Dr. Blacklung, I Presume?, Part 11

Dr. Blacklung, I Presume
By:  slimv

-----------------------------------------------------
Chapter 11:  Our Lady of Eternal Apathy
-----------------------------------------------------

Kenny lay in bed as he pondered his love's grave situation.  Someone should
care.  Someone should give a shit, but they didn't.  She could die tomorrow
or next year or 10 years from now and it wouldn't matter.  Katie's death
would end in vain.  He thought of her life's work as a counselor for the Peer
to Peer project.  What a stupid waste of time.  The world was moving on as
her lungs rotted away in the Bette Davis Clinic.  

His mistake was in thinking people would care and their apathy made him sick.
How many times had he told her to get a life even though she was losing it?
Do something, he told her.  Get another hobby besides that damn smoking.
Make your life interesting so someone cares.  

She was so naive.  She thought people would get off on her lung destruction.
She thought she was smoking her self to glory.  She was so unselfish.  She
didn't smoke for her self.  Sure she enjoyed it but she had filled her lungs
with toxins for the amusement of those around her.  What a waste of time and
energy!

How many times had he told her to fuck her dad or have sex with her mom?  And
how many times had Katie told him no?  She was a good girl.  She only wanted
him and her cigarettes and her emphysema- and maybe a little lung cancer on
the side.  

And what did that get her?  He wanted to know.  It had gotten her squat and
diddly.  He'd tried to tell her that.  He tried to tell her that the world
had changed and that if she wanted to draw attention to her cause she would
have to live her life not on the fringe of perversion but in it's midst,
because that's what people wanted to see.  The Dark Side had changed but
Katie was a good girl and would have nothing to do with it.

He knew it was up to him to put an end to her torment.  She had become an
embarrassment to him and the world they lived in.  He had been drawn to her
ideas at first.  There was a time when he had seen her as a romantic martyr,
a tragic figure, worthy of love and attention.  But that was then and this
was now. The world could wallow in its infatuation of Mommy's feeding their
baby's cigarettes and Daddy's humping their daughters.  Fuck them, he said
out loud as he rolled his legs off the bed and knelt beside the mattress.

He prayed to Our Lady of Eternal Apathy, new Goddess of the Dark Side, to
remove Katie's obsession with lung disease and rid her body of nicotine
addiction.  He prayed for the world that claimed it cared yet neve r took the
time to say it did.

			----------------------------------------

Katie woke up the next morning and slipped the mask from her face.  For the
first time in years she could smell the scent of spring foliage as it played
beneath her nose.

She took a deep breath, not once but thrice and coughed not.  A miracle had
taken place in her sleep.  She picked up the pack of Benson & Hedges beside
her bed and looked at them like a friend who she'd grown apart from.  She
crumpled them in her hands and tossed them with a swish into the wastebasket.  

Nurse Betty watched in horror as she did 100 push ups and ran in place for 15
minutes before dressing her self and walking out into the hall.

Katie O'Hare strolled past Nurse Marlboro, flipping her off as she pushed
through the double door that led to her new life as a non-smoker.

Previous part | Next part