The hospital is a maze of corridors stretching into the whiteness of mist. It envelops their hopes, concerns, their future and past. Nothing exists past this pulsating moment of clarity.

Dinah follows the bed with its figure sealed into its folds, so fragile. Through the double doors, following her feet in a straight line, head bent, big eyes downcast, heading towards ICU.

The person in the bed is not something she recognises. Its rasping breath through the plastic mask, the metallic blood bags looped to tubes, vivid, captivating, sickening. Coins clink in vending machines in the distance. The padding of rubber shoes on vinyl staircases leading to more beds, more rooms. More patients. The irony, that the steroids themselves taken to cure the MG (for lifelong medication was the solution, doable), had given him cancer.

The operation is successful the doctor assures her, that a rest period of weeks is recommended. But these are critical times. And even daughters who dream of castles in the air cannot bring back something that does not exist, or fathers back their health. So, she sits at her father’s side, feeling altogether a bit sorry and lost, gazing out of the window into vast and unfamiliar scenery, wondering how on earth this had happened, and what she would do – anything really, to go back.

*

Three years pass. Her laughter holds something true of the little girl in the day of Peter Rabbits, of leaving red booted footprints in the snow, of building tents for her soft toys; intrepid explorers of the Amazon rainforest. The girl has grown into the hardness of her eyes; dark, pondering, the determination of a young, resourceful woman.

As she steps from the plane into the smothering, choking heat of a perpetual summer, the memories of her holiday adventures with her cousins are left achingly, at the threshold. The walkway rocks under rapid steps, hundreds that throng passport control like ants, reallocating and shifting large burdens, towards their distant horizon. She rushes expectantly through the barrier, pulse quickening. Past officials with eyes like buttons under rims of black glass, faceless, statues of authority - out into the sparkling renovated arrivals hall, and on their big screens, orange letters scrolling names of international cities.

Tears are not commodities now, held back with restraint. She unleashes it into an unbound less ocean, tossing them and re-entering the water in undulating waves. What can be harder than fighting a demon you cannot see, overcome, win? Spectres transforming, rebirthing themselves, spawning in their ever forms of darkness. It gnaws away at the filaments of our perceptions. Demons of the mind can be overcome, but not this, this monster. It bears itself under many names. The word ‘cancer’ is sawdust she wishes she can tear, obliterate. It has taken away too many of her loved ones. It receives her rage and in time, her unadulterated form of acceptance.

The daughter crumples the letter in her hands, straining to find familiarity in the unknown.  “I’m here! Here…” It echoes, piercing the air like a ribbon careering furiously in the winds. An arm reaches to pull her from the ebb of the tide. She runs, tripping lightly across the marble; straight into the arms of her parents.

*

He is touched by the irony. Of time masking a greater evil. But time is something he doesn’t have abundance of. He feels no bitterness, but a simple, calm urgency. The bulbous rain slides from the window, glittering like sharp edged diamonds as the sky joins the brilliant hues of pink and purple, a candyfloss lolly shot through with the yolk of the setting sun. It contrasts the darkness of the mountains, like the tip of a man’s nose, up beyond the hills and for some, the promise of a new, joyous day.

The letters are scattered among his bedsheets, words of advice he so urgently wishes to impart to his daughter, cards to be opened on her birthdays, a biography of his younger years and tales of childhood. With each touch of pen on paper, he feels lighter. He pushes on, letting loose the fire of a strong and determined soul. As he seals the envelopes and lays them in a neat, white, pile, he lets out a sigh.

A bird chirps to its partner in the branches beyond the glass, pulling out worms and other resisting bugs from the sodden, plentiful earth.

She will be coming soon, he murmurs. And yet, why do I feel so tired today? Well, I will surely wait, only ten minutes, only ten minutes. She’s bringing my favourite snacks…I have so much to tell her today…

*

When his daughter arrives, she waits patiently for her father to wake. She places the plastic bag on the rickety side table, lays out her purchases in a line, the cutlery, cups, tissues and bananas. The rise and fall of her father’s breath is an even rhythm until, at a time she knows not, it stops altogether. She doesn’t know when it happened, couldn’t say for sure it was true, not until she lays her head on her chest and listens, the sheet is covered in moisture, she must get someone to change it, ‘help,’ she whispers, then louder and louder. A nurse rushes into the room, before calmly feeling her father’s pulse, and exits in respectful silence. 

It’s not for a few moments before she realises the sound vibrating off the walls in an amphitheatre of irregular notes is coming from her own mouth, that the figure lying on the bed, shrunken, is but a pale shadow of a vibrant, whole individual he once was. He was more than what she sees; this earthly remainder, a mere shell of his spirit.

“Talk to him, his hearing still remains at this time.’” A nurse offers, a small substitute to the daughter’s grief. When had she come in? The nurse had lost her own mother many years ago, she understands a little of how raw, how lost and desolate one feels. And yet how tragic it seems, to see the girl all alone without her family beside her. They were coming she said, they were at work.

As Dinah stands trembling by the bedside, she finds herself glad. Glad it was her to be the one here, not knowing that her father had held on for her. And so, she talks. She talks and talks, not knowing what she is saying but the importance, the urgency and consolation. Of things past, of memories and dreams. Of better worlds and lands where we are united, of promises, of comfort and above all, not to worry dad. They would meet again, she was sure of it. She promised she would live her life until then, without fear …or regret. Little thinking of the sadness and despair that would creep up, unsuspecting and follow in the shadows for the rest of her life, loosened by the events of that day.

There had been a man by the doorway. The dark green doorway with the flickering lights that made the wall tiles look like slime. “Can you hear me? My name is Alden. It's going to be all right. Your father is in a safe place. I promise. Do you want me to tell you a story?” The walls buckle like a sea creature. The tiles want her to follow them, so she does, with the words of the story fed to her starving ears.

And now, as she lies in the darkness of her bedroom, she watches as the Dream Devil takes a step closer, freeing himself from the cluster of shadows brought from the other side.

It is just the beginning.