Prompt 164, Pills, "The Thin Papery Feeling"
Title: The Thin Papery Feeling
Series: Brotherhood/Manga
Word Count: 307
Rating: General
Characters: Jean Havoc
Summary: Jean has a lot of time to think in the hospital.
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: No own, no money make.
fma_fic_contest prompt: Pills
Note: Title from Sylvia Plath.
There it is again, that feeling, like I’m transparent, a ghost.
Outside my room, the world goes on. I can hear it, just beyond the door, the rise and fall of people’s voices, the clatter and commotion of daily lives. I can’t see it, but I can listen to the radio, read the newspaper, collect my information that way. It isn’t as good as what I had before, but it’s something.
My friends come to visit me, tell me what they’re doing. My mother comes, and makes arrangements to take me home, where I’ll live out what’s left of my life in a wheel chair, rolling around the family store. So much for following him to the top - I can’t go any farther, not without two good legs to stand on. He’d never understand how thin I feel, a living ghost, nothing but a scrap of paper, crumpled up and wasted, not worth anything any more.
My nurses are the best, taking good care of me, but their smiles don’t go beyond the corners of their mouths. They don’t actually look at me even though their hands are gentle and their voices were sweet and cheerful. They might as well be working on a corpse. It’s all I can do to smile back, flirt, beg for another cigarette to smoke. They might as well wrap me in linen and drop me down the six foot hole.
I see where they keep the pills in my room, the lock on the drawer so simple, even Fuery could pick it. Who’d suspect I could roll out of the bed, crawl over and open it, steal a handful of pills to swallow? Not anyone who comes and goes from this room, not even my old friends. Certainly not my mother.
It wouldn’t be easy, but the best things never are.
Series: Brotherhood/Manga
Word Count: 307
Rating: General
Characters: Jean Havoc
Summary: Jean has a lot of time to think in the hospital.
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: No own, no money make.
fma_fic_contest prompt: Pills
Note: Title from Sylvia Plath.
There it is again, that feeling, like I’m transparent, a ghost.
Outside my room, the world goes on. I can hear it, just beyond the door, the rise and fall of people’s voices, the clatter and commotion of daily lives. I can’t see it, but I can listen to the radio, read the newspaper, collect my information that way. It isn’t as good as what I had before, but it’s something.
My friends come to visit me, tell me what they’re doing. My mother comes, and makes arrangements to take me home, where I’ll live out what’s left of my life in a wheel chair, rolling around the family store. So much for following him to the top - I can’t go any farther, not without two good legs to stand on. He’d never understand how thin I feel, a living ghost, nothing but a scrap of paper, crumpled up and wasted, not worth anything any more.
My nurses are the best, taking good care of me, but their smiles don’t go beyond the corners of their mouths. They don’t actually look at me even though their hands are gentle and their voices were sweet and cheerful. They might as well be working on a corpse. It’s all I can do to smile back, flirt, beg for another cigarette to smoke. They might as well wrap me in linen and drop me down the six foot hole.
I see where they keep the pills in my room, the lock on the drawer so simple, even Fuery could pick it. Who’d suspect I could roll out of the bed, crawl over and open it, steal a handful of pills to swallow? Not anyone who comes and goes from this room, not even my old friends. Certainly not my mother.
It wouldn’t be easy, but the best things never are.