Felix lay awake staring at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and started counting sheep – after 127, he wasn’t sure it was going to do the trick. “Where am I?” he wondered aloud. He woke up in a start, only to find himself in his filthy dorm room. Reassured, he fell back into bed and resumed his earlier enumeration of fluffy livestock.
Several hours later, Felix awoke to the cacophony of birds outside his window. The voice in his ear nagged him to get out of bed and start his day, so he finally caved. Walking over to his desk, he stubbed his toe on the bedpost and pain exploded up his left leg. He let loose a string of the choicest insults in his vocabulary, warranting an indignant “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” from somewhere outside his door.
Felix had concluded a long time ago that he was worse than useless without his morning cup. The coffee maker lay on his desk, and it must not have been amused by his earlier foul-mouthed rant, because it refused to switch on. In a fit of rage, he flung the appliance across his room. “Great,” he thought to himself.
Felix could feel his left-hand twitching already. “Coffee withdrawal? Already? At least let me have a shower,” he muttered. He grabbed his towel and made his way to the shower room right around the corner.
He didn’t even make it 10 feet.
– X –
Felix felt weak. For the second time that day, he found himself asking “Where am I?” although this time, he was met with a response. “Felix, love? Are you awake? Can you hear me?”
Only one person called him “love,” although Felix wasn’t sure why she was here – Berkhamsted didn’t allow unannounced day visits.
In a daze, he sat up, only to realise he wasn’t in his dorm anymore. “Can you hear me, love? How do you feel?” said his mum in a panicked voice. “What’s going on?” he asked, still disoriented. “Don’t worry about it, try to get some rest, okay?” she replied, still panicky. Felix didn’t know what it was – the comforting voice of his mother or his inexplicably-debilitating weakness – but he promptly fell back into a slumber.
He was woken up by a muffled voice somewhere. “A stroke? He’s 18 and has no history of heart disease in his family, how does someone like that have a stroke out of nowhere?” “A stroke?” he wondered. And then it came back to him – the trembling hand, the unfamiliar surroundings, his mother – and he sat upright fully conscious, suddenly acutely aware of his environment. His mother must’ve heard him, because she flung open the curtain and greeted him with a hug that almost knocked him out again. “What’s wrong, mum? What’s going on?” he asked again. “Everything’s going to be okay, love, don’t worry,” she said while wiping the tears off her face. As Felix lay there on the hospital bed, locked awkwardly in embrace with his mother, he didn’t even know who was comforting whom anymore. He glanced at the elderly man he presumed to be his doctor, and in that moment, he knew – everything would not be fine.
– X –
It had been a few hours since they had left the ER. “Late-stage cardiac sarcoma,” the doctor had said, “the prognosis is extremely bleak, I’m afraid you have less than a day.” Felix still hadn’t been able to fully comprehend the news. The doctor had told him that there was nothing that could be done except treat the symptoms as they manifested, but Felix had cut him off with a desperate, “I want to go home, I want my coffee.” Even he couldn’t believe what he had said – he was giving up hope for a cuppa joe. There was nothing that could make him better, why bother trying? At least he could go out on a high, literally.
“Here you go, love, just the way you like it.”
“Thanks, mum. I love you.”
“Mum loves you, too.”