Confessions of the impertinent predilections of a sinner...

Dreams.

The walls of the hospital were always white. They smelt of disinfectant, a sharp scent that stung the nostrils if you breathed too deeply. He saw old people in wheelchairs, and transparent masks over their faces, and wondered whether they breathed the same kind of air that he did. He spent a long time wondering about such things. There was little else to do.

Other boys in the ward had toys. There were flowers by the side of their bed to take away the scent of starch and sanitized linen that permeated the air. He supposed that he ought to envy them, or wish that he had what they did. but there was not enough time in this life to envy. They would not take the flowers with them when they died.

His mother cried every time she came to see him, holding his hand between her rough work-calloused ones and spilling her tears on his thin wasted fingers. There were nurses who came to smile at him. He always tried to smile back, though sometimes it hurt. Would they still smile at him if he were not lying in a bed, waiting to die? Would they care so much about him if he could laugh, and walk on his own, and run on two sturdy legs? They frowned at boys who did those things in the sober hospital corridors.

He followed the path of the whirling fan blades with his eyes, they went round and round like his thoughts, circling about one theme and never going any further - dreams. He had been told very gently, that he was going to die, and he believed it. There was a pain in his legs, all the way up to the hip, a black pain that reached up into his life with a clawed hand and slowly strangled it. His mother did not want him to die, because she loved him. But it would not hurt anymore if he died, and surely if she loved him then she would not mind if the pain stopped.

Everyone had to die. He knew that, in the way you knew about dreams. Dying ought to be treated as something happy, something wonderful, so that the living could let the dying go. That way, his mother could let him go, and it would hurt both of them less. I love you, she kept on saying it, the most powerful words she ever knew. I love you.

He wondered if his making her cry counted when he died. He wondered if he would go to heaven or hell. He had surely failed in a great number of things. He was the oldest son in the family. He ought to be trying to help her. He was supposed to take the place of his father. He was supposed to be strong. Now He could not even stand by himself, not without crying out in pain. Perhaps weakness was a sin, too. Sometimes in the night, he would cry, because it hurt so much, and that was weakness, as well, because boys were not supposed to cry.

He could see the fear in her eyes, and he knew that she was afraid that he would die when she was not there, and there would be no one to comfort him. She thought he would fear dying. But he saw it as a relief, because then it would not hurt anymore.

He would like, very much, to see his little sister grow up, with her big eyes and unquestioning trust and ways of bursting into tears for no conceivable reason. He had never seen why she should like to cry so much until leukaemia started to eat at his bones, and then he had cried more than she did.

The afternoon clouded over, and a light rain began to fall, a patter of droplets on the roof like the feet of fairies dancing. The world turned grey as if God was crying, but he did not know whom for. There were very many hospitals and very many children in the hospitals all around the world. There were not enough tears to go around.

Perhaps it was selfish to think that way - to divide up love that was divine and boundless, or measure sorrow by the number of tears falling. The drugs injected in his arms made his thoughts wander and all his fears seemed distant. He laid limp in a dreamy state and quietly tell himself that he was lucky, because he no longer desired to have the flowers that other boys had, or envied that other children could play in the rain. Dreams were something reserved for the living because such things no longer mattered to those who were going to die.

He gazed at the rain, and listened to the music of the raindrops falling, each one making a different sound on the roof, a tonal melody. The raindrops were dying too - outside the window where a boy with leukaemia lay thinking of death.

They fell, one by one, each one unique and yet very alike, fountaining as they cascaded into puddles. Each drop glittered as though there was a piece of sunlight at its heart, ephemeral as a moment of time going past, each slice of time beautiful because it had not ever existed before, and would never exist again; and they were doubly precious to him, because he had so few left.

The world held both in light and darkness, and would not be complete without either. He laughed, his eyes bright in seeing the beauty of this mingling; laughed for heart's ease and joy, as he smiled at the falling rain.

A nurse walked by and heard his laugh. She stopped, looking at him wondering what a dying boy had left to smile on a rainy afternoon. He tilted his head and looked at her, and for an instant she saw the light of the veiled sun come to life again in his eyes, a soft warmth to his smile all the more plangent and beautiful because she knew that by next week she would not see it again. For a moment, she had to blink tears back, and wonder at the unfairness of it all; such a small boy, with such a sweet smile, and the chance of a life, should be destined to die.

She smiled back at him, a weak smile wavering over the edge into tears, and quickly walked past, not wanting him to see her cry.

He laid back in his pillow, listening to the rain fall. He wanted to call after her. Call her back and tell her about his dreams. But perhaps, it would not matter to her at all, yet the prospect of it all did not seem very bad. How beautiful rain is, because the sun is going to come out, he told himself.

He closed his eyes. The sound of his breathing subsided together with the rain. Lethargy took over and he fell into a deep slumber, never to wake again. The rain cleared and light came through the window again. It fell upon his face, a strange halo.

He had relinquished the many dreams he had... in place of one - to eradicate the excruciating pain.

'Anyway, dreams were only reserved for the living.' he thought.