The leg braces

She did it again.
Carly tried to get away, she ran, she cried – no, Mom, no! – but it was useless.
Mom got her and held her tight and buckled the leg braces on both her legs from the ankles to the thighs. Hard metallic braces secured with leather straps and bands.
Now she lies in her bunk bed. Her mother lifted her up there, breathing heavily. Carly lashed about, she cried – no, Mom, no! – but it was useless.
She can only lie on her back. She is very hot under the heavy feather duvet. She tries to open the braces but she can’t even reach the first leather strap. She can’t get up. She stretches and stretches her arms. The only thing she can reach is the duvet. She pulls it over her face. Now, she thinks, now I'll suffocate. I'll suffocate and then she'll see. It gets hotter and hotter, her head is going to explode. She throws the bedding on the floor. She cries: - Mom! Mom! –

“Take your nap!” “It’s good for you!” “You want pretty legs don’t you?” Carly hears and then she hears the door.
She is alone. She is listening really hard. She hears the kitchen clock. Cars driving by. Her heart is in her ears. She is only able to move her arms and her head and the upper part of her body. Her index finger constantly drills the same spot on the wall.
Carly knows. There will be a big fire. A very big fire. And her mom will cry. She will cry and cry – Oh I didn’t want that, I didn’t – and she will cling to the only leather strap that will be left.
“Mom! Mom! Fire!” she cries till her voice gives up.

Silence. After her crying the silence grows. The room is half dark. She sees the white ceiling, the “forget me not” wallpaper, her leg braces. She hears a car door outside the street. Now she is cold. She is certain one will come. One will come and he will break into the flat. He will open all the drawers, and he will find Mom's jewellery box, and Carly will be really, really quiet, she will stop breathing, but then he will notice the bedding on the floor.
“Now what have we here? A girl? I get a lot of money for a girl!”

She did it again.
Mom got her and held her tight and buckled the leg braces on both her legs from the ankles to the thighs.
Her finger keeps drilling the same spot in the wall. The “forget-me-not Wallpaper gets a little loose. “Mom! Mom!” she cries.

Finally, the door. Her mother brings in groceries. “You threw your bedding on the floor!” Her voice is accusing. “Did you sleep well?”
Carly is back in the arms of her mother. Her mother opens one strap after the other, rubs her legs. Carly wants to cuddle up. She wants to run away.
“You only buckle me up so you can go grocery shopping!”
“No, no!” her mother says, but her eyes give her away.
The hole in the wall is very small. It will get big and bigger and behind it are the streets of freedom.

Thirst

Her hometown belongs to a big stream. Like a spiderweb this stream has conquered everything in the city, the center, the suburbs, big streets and small ones, plazas, the shopping mall. The people living here think they built bridges and canals and dams, but all they really did was civilize the stream. Everyone hears its echo, including her. They hear it all the time, all the time, trickling over stones, fishes jumping in and out. Its ongoing gurgling has long found its way through their skins.
The stream is called Thirst and so is the town.
She always wanted out. She always longed for silence. Please, she thought, please just stop. Just for a moment. Please.

Why, she thinks, why do I think about Thirst now? She is drinking one cup of water after the other under the alarmed eyes of her doctor. Almost thirty years ago she left Thirst and never returned. But the polite and quiet voice of her doctor brought the stream back, with one big splash, grabbed her and threw her in the stream and now it's inside her again as if she never went away.

Suddenly, and it is always sudden when a doctor tells you the inevitable, suddenly she sees how it will go. It doesn’t matter if it's one year, six months, one day, couple hours, it all comes down to the question “why?” followed by “why me?”
I am not even a smoker, she thinks, and I've been eating biological the last seven years, I’ve done nothing wrong.
But it doesn't matter. She has one day left or one month or one year. At the most.

Her doctor likes to explain. He talks and talks and all the time she doesn't listen. She drinks another cup of water and listens to Thirst, the stream she left behind, flowing into her once more, claims her blood, accelerating her heart. Even feels its spray on her cheeks. Slow and steady and wet, not sweet and pure, but grey and dirty. The doc is still talking. Words in capital letters are landing on her. MEDICATION. ONE WEEK MAX. HOSPITAL.
They fall on other words in capital letters. Words swimming against a wild current. WHY? WHY ME?

She is flooded by memories. Lost chances. What ifs. Fast, faster rewind pictures in her head. His clear eyes. Him and her. Only Vernell days. She wants to stop. Wants to pause. Just a moment. Please. Fast, faster, the pictures seep away. Unpleasant. Disastrous. MEDICATION. WHY ME? WHY?
She has always thought: now. Now is when I will encounter something truly beautiful, now I will find the way to happiness. But then now disappeared without a trace. She stops. Yes, I want to live.

“I'm thinking about the stream in my hometown” she says.
Her doc looks at her bewildered.
“The stream?”
She wants to laugh. He didn’t see that one coming.
“It is really astonishing,” she continues. “I feel Thirst as if I’ve never left it.”
“Thirst?”
She laughs. “Don’t worry. I'm not cracking up. Time is like a stream. Whatever he takes will be lost forever.”
Her doc wants to get up. He is struggling for words, holding his pen real tight. She just smiles.
“Give me my medicine. I’m not staying. I’ve decided. I’m going home.”