“Life, its so complex. The twist and turns it takes over the freshly paved streets and exhausted road-ways. Towing you on a crazy journey while you hold on for dear life. That’s life---well at least that’s my life. You see, its so unpredictable as it weaves you into the quilt of time, swallowing you whole, devouring you.

Life has its moments, the precious memories of our childhood when your dreams are within reach, the possibilities vast. Those moments of time have often settled and lingered, remaining much longer than any moment should. Clouding your judgment as you let your guard down and before you know it the moment is gone. All your left with is this amazing feeling of being alive, unaware of the world around you as it is plagued with death and sickness. This world is so bizarre and unreal, that’s its not until those fragile fingers of disease and mortality touches you, when you finally come to see the whole picture.

You see, those fragile fingers touched me once when I least expected them to. I was caught off guard. My life soon became a photo album of precious times and memories brought back to haunt me in the wake of a tragedy. But if you ask me, the whole tragedy was me not seeing it coming.”

Two Years Earlier

Rainbows of color pierced the late autumn sky as the moon hung in the balance, an awkward crescent pinned to a wall of black. The air carried the precious scents that any carnival would, the luscious hints of caramel and popcorn as it floated in the air, clanging to your skin, invading your nostrils. Spools of cotton candy flowed throughout the crowd of carnival hoppers, as ecstatic little boys and girls yanked at their parents hands, pulling them to the nearest kiddy ride. Their faces so full of joy, their eyes as wide as quarters. Deep in their mind, this trip to the carnival, this voyage into the depths of their hearts was being imprinted. Becoming a joyful memory they would later look back on. But as for me, it was the beginning of a memory that sparked my awareness. It slapped me into the real world, where joy and happiness were tossed aside and the pain and suffering took a front seat. Looking back on it now, I want to say this trip to the carnival changed everything.

“Marissa” Rachel, the girl planted in the ground before me called out softly. Her voice faint against the roaring of the crowd.
Do I know her? Who is she? My mind wonders, still in shock from the sting of the girl’s words just moments before. Just like the shock of eating ice cream and drinking scalding coffee at the same time. But of course I know her, if I didn’t I wouldn’t be talking to her, my mind reasoned. You should never talk to strangers.
Then everything became mute. My ears kicked themselves out of my head, falling onto the ground below. They dance towards other conversations, for they refused to hear what this girl has to say. Shocking enough my eyes are still in their rightful sockets, as they are blinded by the dancing smiles and laughing faces of others.
“Marissa??”
My eyes wander between a mother wiping her child’s face and Rachel’s face, her tears running from her puffy eyes. Eyes that once laughed, that once sent a message of a thousand words across the room, were now filled with fear. I know her---this is my friend. Rachel grabs my hand and with that light touch, she brings me back. Back from what? To this day I, myself, don't know where I was. In a pit of shock? Or was I unconscious in the mind, but fully alert on the outside?
“Marissa? Do you hear me?”: Rachel mutters, her voice crackling. I nod in reply, for my lips refuse to move. I’m sick, okay? The doctor did tests, turns out those unexplained bruises were something, a sign. I guess.” She paused, grabbing nervously at her sweater sleeves. “I have Leukemia.”
She didn’t have to repeat it again, I heard her the very first time. Even now I’m still appalled by those three words coming from my friend’s mouth. Things like this don’t happen to teenagers---or children for that matter. It just can’t happen, it shouldn’t. This kind of stuff only happens in the movies. Never this close to home. Kids are brought up in a world that seems so innocent and it should always remain that way.
I have always looked out on life as being this wonderful place, where things like this don’t happen. A safe cocoon, if only for a little while longer. I have read articles of parents losing their child for a number of reasons, with sickness being one of them. This is always sad, but in a way I was always grateful for being healthy, for being alive. I guess this was karma getting me back for feeling that way, but regardless of what it was I’m a different person because of it.

The month that follow that chilly autumn night was like a progression of years as I watched Rachel change before my very eyes. Her once darker complexion was now painted white like a picket fence. Before I would always joke about her looking part Indian with her tanned skin, but now the joke was nothing more than a thing of the past. A memory.
Rachel seemed to have a fever every other day, with terrible headaches and pains in her arms, back, and legs. She use to run track her freshman year of high school, now she couldn’t even move without developing another black-and-blue, not to mention how tired she always was.
Chemotherapy did a number on her for four straight weeks. She stayed in the hospital during those four weeks of Chemo therapy. The doctors told us that the rounds of Chemo were not only destroying the leukemia cells but also Rachel’s normal blood cells in the process, which could caused a serious infection and even bleeding later on into the treatments. The doctors called this the Induction cycle.
I never left the hospital for four weeks. My parents would try to drag me home whenever possible, but I wouldn’t budge. This was my friend, and if knowing I was there helped her, then I was there every day.
I learned a lot about Leukemia through pamphlets the nurses laid out for me, and by observing Rachel everyday. She had what they called Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), which was a progressing disease that resulted in the buildup of immature, functionless cells in the bone marrow and blood. My mom wanted me to go back to school. She said I wasn't learning anything by waiting around in the hospital. I guess reading pamphlets against the soundtrack of Rachel’s vomiting didn't count.
Rachel’s parents had been divorced for at least two years before this and now its was like they never left each other. Nobody looked upon this as being unusual, my mom and dad understood how something like this would bring anybody together. They often said that if it was me who was sick, they wouldn't know how to handle it. I would always nod to this and give them hugs when they thought like this, but deep down I thought it should be me, not Rachel who was sick. I told my mom that late one night and she told me not to think like that, but I couldn't help not to. She made me an appointment with a therapist the next day, but who could blame her really?

It happened later that month. It shocked us all. Rachel had been so worn to the bone by that time. She rarely sleep, although she was dog tired. The bags under her eyes were as dark as black face-paint smeared on a football player before a game. She seldom ate anything anymore. The Chemo had stole away her appetite, just as it had stole away her hair.
I wasn’t there that day, the day that it happened. My mom literally dragged my out by the neck of my shirt. Her parents called me later that night. It turns out the same thing that was saving her, fought her back. The Chemo, like the doctors had said, killed off many of Rachel’s normal blood cells. This caused an infection that had managed to attack her heart. Her parents said her heart stopped. The doctors were doing everything they could..

Two Years Later

Your probably wondering why I should have seen all of this coming. Well, I have always expected life to be filled with wonder and happiness, but that world is merely a sphere painted blue and green. It’s a fake. After being happy for so many years there will always be that darken shadow two steps behind you. One day that shadow will catch up with you. Most people go through life with one eye ahead and the other peering over their shoulders, watching and waiting for that shadow to pounce. Me, I never looked back. I never saw it coming. But if I could change that and do it all over again, I wouldn’t. I would always have my eyes staring off ahead of me, because seeing life as this wonderful idea, this wonderful feeling, made me live life to the fullest. If you always have one eye peering over you shoulders, then one day you will crash into a wall and miss out on so many things life has to offer. Because after all, its just life. That’s what this whole experience has taught me. I pause taking a deep breath, feeling the crisp air roll on into my lungs before letting it all out.
My thumb gently rubs the corner of my note cards, as I stand at my English professor’s podium in the front of the room. The eyes of my classmates before me, stare at me in anticipation.
I clear my throat. “And I wonder what it has taught you.” The silent room is then filled to the brim with clapping, as I look around the room. My professor leaning against his desk gives me his nod of approval. But he is not the one I’m searching for. When my eyes finally find there sought after target, I can’t help but unleash a tear from the holding gates. I do nothing to wipe it away, instead I let it linger on my cheek. Much like this moment will always linger in my memory. In all her glory, she was there, all smiles as she clapped for me. The tanned little Indian look alike, no more a pale picket fence but a Leukemia survivor, a girl--my friend.