The guy next door

Entering Kenji's hospital room, I notice that the curtains around the bed next to his are closed. The instant they are opened, my head turns. Not intentionally or out of curiosity, it's simply what happens after seven months at the oncology ward.

Another young guy. I shiver when I glance at his face: my instincts tell me it's really bad. At the sixth floor it's always bad of course, cancer doesn't provide an easy road. Yet over time I somehow started to make the distinction between 'old' and 'young', between 'the eldery who have lived an entire life' and 'the guy next door who still has his whole life in front of him'.

Kenji's neighbour is being tube-fed. His fragile state prevents me from guessing his age - obviously cancer has changed him a lot, that I can see. "Hodgkin stage 4", Kenji whispers, "and he has already survived lymphoma cancer as a little boy". Family is gathering around the guy's bedside; from all over the world they have come to see him. I can hear their shock and amazement in American English, South African English and British English.

Another first few days after diagnosis. Tears well up in my eyes.
"I'm not doing so bad", considers Kenji. Still, the survival rates of Hodgkin are way higher than those of T-cell ALL. Suddenly I feel like such an idiot for even calculating like that.
The gloomy shadow of death dances its macabre dance in their room. Go away, go! People are fighting for their lives here.