Weave World

‘She's not been awake today,' said the nurse, as she stood back to let Mind's visitor approach the bed.

Suza

Tears rose in Suza

‘Shall I leave you alone a while?' said the nurse, and without waiting for a reply, withdrew. Suza

When she looked again, the old woman's blue-veined lids were flickering open.

For a moment it seemed Mimi's eyes had focused somewhere beyond Suza

Mimi opened her mouth. Her lips were fever-dried. She passed her tongue across them to little effect. Utterly u

‘Hello" she said softly. ‘It's me. It's Suza

The old woman's eyes locked with Suza

‘Would you like some water?'

A tiny frown nicked Mimi's brow.

‘Water?' Suza

Suza

Mimi's breath had suddenly become uneven, and there were tics and twitches around her eyes and mouth as she struggled to shape a word. Her eyes blazed with frustration, but the most she could produce was a grunt in her threat.

‘It's all right,' said Suza

The look on the parchment face refused such platitudes. No, the eyes said, it isn't all right, it's very far from all right. Death is waiting at the door, and I can't even speak the feelings I have.

‘What is it?' Suza

Mimi's ryes flickered dosed for an instant, and the frown deepened. She had given up trying to make words, apparently. Perhaps she had given up entirely.

And then, with a sudde

Of what, she wasn't certain. A pattern of some kind, a which melted and reconfigured itself over and over again Perhaps there was colour in the design, but it was so subtle she could not be certain; subtle too, the shapes evolving in the kaleidoscope.

This, like the perfume, was Mimi's doing. Though reason protested, Suza

But she had no chance to investigate the vision.

Behind her, the nurse said: ‘Oh my god.' The voice broke Mimi's spell, and the patterns burst into a storm of petals, disappearing. Suza

‘You'd better wait outside,' the nurse said, crossing to press the call button beside the bed.

Suza

‘Call Doctor Chai,' the first said. Then, to Suza

She did as she was told: there was nothing she could do inside but hamper the experts. The corridor was busy: she had to walk twenty yards from the door of Mimi's room before she found somewhere she could take hold of herself.

Her thoughts were like blind ru

‘Are you Suza

‘Yes.'

‘I'm Doctor Chai.'

The face before her was round as a biscuit, and as bland.

‘Your grandmother, Mrs Laschenski...'

‘Yes?,... there's been a serious deterioration in her condition. Are you her only relative?'

The only one in this country. My mother and father are dead. She has a son. In Canada.'

‘Do you have any way of contacting him?'

‘1 don't have his telephone number with me ... but I could get it.'

‘I think he should be informed,' said Chai.

‘Yes, of course.' said Suza

The Doctor sighed. ‘Anybody's guess,' he said. ‘When she came in I didn't think she'd last the night. But she did. And the next. And the next. She's just kept holding on. Her tenacity's really remarkable.'

He halted, looking straight at Suza

For me?'

‘I think so. Your name's the only coherent word she's spoken since she's been here. I don't think she was going to let go until you'd come.'

‘I sec, ‘said Suza

‘You must be very important to her,' he replied. ‘It's good you've seen her. So many of the old folks, you know, die in here and nobody ever seems to care. Where are you staying?'

‘I hadn't thought. A hotel, I suppose.'

‘Perhaps you'd give us a number to contact you at, should the necessity arise.'

‘Of course.'

So saying, he nodded and left her to the ru

Mimi Laschenski did not love her, as the Doctor had claimed; how could she? She knew nothing of the way her grandchild had grown up; they were like closed books to each other: And yet something in what Chai had said rang true. Perhaps she had been waiting, fighting the good fight until her daughter's daughter came to her bedside.

And why? To hold her hand and expend her last ounce of energy giving Suza

She went back to Room Five. The nurse was in attendance: the old lady still as stone on her pillow. Eyes closed, hands laid by her side. Suza