Shadows

I'm feeling like adding a couple more pieces that were written many years ago that I particularly enjoy before beginning on new material.  This piece I wrote with thoughts of my grandmother who passed away from cancer when I was twelve.

he hospital room is dark but for a thin slice of brightness that creeps under the door from the outside hallway.  A woman in her mid 40s sits slouched, sleeping in a chair next to the hospital bed, her magazine momentarily forgotten as it rests open on her lap.   

            In the bed lays a shadow.  The shadow is a woman, but this woman hardly leaves a dent in the mattress or gives away the outline of a body in the sheet that covers her.  Her head is wrapped in a turban.  Her face beneath the turban is creased and thin.  Her breathing is shallow, rattling in her chest.

            The door opens letting the thin slice of brightness spread across the floor, and small hospital sounds are allowed in the shrouded room as the nurse enters.

            “Mrs. Webb, it’s time for your medication.”  The nurse leans far over the shadow in the bed, speaking loudly into its ear.  The woman in the chair rouses and stands to look down at her mother.

            “Mom, wake up.”

            The nurse leaves the sick woman’s bedside to cross the room to the window, which is heavily covered by the plain hospital curtain.  She pushes the curtain back, setting loose a stream of sunlight across the room and the bed, sending the shadows fleeing for the corners.  The only exception is the shadow in the bed which still lies motionless, the creases in her face seeming to recede deeper as the sunlight touches them.