Excerpt: The Septu-Colored Land

A little boy lay on a hospital bed, deep in an everlasting coma. He lay so still it seemed as if he were dead. Deceased. Departed from this world. But the truth of the matter was that he still lived, as evidenced by his slowly beating heart, desperately pumping the vivid red blood that flowed through his little but not unimportant body, pale in comparison to the shininess of the hospital bed’s white sheets, although it could be forgiven to pronounce that he was closer to death than life because in reality, he was closer to death than life.

This little boy looked troubled, and by troubled it meant he really did have a frown on his pretty face (pretty except for the paleness) with sharp childish features even though he was unconscious, as if he had just received a scolding from his parents for not doing his homework or he had just argued with his best friend over something dumb like what computer game they should play.

His hair was black as night and his eyes were hazel brown. He stared with his eyes open at the dim white ceiling, never seeing; there was nothing interesting to look at on the ceiling anyway. If one were to look deeply into his eyes, they would feel a sense of nothingness, being intimately drawn into a blank world of emptiness and loneliness. But they were a pair of pretty eyes, a very pretty shade of brown, and if one were to look even closer they would maybe find a hint of grass green permeating the outer edges.

Beside his bed lay a little girl of roughly the same age, maybe a little older but not more than a year apart. She too lay in a coma. Unlike the little boy, however, she had a quirky half-grinned facial expression, as if she were up to some good old mischief, nothing serious or life threatening, but the usual childish mischief that sought to pull pranks on each other and laugh at each other’s misfortune at getting in trouble with the teacher or getting soaked by a proudly homemade water balloon.

She too had her eyes opened wide that stared blankly at the same dim white ceiling that the little boy beside her was not seeing, also seeing nothing; she was better off that way as there was still nothing interesting to look at on the ceiling. They were a pair of beautiful ocean blue eyes and people who looked into her eyes swore they could see the waters of the ocean swaying up and down. Unlike the little boy’s eyes, which gave off a sense of deep confusion, the little girl’s eyes soothed those who looked into them, drawing them into a peaceful world where relaxation reigned.

Her hair was long and graceful. It had a natural curl to it and reached down to the middle of her back. It was golden, almost a mixture of brown and yellow, a color all too rare today. Despite her pale face and body, her hair somehow radiated a certain sparkly goodness that quickly caught anyone’s eye walking past her hospital bed. It was a truly momentous sign of beauty in the midst of a dim white room with two pale, but pretty looking little children.

“If only you would wake up!” mourned the boy’s parents as they stood over their precious little boy, their eyes dry from shedding every bit of moisture through their sorrowful tears.

“Why did this have to happen to you?” mourned the girl’s parents as they stood over their precious little girl, the mother still sobbing and heaving heavily and the father tightly embracing his beloved wife.

“Oh you two unlucky children!” mourned both sets of parents as both mothers began to cling to each other as they sobbed and both fathers stared at the two hospital beds with grave faces, wishing they could do something but knew there was nothing to be done, at least not within their limited power.

The machines that were hooked to the little bodies beeped steadily, reassuring the parents that they were indeed still alive, even just a tiny bit, but all four of them held on to the fear that there might be a day when the machines stopped beeping, but none of them mentioned it. After all, what was the use of causing more unnecessary pain and sorrow at this point in their bitter hopeless lives?

And just like every other day they visited their unlucky children, they finally mustered enough strength to leave them to their worn out hospital beds, tearing away from their confined loved ones. Back to isolation. Tears running down their cheeks, the mothers planted a gentle delicate kiss on their little child’s pale but soft cheeks, before placing their weary heads on their husband’s shoulder, allowing the men to escort them out of the dim white room.

Little did they know, their children were dreaming in their own not-so-little world.