SandScript 2023 [Digital Exclusive]

Is This Faith?
Raiden Lopez
“IT’S dead. We need to remove it.”
Emotionless words that I barely hear through my turmoil.
IT’S dead? How? Why? Did I do something wrong?
Did I kill my precious gift before I had a chance to treasure it?
No—I need more proof.
“You don’t need it, it’s better that it’s dead.”
“I don’t want an attachment to you.”
“You couldn’t care for it.”
“It will be ruined, just like you!”
Emotional blunting is my only way of existence for 13 days, 9 hours and 45 mins.
In a cold concrete office with bare white walls, I wait.
My name is called by a nurse with an out of place smile.
How can you be smiling right now when my world is shaking?
I’m led silently to an ominous room filled with machines I have no knowledge of.
Only one machine is of importance to me.
I remove my purple, floral shirt slowly over my head and set it down gently, as if it would break.
Anything to delay the inevitable in front of me.
“Lay back and relax. This is going to be cold.”
I close my eyes, reciting a distant prayer to a god I don’t believe in: “Please.”
I feel a cold gel penetrating my abdomen as the knob dances circles over it.
“That’s odd... I see a little bean moving.”
My eyes open instantly and I look to the monitor on my left.
I finally release the breath that I have been holding for 13 days, 10 hours and 13 mins.
You’re alive.
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