gorgeous', but I feel absolutely great when I'm in these clothes. They're so…me. Is that confidence or narcissism? With this question loitering in my mind like a hamster in a plastic ball, I slipped on my red Chuck Taylors and trotted down the stairs.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, imagine my surprise when I found my mother chatting with a man. The man was apparently not my father nor was it any of the familiar people in the neighbourhood. He was a redhead, with thick, fluffy beard. He was okay tall, rather stout, not very handsome, and kinda reminded me of Gloin the dwarf from the Tolkien series. I'm not saying that Gloin is ugly but in my humble opinion, humans (or, preferably, modern man) should NOT look like hairy dwarves.
"Anna, dear, come!" My mother said. "This is Mr Gildor Milverton. He's Dutch, from the Netherlands. Cool, isn't it? And guess what? He is a Tulip trader!"
"Hello Miss Hudson! Indeed, you are a bright young girl, just as your mother said. Nice to meet you!" Mr Milverton was rather talkative, I decided.
I did a polite nod. "Nice to meet you too, Mr Milverton."
"Indeed, indeed! She shall grow up to be a fair lady, Mrs Hudson!" He laughed a loud, dwarf-ish laugh. "I should get going. I see you are busy, Elanor. See you soon!" He left as suddenly as he appeared in my house. A man with remarkable peculiarity, I observed. Plus a touch of creepiness, from the laughter. And what was even worse about it was that Mom obviously likes him. Not sure of the word 'love', so 'like' seems to fit this situation.
"Mom, is he going to be my stepfather?"
I got a nice, scary stare in return.
A week passed since my knowledge of this man who seemed much closer with my mother than I imagined. I still don't like him, but this crap was not what I expected. Other that chatting about tulips, their second-favourite topic was cancer. Recnacdo Ol' Berara, mostly. The Dutch Tulip Man has eccentric ideas on how to cure cancer, though I am not exactly sure whether it would work. His curious ways include weird plants and grass I have never heard of before, and other things that I shall never understand the meaning of. Recnacdo Ol' Berara is an extremely rare cancer with only 5 patients known. It is a type of leukemia, but leukemia is way more vicious. I am luckier than most leukemia patients. The only worse thing about getting Recnacdo Ol' Berara is that all symptoms happen all of a sudden, without accurate warnings on the future. The life expectancy was based on the first person who had the unfortunate fate of getting this illness unknown to the world. Number One died in four years. And tell you what, I am Number Two. The next human being expected to die due to ROB is me. I was extremely thankful for the Dutch Tulip Man to share his special ideas with me, but I do not expect any of those to really work. In fact, I only believe in one man to cure my rare cancer, and he is Recnacdo Ol' Berara himself. As you can see, this mad scientist named this cancer he discovered after himself. A very weird thing to do, I'd say. That's why I never say "Fuck Recnacdo Ol' Berara!" like people usually say "Fuck Cancer!", the meaning of fucking these two are completely different.
The check-up a week ago was a very saddening and yet predictable one. No miracles appeared. My mother wept again in the hospital when she was reminded about my death. This, again, is the side effect of cancer – the emotions of people around you. I have one trip around the sun left. I am withering.
Therefore, I have to work quickly. I need to get the Foundation done before I reach my grave. I went to the computer and searched for the information about setting up a foundation. Within a week, I got the preparing done. The Foundation shall be set up for funding and hosting activities and all cancer patients and healthy people are welcomed. However, only cancer patients are allowed for certain activities. This would make them feel special, making this Foundation more meaningful. The Foundation should focus more on the quality instead of quantity of members. All these plans are rather blank, but you'll see when Jake and Claire return from their trip to Hong Kong. The twins are my close friends who promised to help. Moreover, they are pure crazy and creative so working in a group with them will certainly be more productive than ever. I will leave the planning of activities and the drawing of logo for them. I just hope they'll do better than drawing watery poo and puke for the logo. Their wild imagination never ceases to amaze me.
On 14th January, the game was on. I woke up at 10am and set out to hand in the documents to the Government Office.