Freedom From Pain

Her name is Tamara McNair.

Today was supposed to be a twentieth birthday full of laughter, love, friendship, and family. She’d finish her classes early, take a day off work, be spoiled by a boyfriend who loved to love her, and be toasted and teased by parents who couldn’t be prouder of the young woman she was becoming.

Now, the room she sleeps in is silent, save for the continuous beeping of the sensors that watched her heartbeat, and the electronic scritch-scatching of the electroencephalogram that monitored her brain activity. The latter rarely moved anymore, despite the many procedures Tamara had been subjected to in the hopes of finding some proof that she still existed in this world. One spark, one flicker Of light in the darkness is all her parents would need to carry hope another year or more.

But it will never come. The damage is too severe, and the vessel is now too degraded to ever house Tamara.

Her body only knows it’s her birthday today thanks to the extra little something added to the mixture pushed into her stomach through the feeding tube thanks to a sympathetic doctor. Whoever Tamara was has been lost for months now, broken by a man who’d played roulette with one last shot of vodka and lost his senses behind the wheel. Justice had been served, and he would never breathe free air again, but such reciprocity is no comfort to the grieving. He will be visited by another, though I do not know who or when. Vengeance and self-loathing are my kinsmen, yet we do not cross paths unless called to.

Her parents had every intention of visiting Tamara each and every day in the beginning. For some months, this promise is made solid through deeds. Long sleepless nights listening to her mother’s voice reading the stories of old. Lunch breaks where her father would join her, though she couldn’t eat with him. Sadly, such noble intentions do not forge gold, and desires waiver in the face of burden. Tamara’s father, a low-level accountant in a cubical farm of faceless drones, was right now still buried in the same stack of menial data that had been given to him that morning. Her mother, unable to calm her grieving mind, resorted to washing dishes in a chain restaurant, taking on every hour of labor she could to avoid the grim silence of an empty house.

Their love for Tamara was undeniable, but that love had been shattered into shades of truth as the months had crept on. Some days, love had been hopeful, even wishful, that a single spike of life would rouse Tamara back to her body and soul. Some days, love had been five minutes by her side on the way to the mines, to kiss her cool forehead and hold unmoving hands just to be near her. Some days, love became an admission of doubt and fear that this is all Tamara would ever be now. And some days, a prayer was crafted deep in the depths of misery and shaped in love: to free Tamara from her mortal anchor at last so her body and soul could rest together.

Those unspoken words, when prayed in harmony by mother and father on this day, were what summoned me to Tamara’s side. I know they will never speak these words aloud, as what parent would. I see what they don’t want to face, which is not a weakness or flaw. On this day, love must be given wings, and I am to be Tamara’s craftsman. My only thought, my only hope, is that Tamara can forgive her family for summoning me should they meet again

My work is simple, and the machines quickly panic as the husk that was Tamara McNair is now emptied of its captive soul. Hers would be wings of golden feathers and ivory inlays. For a life so needlessly ended and by no fault of her own, Tamara will be lifted by the wingspan of lost potential.

The doctors will try and restore her to a deathless paralysis, as they should do, even though they will fail. I will not stop them, as that is not my role. Nor will I watch them struggle with any sense of glee or triumph in fulfilling this unspoken desire. I will weep for a twentieth birthday rendered irrelevant by fate’s cruel machinations. I will watch Tamara’s parents wail and cry for many days, as I must do. In such moments of impenetrable grief and infinite loss, they may wish to join Tamara where they cannot reach her. Should they wish it, I am bound to accommodate. I can only pray they will forgive each other long enough to see the error of such a desire.

I do not keep count or score of all those broken birds I make to fly one last time, as there is no number worthy to mark that tally. Each one is worth more than just a pebble in a never-ending river, and I wonder sometimes if whoever is waiting for people like Tamara will tell them all that they could have been. So much beautiful potential, like paint wasted on a canvas of trash. Do the lambs forgive their butchers? Do the jackals finally cry over their deeds? These details are not mine to know, and perhaps that makes this easier.

I leave Tamara’s room with the defeated doctors and nurses, though they will never see me. I watch some weep into each other’s arms while others coil their fists in rage or beg to whoever they deify that Tamara will find rest and forgiveness for her sins. I also hope that such a young girl finds something waiting for her beyond the grasp of her physical prison.

And then I am gone from that hospital, dispatched a world away to repeat the same kindness upon a boy in Shambiko whose belly has never known a real meal. To never hunger again must be an odd sensation for the living, but to break the chains of pain and strife entirely is a force outside my charter. All I can do is repeat this duty again and again. Infinite are the souls on the plane that are lost, broken, or imprisoned in vessels unable to let them bloom. For this boy, wings of ivory bone and sinew inlaid with jewels, light and unburdened by mortal limits.

Such is the purpose of the Vacuitas Doloris, the Freedom from Pain. The duty is mine always, and I will suffer it alone.

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My submission for this current IronAge Media’s prompt “The Consequence”. Sometimes the consequence isn’t yours to bear. Sometimes, a moment impacts a lifetime well beyond what can be perceived in the moment. But for every action, there must be reaction.

I hope you all enjoy.