< CONTRASTING THOUGHTS

BY KILEY HABERKORN, 11

ing that I had indeed reached 175 Corona, I tapped softly on the front door with my fingertips, and a haggard man holding a bundle in his arms greeted me. His wild brown eyes, sitting above two bags of deep purple, looked into mine with the familiar burning of desperation, and his cracked lips needed only to say two words: “Help us.”

Gently plucking the bundle from his arms, I gazed at the beautiful baby within. Her face contorted as she coughed violently, spattering blood on my clothes and on her thoroughly-stained blanket.

“It was another disease, Miss. The baby is the last of my family left. It’s already taken my husband, my children, but I-” choking back tears, his voice caught in his throat.

“It’s okay, I understand,” I reassured him. Strange how we blame ourselves for everything unfortunate in our lives. “I can cure her.”

Not pausing to hear his insistent gratitude, I looked down at my small patient, no older than a full rose, covered in stains of the same color. Touching my thumb to her delicate, burning forehead, I felt the familiar shock go through my body, and then her temperature immediately began to cool. I watched as the red of her blood on the cloth seemed to transfer now to her cheeks, a small, healthy rose once again. Closing her eyelids, the baby girl drifted off to sleep, peacefully dreaming of her now bright future.

“She will sleep for about one hour,” I informed her father, setting his child down into her crib carefully. “Once she wakes up, she should be fully healthy, but if she is still exhibiting symptoms, go directly to the Helm and talk to one of the Secretaries of Health and Wellness.”

Turning back around to face the man, I realized that he had fallen to his knees and was sobbing silently onto the floor. “Thank you,” he choked out, “thank you so much for saving her. You truly are an angel as they say you are.”

“It is my pleasure, sir. Until our time here is done.” Though this saying is typical in our small community, it always felt strange on my tongue after a healing, as if I was saving a life just to foreshadow its inevitable end.

Pushing the uneasy thoughts from my mind, I painted a content smile across my face, and then I turned and strolled back to the front door. Before I even reached the rusted doorknob, I heard a thump of a man hitting his bed, and deep snores from behind me. The smile on my face softened, and I stepped across the threshold and back onto the steep path I had travelled just moments before.