Outside the glass panel she stood. I first met her at a party, she wore dark, shoulder-length hair, carried a thin frame, and moved elegantly; she still sleeps with me now. Watching me in the hospital, her misty eyes told me she felt my pain too. My right thumb pressed the button again to release more morphine. Covered in tubes and needles, surrounded by sounds generating persistent resonant vibration in the head, I shifted between states of consciousness, wondering about what I just heard after the digging and scraping stopped, “It’s benign!” Whether it was a dream, I saw hope.
David Chek Ling Ngo lives in Malaysia. His work has appeared in Friday Flash Fiction and A Story In 100 Words. Find David on Twitter @chek_ngo.