Ant can eat your cancer (doyouasolid) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-07 14:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | antubis |
Who: Ant and some NPCs
What: The Gatekeeper makes his rounds, with varying results (a narrative)
When: Sunday night, during the Witching Hour
Where: Harborview Medical Center (AKA the one where Ant works)
Warnings: Death, but nothing graphic
The hulking beast of improbable construction lumbered down the halls of Harborview Medical as if it hadn't a care in the world. Security guards, upon raising their nodding heads from chests and straightening in their over-comfortable seats would note this, register its presence, and later dismiss it as nothing more than a holdover from the Land of Dreams. Such creatures had no place in the institutions of science, confined instead to zoos and the wilds of wherever they came from, and so therefore it simply was not. A trick of light, a large dog perhaps, escaped from the waiting room outside surgery, but certainly not...whatever it was.
The anteater stopped some distance down the hall, ignorant that its progress was trapped in ones and zeroes or perhaps merely uncaring of the fact, and, after pausing to sniff at the air, passed inside a room. The stench of death was thick, or at least it was to its sensitive nose, and it sauntered over to the bed, rising on back legs to peer over the side at the weak man who lay there. Cancer, or so the file had said, and in its current shape the creature was inclined to agree. It bent to sniff, to poke at the man with its absurdly long muzzle, and bleary eyes opened, widening in tired fear at the sight. A question posed from a throat that held no vocal chords, and one answered in querulous tones, a payment requested and one hastily offered. The exchange was brief, and perhaps the man (one J. Alverston, according to the chart that hung at the foot of the bed) did not quite appreciate the seriousness of the moment, but he was dying. Repercussions were not something he gave much credence to these days.
An ant crawled over the covers, a solitary march one by one, and then a second, and then a third. The more that arrived, the more there were to arrive, and they gathered and swarmed over the man's form in search of something which only they seemed aware of. Finally they stopped, contented themselves with roaming in place over the man's chest and abdomen, a constantly undulating mess of movement, and the anteater bent down again for first one cautious taste and then another. Long tongue darted out to wrap around a few, sucking them down as if they were nothing more than droplets of a milkshake, and within moments the colony was gone. The anteater licked its chops and flicked its ears, then seemed to smile, and retreated, lumbering out of the room as silently as it had come. The machine beside the bed beeped in protest, lines jumping frantically before smoothing out, regular rhythm again established. Whereas before there was only a dying man, the machine now proclaimed he was improved, if fractionally, and over the coming days he would only become steadily more so. Remission, the doctors would say, but the wasting illness that had plagued the better part of seven of the man's most recent years so savagely and relentlessly dried up like a sponge and disappeared, and would never return.
But the creature was far from finished.
His next prowl brought him to another room, a few wings over. The burn ward. A room was again selected, its entrance certain, the destination determined in advance, and the patient in this one was again approached.
The man in this bed, however, was a far cry from the last. He was wrapped like a mummy, gauze covering nearly every inch of him, protecting the peeling and raw skin that lay underneath from the dangers of the outside, and every limb gave rise to tubes that provided the precious liquids currently keeping him amongst the living. T. Rogers, the chart on the bed proclaimed, a man responsible for setting his own house on fire in an attempt to reap the benefits Insurance promised to provide him. The several million dollars held on his wife and two daughters had only sweetened the deal, and so the fact that they had passed into the Great Beyond the previous evening (with no help from the anteater, no less) would have greatly cheered him had he been capable of such appreciation at the moment.
The beast peered at him, with much less kindness than the previous man had received, curled a lip in disgust that revealed a mouthful of steel knives and snarled to wake him. This was important, this Seeing. Few were given the opportunity to watch the hour of their death as it came, and the anteater was loath to deprive a monster such as this the chance. Eyes slid open, muddled confusion giving way to panic, sending the dutiful machine beside the bed into chirps of protest, gaining in urgency as Truth dawned. A roar and a cough, tongue lolling out to make room, and a swarm fell from the beast's lips, collecting over eyes, ears, nose, any exposed skin as they sought a place to gain entry before disappearing inside. The machine shrieked, sound shrill against the silence of the dark, and then quieted, settling into a toneless whine that proclaimed what the universe already knew. Infection set in, heart gave out from exhaustion, the reason was simple enough, and already anticipated. No-one would miss him, no-one would even question his passing. Burn victims this bad seldom survived, after all, nevermind that he'd been showing promise.
Duty fulfilled, exchange made, the improbable creature padded off into the black of the halls. By the time it reached the street the creature had disappeared entirely, and it was a lanky boy who made the rest of the journey back to Hamartia.