BOOM!

Thunder clapped overhead just before a flash of bright, white lightning briefly illuminated the street.

And then silence.

Nothing but the torrents of rain trickling down my skin, prickling at my neck with a foreboding. Nothing but the heavens soaking everything in its reach.

I watched silently as everyone else scurried about, trying to move someplace drier, trying to shield their heads with expensive handbags and coats. Fools, the lot of them! As if a little water would corrode whatever soul they had left.

I didn't have time to watch the meaningless scampering today though. Today was important in so many ways. Ways these simpletons could never comprehend.

So I turned back.

Back down the grey concrete footpaths as the rain soaked through my long, white coat and through the linen shirt. Through my skin. As it squeezed the warmth out of my very bones. Any other day, I would have at least squeezed the water out of my unruly beard. But today was different.

I turned away from the main road and down a narrower path. 

My shortcut.

The pavement had turned into cobblestone now and a fence separated me from the carpet of green earth just beyond. All around me the buildings had been replaced by White Oaks and Hornbeams, and they stretched their branches like arms begging the heavens.

I scoffed. Everything in the universe seemed to beg and plead instead of striving for themselves. It was revolting.

Of course, I wasn't always this way. I had been no different from these trees, or the scurrying idiots. It wasn't so long ago that I had begged the university to give me time ... I was so close! I could smell it!

But, no!

Their funds needed to be used for real medical research! They obviously had no idea what they'd overlooked and soon they'd come back to me. Begging for my research. I was sure of it!

I didn't care about money or recognition or any of the other crap that the ordinary fools fawned over. My concern was results. And I needed them immediately.

I was running out of time.

I exited the park onto another stretch of a busy granite street. Cars veered past with their wipers swishing right and left, splashing pedestrians in a candid display of arrogance and obliviousness.

By the time I had finally crossed the road, a bell sounded from somewhere. I quickened my pace through the small gate that barely grazed my knees, and knocked on the dark, wooden door.

A gold plate was attached to the red-bricked wall beside the door. The ever-familiar words etched on it read:

St. Miriam's Hospice
Anima Mea et Officium Unum Sunt

Visiting Hours: 09:00 am to 05:00 pm

And just below the sign, on a sticky note that barely clung to the metal by an assortment of tapes read:

No Solicitors!!!
Please!!!

I always wondered if the exclamation marks made a difference. There always seemed to be more of them every time I returned.

Thunder boomed above moments before lighting flashed once again, or perhaps it was the other way around. I wasn't paying attention to the sky anymore. I could hear footsteps from inside.

The door opened as a stern woman in a black bun and a long white coat very similar to mine stood across me. She had a glare glued to her face as she scanned the vicinity. I wasn't stupid enough to stand right across her, so it took a moment before her eyes found me. The glare hardened.

"You're late!"

"It's pouring!" I retorted, stiffening myself as best as my shivering form would let me. In my defence, it had been raining like this all day, and while it wasn't the only reason I was late, it was a key factor. Besides, fools like this woman wouldn't care about the real reason, they just needed an excuse to tell me off. To feel superior.

"Where's your umbrella?" she asked next, narrowing her grey eyes a little more. I found it hard not to roll my eyes at this point.

"Are we going to play twenty questions every time I come here?" I demanded instead, my voice on the edge of calm, "May I please see her?"

The woman in the white coat took a step back to make just enough space for me to enter. And I did. Bringing along a small waterfall that gushed from the hem of my coat as I sploshed my way onto the warm carpet.

I caught the flared nostrils out of the corner of my eyes, but managed to compose myself as I took off my coat and boots. "Wouldn't want to confuse the rest of them," I offered, smiling the widest I could.

But she ignored me, "Slippers," the woman said instead, motioning to a pair of clean, white flip-flops and then screwing her nose in disgust as I put them on—one soaking foot at a time. I gave the woman the widest grin and a thumbs up before moving away, it was petty. I know. But I hated this place and the insufferable arrogance it carried.

I walked down the beige hall with loud squelches, leaving a trail of rainwater behind me. The hospice was clean for sure, but it was duller than my lab. White walls and beige carpets? The interior designer needed to be fired. Even my lab had a splash of colour amongst the white.

I stopped right outside the door, taking a moment to compose myself. It didn't matter what I looked like ... not really. Yet I still found myself slicking back my mousy hair. They needed a trim, it was more obvious now that they were soaked with rainwater and not coiffed in locks as they usually were.

I ran a hand down my face next, in a desperate, yet futile attempt to get rid of the rainwater trickling down my chin. I looked like I had been swimming in the ocean with my clothes on. I felt that way at least. Probably smelled like it too.

I decided I was as presentable as possible and walked inside. I knocked on the door once I had opened it a little. Another useless gesture, but it felt wrong to just barge in.

"Ma?" I called gently, leaving a trail of water behind me as I made my way to a large hospital bed by the window. The woman that lay there didn't move. No, she stared unfocused at the ceiling instead. She'd been that way for a while now, I should have gotten used to it. But I hadn't.

I wouldn't.

It was a wound that would always sting.

I kissed my mother on the forehead before kneeling beside her. I caught her eyes trailing to me as she attempted a smile.

"D-d ..." My mother's brows inched together ever so slightly, "D-d-" she tried again.

"I know," I cooed, running a hand through her wispy, brown hair, "I'm sorry I don't come see you more often." Her face was a shadow of the energy she once possessed. The strength. The sass. The woman that lay on this bed was all skin and bone now. Yet surrounded by photos of her past. Of me. The staff here was adamant it would help her remember. But as I looked at the photos framed on the side table, on the walls and even on the closet across, all I could see was how far she'd fallen.

My response seemed to satisfy her for a moment, because she attempted a smile again. I continued running my hand through my mother's balding head, "Did you have fun today? You were supposed to have tea with the others."

When did I become the parent?

"M-m ..." She frowned a little harder, "M-my ..." my mother's voice trailed off as she lay breathless on her back again. It wouldn't have mattered if she had continued speaking either, she rarely made sense these days.

So instead I smiled, "Was it now?" I remarked, raising my brows to feign surprise. This seemed to satisfy her for she smiled again, wider this time. "You still turning heads everywhere you go, Ma?"

An even wider grin.

"Yeah, I had a good day too," I confessed, stroking her hair again, "you know what it's like at the lab, experimenting, experimenting and experimenting."

"R-r-re-res—" She broke off, panting slightly. It always broke my heart to see her like this. My mother who had never stopped fighting, who had never once begged a day in her life.

"Yeah yeah," I said with an exaggerated eye roll, "I'm getting plenty of rest." It was so easy to lie to the frail woman in the white gown but it increased my guilt tenfold so I turned the question to her, "Are you?" I cocked an eyebrow at the woman and she smiled again, but it wasn't a happy smile now.

"D-d-d-die-die-dying."

My heart caught at my throat, "No you're not," I declared.

"Die-die-dying!" she insisted more forcefully, her trembling bony fingers rising in the air.

I held her hand, cold and tiny as it was squeezed it, hard, "I won't let you," I said, "I'm so close Ma, you can't give up!"

I saw another smile, and the subtlest shake of her head.

"I have a new sponsor Ma," I confessed, hoping she'd understand that this was more than false hope now, "and he's happy to let me work on this." I squeezed her hand again, "You can't give up!"

Her head jerked sideways, which I almost mistook for another head  shake until I remembered she couldn't shake her head like that anymore. I stood up as the jerks began to get more violent, "Ma?" I called, but no response. Instead, her entire body began to thrash.

If it was possible for my heart to sink any lower, it would have then. "Help!" I called, scrambling to the door on my hands and feet, "Help! Help!"

I had barely gotten to the door when it burst open, and a collection of staff whizzed past me. Some in scrubs and others in lab coats as they turned my mother on her side.

"Dr Gilbert."

I tore away from my mother, still thrashing, foaming at her mouth and to the voice. To the stern doctor who had received me earlier. Her nostrils weren't flared anymore, if anything, her expression was softer.

I watched the woman take a step closer, "Doctor it's time we start talking about palliative care," she said.

"No." I may have sounded like a child to her and my mother and to everyone else who told me to give up, but I wasn't going to. I was smarter than they gave me credit for. My mother ... back when she was more aware, would have agreed with me.

She was the only one who ever believed in me.

So I retracted, standing taller, stiffer, holding my head a little higher,  "I have been generous with your hospice," I reminded the woman sternly, "if you want the funds to keep coming, you keep her alive. For as long as humanly possible."

The doctor's nostrils flared again, but she nodded her head a little, "Of course, Dr Gilbert." She may as well have outstretched her arms like the trees. Beggars, the whole lot of them.

I cast one last look at my ailing mother, now peacefully asleep. I took comfort in the feeble rising and falling of her chest. One of the only signs of life; and then I made my way out, donning my long, white lab coat. And when I stepped out into the rain this time, the cold didn't bother me.

Nothing could numb me any more than the ticking clock in the hospice had.