“Why are you doing this, Connie?” I asked her cautiously.
She didn’t say anything and I thought that maybe she didn’t even hear me speak. She took a deep breath. Her face twisted into a grimace of pain. Her chin shook and tears sprang from her eyes.
“I’m dying,” she finally spoke and the thick folder almost fell from my hands. She continued in a shaking voice: “I have cancer and I’m dying. I thought I’d have more time to work for the police and bringing Ruby up into a great woman. But I wanted more opportunities to make my mark. So when you gave one to me, I had to do what I could.”
Then she started crying. I didn’t even manage to offer her a place to sit, and she was speaking again, the words falling out of her. She talked about the breast cancer she’d battled years ago, chemotherapy, and the fear she’d shared with her Dad. Then about the next visit to the hospital, when she’d found out that the cancer was back, this time in her lungs and liver, and that it was discovered too late.
“I haven’t told anyone yet,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what’s come over me, why I’m dumping all of this on you. I really didn’t mean to come here to ruin your evening… But for some reason it really hit me just now and I needed to get it out.”
“Definitely better than keeping it all in,” I assured her.
“I haven’t even told Dad yet,” she wept and blew her nose loudly. “What kind of a daughter am I? I’ve known for three weeks and I couldn’t bear to tell him.”
I hated myself for it, but I felt incredibly relieved because of a very specific reason. I knew that I’d be able to tell her everything. That because of–or more precisely, thanks to–the cancer, she won’t be opposing what’s to come. Not only that, she would help.
Connie
I calmed down and immediately regretted my teary outburst. Mark assured me that it was alright, that in fact I was entitled to a break down, and as far as he’s concerned I could come to him any time I need. I had to admit that it was easier to talk about my cancer with a near stranger. This way, I managed to lessen the weight on my shoulders, and Mark was affected only as far as having to listen to me babble on this one evening, then he would go home and forget the whole thing, because his life wasn’t over.
He stepped out to make another cup of tea so I peeked through the swollen slits I had instead of eyes to see the lounge. It was a shared office with lots of desks with two big notice boards on the sides that were covered with various papers, graphs, lists of phone numbers and this year’s planned events. The walls were decorated with posters so interesting, I had to get up and take a closer look.
The first one showed two pictures of the same place. The top one was labelled “If Bees Go Extinct” and showed a dead, dry landscape without a single green plant or an animal. In the bottom one, labelled “If People Go Extinct”, there was a river, lush nature overflowing with all kinds of plants and providing shelters for various animals. Small and large, predators, ruminants, aquatic and terrestrial.
Some other posters I recognized. I’d seen them either in activist groups on the internet or on the Association website.
A quote under a picture of a starving polar bear, reading: “The Earth is large enough for all to share, but mankind’s heart is not large enough to care.” – A.D. Williams
Another one showed forest mining. “I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something by nature we call it progress.” – Ed Begley Jr.
All the posters were variations on the same theme, essentially showing how much humanity was hurting the planet and how harmonious the world would be if we weren’t here. I walked around the whole room and looked at all of them, until I came back to the first one about bees.
“There is only one thing endangering nature, the cycle of life and animals,” Mark said from the door to the kitchenette, and I turned around. “Human interference.” He must have been watching me for some time.
“I got that.”
He was looking at me in such a strange way. Like he was waiting for something.
“This decoration of yours reminds me of the video from the news. The one about people being the cancer of the planet, just destroying it, leaving behind devastation and pain,” I said and felt my hand involuntarily rise to cover my chest when I mentioned cancer.
He came towards me and handed me one of the cups. “What do you think about that?”
“You have to ask?” I said lightly and looked up again at the dry landscape with a merciless sun and cracked soil. If bees died out, it would be a total catastrophe for the planet. But without people? It would be a paradise. “I’ve been working for the police for six years exactly for this reason. People are bad and need to be controlled, otherwise they’d destroy the world completely. The analogy with cancer now seems kind of poetic, although also a bit morbid, since…”
I thought about the cancerous growth, expanding in my body right now.
“Cancer must be eradicated,” he said quietly.
I looked at him and felt my throat tightening again.
“Connie,” he started and stepped closer. Not like he wanted to kiss me, although I was so touch-starved I wouldn’t have protested. His face was so passionate, so urgent, he must have wanted to
