Accidental Purpose

The room was filled with utter silence. The still figure in the hospital bed stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine what her friends at school might be doing. It was arts and crafts week at the elementary school, and being more of a writer than an artist, she was sort of glad she wasn’t there for it. But she missed her friends more than anything. It was so boring being cooped up like this. Her parents tried to cheer her up by bringing her books to read, and various little time-killers to keep her busy. But after a while, everything became boring to her.

She found comfort in staring out the window for endless hours, ignoring whatever or whomever came into the room as she lost herself in her reveries. Each morning, she ate breakfast in silence, as her mother watched worriedly. Her mother knew that she wasn’t getting any better.

“Sweetie,” she said one day. “I spoke with the doctor. How would you like to walk around outside?”

She could only look up with a blank expression. Her predicament had made her pretty much oblivious to everything and everybody, even her mother.

Her mother had to repeat herself. She agreed.

She was placed in a wheelchair with a blanket wrapped around her to keep her warm. Winter was fast approaching, and her body had a difficult time generating heat due to her condition. Her mother pushed her wheelchair around the grounds, chatting brightly to her daughter. But she didn’t pay attention. She heard maybe two or three words her mother said, and replied simply, “Hm.”

Her mother sighed. She was so dreary and depressed these days. She was never the type of girl to overreact and get hyper and excited like most children. But her condition didn’t help, either. With the constant failures in the latest treatments, her chances of survival were fading rapidly.

“Sweetheart,” her mother said, voice wavering, “I know you’re depressed and not in the mood, but I thought it’d be nice if we went out for some ice cream, together. A real girls’ day out, you know?”

“Hm.”, She said. “I…suppose so.”

Her mother felt like crying in despair.

In the end, they didn’t go for ice cream. She suddenly became dizzy, and passed out in the wheelchair. She woke up back in the hospital, in her bed and hooked up to the medicine that was supposed to be getting her body back on track. So far, it had yet to show any effect. Her disease was getting worse. It had infiltrated her bone marrow, making her even more resistant to the therapies.

“Mama,” she said to her mother later the same day, “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

Her mother shook her head fiercely. “No! You’re not going to die! You’re going to get over this! Do you hear me?”

She shook her head slowly against the pillow, staring at the ceiling. “But you heard what the doctors said, mama. It’s getting worse. I’m getting weaker by the day, and it’s harder for me to stay awake.”

Her mother took her hand in her own. “I’m not letting you go without a fight.”, she choked out. “Because…you’re all I’ve got left, so you have to hang in there!”

She just closed her eyes to prevent the tears from escaping.


The next night, she awoke from that same dream about what had happened two years ago, when she had fallen for the first time. It hadn’t seemed all that significant, but the bruise she ended up with stayed with her for weeks on end. That had been the turning point. She looked to the right and saw her mother’s shadow outside the door, talking in hushed tones with the doctor. Struggling, she sat up painfully and listened.


“Is there any hope? There has to be, please.”

“Listen, ma’am, we’re doing everything we can. Even our strongest treatments have failed now. The disease is beginning to affect some of her major organs. The way I see it, they’ll start to shut down within a few weeks.”

“No! There must be something!”

“There's nothing we can do. Even with all of our best doctors and technology at the ready, the prognosis is grim at best. I’m sorry. Now, I suggest you go home and get some rest.”


While her mother continued to sob, she fell back on the pillow, the doctor's words repeating endlessly in her mind like a broken record.

“So there’s no hope for me.”, she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes and sighed.


As the days progressed, she got weaker and weaker. She slept more often during the day than she did at night. Her fear had started giving her nightmares, and she often woke up drenched in a cold sweat. She then spent the rest of the night with her head on her mother’s lap as she soothed her.

“Why me?”, she said a few days after she overheard what the doctor had told her mother. “What did I do? Why can’t I just live a normal life? I don’t want to die.”

“Honey, listen,” her mother said. “You aren’t going to die. The doctor said you're going to be fine.”

She glared at her mother. “Stop lying to me, mama.”, she said harshly. Her mother recoiled as if she had been burned.

“Wha…what?”

“Stop lying just to make me feel better. I heard you talking to the doctor the other night. He said that I’m getting worse every day, and that there’s nothing he can do to stop it.”

“But…but sweetie—”

“I don’t want to die!” she yelled suddenly, pounding the bed with her fists as tears streamed down her face, “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

She collapsed onto her side, sobbing hysterically while her mother just sat quietly, unable to speak. Finally, while her daughter calmed down, she got to her feet and silently left the room, turning her back on her daughter. She never went back to that hospital room.


Over the next few weeks, she became weaker and weaker, to the point where an IV stood between her and starvation. Her mother stopped coming. She knew that it was for the best. Her mother couldn’t take the gut-wrenching pain of watching her only child waste away from the accursed illness. Her only source of entertainment was staring out the window at the world she’d never get to experience. She let her imagination wander freely now, exploring the famous Himalayas, eating delicious food from other countries that she couldn’t dream of visiting now, wearing beautiful foreign clothing, and best of all, being with her entire family for once. Being healthy and out of the hospital, hanging out with her friends at the shopping district, and living life as she hadn’t been able to for the last five years.

But as the nurse came in to check on her, she realized that all she wanted right then was to go to sleep and never have to wake up to this suffering again.

“How are you, dear?”, the nurse asked for a third time.

“Fine.”, she replied in a raspy voice.

“Are you feeling all right?”

What a ridiculous question. She turned away, not bothering to answer. The nurse cleared her throat and left the room to fetch the doctor. Evening was beginning to fall, and she felt exhausted. She wondered what her mother was doing right now. It didn’t really matter. Her mother hadn’t visited in weeks. She wasn’t going to come now. Her weary, heavy eyes glanced out the window at the rising quarter moon.

“It’s beautiful.”, she said, smiling faintly. She sighed and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep.

She would never wake up again.