1056. About health, 3
(Armylè)
I looked at them from a distance, as they sat and begun to chat with each other.
Johann arrived, as the hospital had called him too this day.
He had helped with the investigation.
The substances that had triggered Prume’s over-reaction were in the paints they had been using in school that day. The mucus she had spat had been analysed and revealed these traces. Prume had developed apparently a temporary hyper acute allergy to hydropolymethylene compounds of a kind. I didn’t get the exact name.
And Prume had gotten a cerebral oedema in reaction?
A - I have many painting products at home...
Johann looked at me as if I was a nasty bug, or really unsightly. Usually young people are more respectful than that.
J - You paint with gouaches?
A - No, oil colours. I make my own with pigments and oils.
J - Well the gouache is mainly water, and some of the volatile compounds that give it smell were the ones she reacted to. If you don’t do gouache, she’s fine.
The doctor with us thanked the young man and excused him. Johann didn’t ask twice for permission to leave. I gazed at the blond bob of hair walking away. I wasn’t feeling offended by his tone but the doctor felt concerned for me.
- Please forgive him. Medicine is not his... call.
A - I heard he was serious though. I don’t understand.
- I think he will bring more progress to science when he returns to his fields of predilection in physics.
A - I guess I can understand a little how he feels...
- Don’t worry for him. He’ll sit in the council soon enough.
That was quite a praise, to say of him he would become one of the members of the scientific council. It was the highest level of government for all industrial and scientific aspects of the city. It worked as our ministry of higher education and industries. I was a little surprised hearing this hospital doctor share such praise of this student.
I guess they were related in some ways, given the way he smiled slightly.
People with strong aptitudes want to use them to their fullest, not to feel constrained by arbitrary frontiers. I think that’s something altogether very common in education and social growth.
Where it could lead for him however now didn’t matter to me.
A - When will Prume be allowed outside?
- In a few days.
Now I didn’t smile.
~
Prume was stuck in this room for four long days. Trapped between these walls too yellow a white not to make one go nauseous over time. Prume quickly came to hate that colour more than I was.
There were screens to pass the time, but no real window. She was in a medicalised jail.
And after the impromptu but nice dream, the bad dream in reality had begun.
She had her bathroom of course, but too many hours to kill on her own in this box.
Her meals were spiced with medical gels and phials. The treatment prescribed to her was a shock to reboot and strengthen her immune system. They needed at least a few days for it to pick up the pace and get steady. Then hopefully the doses would get lower and lower over time.
She was likely to go out in a few days and heal rapidly, in this optimistic scenario.
Prume was indeed a good girl, never complaining and eating all these nasty things prescribed to her.
She didn’t get angry, however her usual cheerful mood had taken a high toll from this time.
The usual light in her eyes had dim, to illustrate it a little too simply.
Over these days in jail, Prume spoke less and less, slouching a little more, curling up a little in all sorts of ways. As if she was looking to hibernate someday soon. She slowed down as her metabolism was hit hard by the medication and her boredom intensified by the time she had to spend alone.
She was doing her best to keep that suffering milder and away. But seeing her losing her natural cheer, seeing this hollowness grow, it worried me a lot.
Each day when I came to check on her, Prume had bittersweet smiles, telling me she was alright.
It was painful. She was so young and already lying to spare me, because she saw how worried and in pain I was.
I held her, I kissed her, but I failed to find the better words to tell her it was alright. I just promised her this wouldn’t last.
When I was out, I got the reports that Prume had lost all taste for anything. She didn’t play with what was brought. She just sat there for hours, looking at her feet, waiting for us to come back. It pained me so much, all I focused on was insuring she’d get out as soon as possible.
Elyne went there most of the days. I exempted her for school so she could play with her sister.
That helped, but the evenings and nights were still long and boring for my daughter.
The day after I told I would work and went to spend the day with her as well.
I was there, but it still wasn’t enough. Prume’s adorable smile from before seemed all too far away.
Her eyes often seemed to gaze at something far away, or as if she tried to recall something long forgotten.
She wasn’t in panic or meltdown, but Prume suffered terribly from this isolation.
I thought and believed earnestly that this depression would all be over as soon as Prume would be allowed back.
I didn’t quite grasp the extent of what the abrupt change in my sickly child’s behaviour could really mean.
I couldn’t connect how this related to other past invisible things.
And Prume wasn’t able to name it either. All the manifestation she had seen through the veil so far, had been this dreamy angel.
I wasn’t insane enough to connect the dots before me.
Prume eventually got her last medicinal injection from a doctor. A mild stimulant.
And she was allowed out with her mother and sister.
She still carried that absent look on herself, acting a little passive to the events as we walked together toward the exit.
When the sunlight blinded her, some of her natural smile returned. At long last, it warmed my heart.
The side of her that had been forced to lull and hibernate in this waiting, was waking up.
Prume was found again, much to our relief. We hugged her, rubbing our cheeks together in great relief.
She was breathing the cold air from the city, so much nicer from what was in the hospital below. The sterile atmosphere down there had felt hollow.
We returned home together at long last. All would be well now.
~
The children returned together to their school the next day. With some added precautions for Prume.
She should keep away from the paints and other new chemicals she hadn’t encountered before. The lines to follow were hazy, but the idea of cautiousness for her health, they understood far too well.
The teacher was as careful as he could be, and all went well.
We had peaceful times without relapse thankfully. Months went by easily.
Prume had a monthly check back to the hospital, and gradually thinning down medication to take along the way daily. She was far too serious about it for her age already, and it went easily.
I had told them this was meant to hopefully cure Prume for good; and that if things didn’t go well enough, there would be maybe a more permanent treatment. I couldn’t say, but my hopes were clear obviously.
Maybe I spoke too much but I didn’t want to lie.
This had made me feel overwhelmed and it was harder for me to manage than anything else.
But the girls didn’t complain, they were good.
When we went to the hospital each time, as if it was a family trip almost, the doctor was always happy with the analysis results. He signified me and her she was doing very well.
Prume didn’t ask for more. And she was breathing more easily once we were out of this building making her feel uneasy. It was a necessary pain.
But all went well.
They had their birthday happily, and returned to school they liked, still being at this age.
The teacher feared more than me almost that Prume may had another crisis. He had this vision of fate and other beliefs I couldn’t agree with. But he feared how things could get worse, and I didn’t like hearing it.
Toward Prume thus, he kindly prioritised her education toward what she fancied.
Even if it was still nursery school, he had noticed how she liked to learn and think. She had been the first to get her numbers and zero right, and the hunger behind was real.
Prume was happy, very happy. She was curious and liked special exercises to go further and faster.
Thus, while her sister and other children were generally resting or playing, Prume was given all the food for thoughts she could crave. She learnt to read, to write, and mathematics basics at an incredibly fast rate.
As much as she loved to play with everyone else like any other child her age, she clearly loved something more there. There was passion in getting her grey matter tumbling, and it clearly wasn’t just the medicine talking.
She learnt to count with different units and began grasping concepts such as what a kilometre was. Multiplications made sense. Knowledge was growing. Prume had no trouble understanding these logics.
She was promising.
~
