Note: This is my entry to the Writing Festival Contest. It's my first attempt at entering – and I'm definitely not planning on winning. I just like to have the feeling of self-happiness that I actually finished something! Enjoy! And my god is this short, I never write this short!
Did you know one hundred and fifty five thousand people die every day worldwide?
I read it in Mary's library.
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His mouth creased into a wrinkled smile, and she returned it with a large grin. She rested his pale, weakened hand in hers and gazed down, which lay floppily in her small palms. Her eyebrows crinkled with confusion.
"Can't you move your hand?" She asked with much curiosity –glancing down and inspecting and prodding it.
Barley smiled sympathetically. "No, I can't May. In fact, right now I can't even feel you poking it." He chuckled weakly – patting her gently on her head with his other hand. May barely noticed as she looked into his calm and peaceful eyes and giggled with him.
But then she frowned. "But, Grandfather! Elli told Stu that if Ellen did that--"
Barley scowled down at his young granddaughter. "I'm fine, May. My hand will be back to normal in an hour."
May gazed down to her lap with a dismayed expression – She didn't want Barley to leave like her mother had done. She wished he'd chase around their large pastures like he used to. But, sadly, he was always drained of energy. She wanted him to get better – but there was that little, selfish child within her that wanted life to be like it had been before.
--
Did you know five percent of adults over sixty-five are in nursing homes?
I read that in Mary's library too.
--
She flailed her small arms around helplessly as Trent wheeled Barley away from his cosy, little armchair that he always sat himself in.
"Where are you taking him?!" She cried out with sadness, rushing off behind them. "Where are you going?!" She bawled, her eyes brimming with soft tears. She hammered her tiny fists against Trent's lab coat in distress.
Stu pulled her back into the house in deep silence, and held tightly to her thin wrists. "Elli said he's going to care for Barley!" He exclaimed – but his eyes fell on May's desperate face. "Come on May! He needed to be cared for… You saw how he was! He was all pale and stuff!" Stu struggled to explain – trying frantically to shake some sense into the poor girl.
"Let him go!" May cried out one last time, as she struggled against Stu's firm grip against her. Tears crept out one by one from her sad eyes, and slid down her pale cheek.
"Oh no! Don't cry, May… You can still visit! Elli said so."
--
Did you know that one thousand eight hundred people in nursing homes die each year?
--
May's hand trembled as she reached hesitantly to stroke the lifeless white hand. A tear rolled down from her distressed and wounded face, as her eyes gazed sorrowfully across his motionless body, covered in crinkled, white sheets.
"I'm so, so sorry…" Stu whispered sadly, with a large grimace. "Elli promised he wouldn't die yet…"
May smiled miserably, ignoring Stu's constant blabbering – Barley hadn't waited for her. And now she had no one, so where would she go on from here? She wasn't sure – but she knew, wherever she went, he would always be there with her.
--
Did you know nothing lasts forever?
Because, as it was, I hadn't.