It is time

The day had arrived, the final day of my stay here. It seemed that time really sprinted towards this almost like it really wanted me to arrive here quickly. I wouldn’t complain though, if time suddenly spoke to me and said “I am tired of you” I would gladly accept it. Even though no one would be bold enough to tell me that I am just a pain in the back, at some point in time I saw how much of a heavy burden I had become to my family, to my almost friends but mostly to life. All I could do was to sit here in the hospital bed and dream more about the dreams I had planned to achieve, if I had the choice I would be out there trying to make ends meet.

I wish I had a chance like every other child, a chance to live a chance to explore my errors and eventually become a motivation to someone’s life. Whist my friends received their final school reports to be promoted to high school, I received my final letter from the doctor that said I had one more year to live. I saw it coming from a distance though, because I was born an abnormal child. I had no hair on my body, the sun seemed to be at war with my skin and the oxygen itself treated my body as a foreign object. It hurt to breathe in, as if I was breathing in a knife into my lungs. Anyway I should be happy as it is my last day but my heart is full of anger and bitterness, because I didn’t choose to have cancer in my life but here I am, counting down the minutes till I am officially just a cold body. My anger is really not on myself, it’s to those who have the chance, the chance to live their dreams and explore this beautiful gift called life but instead they wasted it all away.


I may be the only one with cancer but I am not the only one leaving here today. John on my right was born intelligent beyond measure, top achiever with a bright future. It is sad how we met, if he could speak he would testify better. He drove into a traffic light under the influence of his daily bread of alcohol abuse and broke his back-bone, he lost a lot of blood and he has been in this room 10 days but the doctors said he is leaving with me soon. I just can’t help to think at times that he might have been the doctor to discover the cure to my cancer, oh well. My time is almost up, but as for you who have this gift to life live it to the end of it. It is time that you rise and shine, be a person of influence in your society. Make the very best of every opportunity, who knows maybe you will be person to find the cure to some 12 year old child like me. At this moment though for me it is time to go and for you it is time to live my dream.

Short story written by;

Kitso Letsatle