The Ghost Orchid

"Do you know what sucks?" the seventeen year old asked, blue eyes fluttering underneath the dull lighting of the room.  Aside from the single swinging light bulb that hung from the dusty ceiling of the church hall and the unstable sunlight that threatened to break through the sealed curtains, the room was considerably dark compared to the typical summer’s day outside. "Having cancer sucks," she answered her own almost-rhetorical question with a heavy-hearted sigh, her shoulders sinking desperately underneath the dusky blue cardigan that her mother had wrapped cautiously around her petite frame. "Life shouldn't have a time limit, you know? I mean, sure, we're all going to die eventually - I'm not an idiot, but, I guess I just don’t want to be defined by a disease. I want to live without having to worry I'm going to die in 365 days and counting," she shrugged harmlessly; her comments, although brimming with guilt-ridden truth,  slightly controversial within the support group. The group was made up of ten or so different teenagers, all of whom were well aware of time limits, all aware of the monotonous ticking of the clock. Athena herself was suffering from stomach cancer. A cancer that was easy to pronounce but difficult to understand - just like her, she thought.

Athena Rennison was a girl of little talent, few hobbies and sadly, little interests asides from watching the Great British Bake Off and reading her dad’s dusty novels written by authors who had long since died before her own footsteps had even graced Earth. "People say nobody cares unless you're pretty or dying, but even now, people don't really care about me. I mean, sure, my mom and my dad do, but those people on Facebook?  They pretend to care. You know, since I've been diagnosed with cancer, I've gained 100 friends? I wasn't aware I even knew 100 different people," Athena muttered carelessly, unsure of how to continue considering the support group leader's face resembled something of a thunder storm at her current proclamation. Before she could attempt to continue, the rusty cough of Bob, the group leader, cut her off. “I think that’s enough for today,” he announced, clapping his hands as if he were trying to destroy the atoms of negativity which had settled in the room. “I’ll see you guys next week!” he added cheerfully, his chair scraping against the cold stone floor with a shriek. Athena couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Although her agility skills had been seriously tampered with, she willed herself to escape the eagle eye of Bob before he could reach out a wrinkled hand to pat her condescendingly on the shoulder.

As soon as she escaped into the sunlight, the glistening rays of gold blinded the delicate retinas of her eyes – casting her temporarily sightless as her eyelids fluttered closed in defence. Finding an adequate seat on a bench that sat in front of the church hall, Athena sat down, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for her mother to arrive.

“Hi.”

She glanced to her right, surprised at the sudden interruption; the source of the voice being a curly-haired teenage boy she recognized from the support group. Although she didn’t know his name, she was aware that he was suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Like she said – defined by an illness, not a first name. 

“Hello,” she replied cautiously, trying to emit an air of disinterest as she used a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. 

“I’m Fletcher.”

“Cool.”

“You’re Athena.”

She merely nodded in reply. He took the seat next to her, sliding across the bench until the proximity between them was far enough apart to not be awkward, but close enough that Athena could see the light hairs on his arms.

“Tell me, Athena, are you normally this talkative?

“Only on Sundays.”

“It’s a Friday.”

“I guess it must be your lucky day then.”

“Can I show you something?”

She turned to face him, an eyebrow raising in confusion at the sudden jump in conversation.

“My mum told me not to go anywhere with strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger. We’ve been going to the same support group for two years. Plus I was in your year nine chemistry class. I was the kid at the back whose hair always caught on fire when we used Bunsen burners.”

“Oh.”

“Is that a yes?”

She shook her head. No.

“Why not?”

Fumbling for an excuse, she replied, “My mum should be picking me up any second.”

A vibration. 1 next text message.

“Who’s that?” he asked nosily, standing on his tiptoes to look over her shoulder.

“My mum,” she wrinkled her nose, shielding the screen from his prying eyes.

“And?”

“She can’t pick me up anymore. She had to go to work.”

“Great!”

“Is it?”

“I can drive you.”

“Home?”

“Home. Via somewhere else.”

“Fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And that’s how she ended up with her lower legs dangling over a cliff edge, marvelling in the scene that lay below. It seemed like she was surrounded by everything and nothing all at once. The incomprehensible thrill of the waves; crashing, pulling, flying across land and sea and just barely scraping the inner lap of the swirling blue sky. Dotted with the vicious shimmer of the burning sun, streams of light cast an angelic glow onto the ocean; silvery tones washing in with the crusted white and azure turquoise waves. All around her was a brilliant silence. The kind of silence that filled her ears with a loudness of nothing. The lapping of water on the shore, the atomic crash of wave after wave, the shrieking of a bird that rested high on the cliff face; nesting, preying, watching - it was all silent to her ears. If it weren’t for the teenage boy sat next to her, Athena would probably have been tempted to lie down and sleep, the grass beneath them soft against her skin, lulling her into a state of exhaustion.

“Do you really believe everything you said this morning?”

Fletcher interrupted the comfortable silence that had fallen between them. Athena shrugged in response, fiddling with her hands in her lap awkwardly.

“I think so. Looking back, I suppose I took it too far, but sometimes it’s just like, my mind clings to thoughts in this obsessive way – mostly the bad thoughts. The ones that you can’t run from, because they haunt you. And they won’t stop. They never stop until you turn around and face your fears. I know that now.”

She took his silence as a sign to continue.

“Do you ever just wish you weren’t who you are right now? Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t me. I don’t mean I wish I was Beyoncé or someone like that. I wish I was like, a daisy or something. Their lives are meaningless, but at least they’re not aware of it. I get reminded every day. I have to look at my mum and see the heartbreak in her eyes, and look at my dad and see the heartbreak in his eyes, and then I’m reminded that they’re dying too. In the end, that’s all we do. We live to die. But daisies – daisies live for the sunlight. They live for the rain and the soil and growth. And then maybe one day, when they’re just lying there in a patch in a meadow, a girl will run through the tall grass in a white dress, her hair braided and a smile on her face, and she’ll pick a daisy, just one. And she’ll sit under the shade of a tree and pick the petals with a dreamy look on her face as she mutters “he loves me, he loves me not.” And even though that would mark the end of the daisy’s existence, it would have been a good one. It would have made someone’s day a little bit brighter, or a smile a little bit wider. What do people do when they see me? They feel sorry for me. If I were a plant, I wouldn’t be a daisy. I’d be one of the weeds that lie around the daisies – choking them of air and water and happiness.”

They sat in silence for a while, their legs dangling off the edge of the bridge, swinging in a rhythm that was unique to only themselves.

“I don’t think you’re a daisy. But I don’t think you’re a weed either. I think you’re something special. Something pretty. Something like a Ghost Orchid,” he said with a smile.

Admittedly, her knowledge of flowers and gardening was limited, but it didn’t stop her from asking of his reasoning behind his choice.

“Ghost Orchid’s aren’t like other plants. They don’t photosynthesize. They need a special type of fungus to grow. It’s like you. That’s what you need.”

“I need fungus to grow?”

He shook his head, biting his lip to capture a threatening laugh.

“You’ve been trying to be like everybody else, you know? But you shouldn’t. You should be Athena – the impossible girl with the beautiful smile and the kind of scary get-away-from-me-before-I-kill-you stare. And I know that we’re probably both on the verge of death, so why not do something reckless like fall in love? I could, you know, I could be your fungus,” he blushed, running his hands through his hair.

Stuck for words, Athena turned to him, trying to disguise the smile that threatened to break out onto her lips.

“What was the point of the flower analogy?”

“I don’t know. I just thought it would be romantic.”

And they sat on the cliff, legs dangling - silent, but not lonely, severe, but not sad. And for a second, Athena almost felt like everything was going to be okay.