The iron lung isn’t forever. 

I am surrounded by the insistent beep of the monitors, the relentless rapping of the rain at the window, the endless hum of the lights up ahead, and the constant ache of all the things I could be, and the things I could do, if I were free. 

The dreams that I have are so small. Walking down the street again. Seeing the sun rise or the sun set. Seeing the rain, instead of simply hearing it from the window. 

The iron lung is not forever. I know that, and over time, I have learned to accept it. 

I just have to be patient, and some day, I will be free, but until then, I belong to him entirely. 

I caught polio last year, and thinking back, it was remarkable that I survived. Many didn’t. 

I was one of the Lucky ones. I am so lucky. That’s what he tells me. I am to be grateful for my good fortune, for I am a very lucky girl. That’s what he says. Such a lucky, lucky girl. Lucky in her iron lung. Lucky in her lonely prison. Lucky in his long, and uncomfortable gaze. 

It’s hard to feel lucky when he is always beside me. 

I had my eighteenth birthday party in this metal monster, smiling through my tears as my Mother fed me cake. 

My friends came to visit after graduation to tell me everything that I’d missed, and I nodded along, trying to keep a smile on my face as he watched from the corner of the room, his laughter cutting through me like a knife. 

They couldn’t see him. 

Nobody can. 

I’ve stopped telling them about him, because his laughter as they stared back in disbelief was too much to bear. 

They all think I’m delirious from my sickness, or seeing things due to the medication, but I don’t just see him. I feel him. 

In and out. 

He breathes in and out. 

We breathe in and out.

The clock carries on.

The sun rises and the sun sets.

The rain is relentless on the window.

He watches and he waits. 

He drums his dirty fingernails on the lung that I live in, and tells me how lucky I am to be alive, and to be with him. 

Him, with his long shadow and his large eyes. 

Him, with all his ideas for the world, and all the things that he will do when we are free. 

Him, with his darkness and his hunger for the last glimmer of light that lies within me. 

He has been here since the very beginning. I could see him, smiling from above as I was closed in, my breath battling to keep a steady rhythm, as everyone who was free and able to move told me to relax. 

It was futile. It was wishful. It was a waste of words. 

That wasn’t what he wanted me to do. 

He’s so hungry for our time together, and all that he knows how to do is consume. 

It’s going to be so much worse soon, and I don’t know if I can stop it. I’m trying, and trying but I’m not strong enough. His sickness has sunk its teeth into each of my bones and I am nothing more than a shadow. 

I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t invite him here. He just… appeared. 

It has been months and he won’t leave me alone. 

I didn’t mean to let him in. 

Doctor, I think that it might be too late for me. 

I have begged, pleaded, bargained and wept, but he could not be reasoned with. 

I don’t think I’m getting any better. 

I must get better. I must. I must be free. We must be free. He wants me to be free. 

SHE MUST BE FREE. 

If I was better, I could tell you about my dreams, and maybe you’d believe me. No more pats on the head and tutting about my fever. No more denial and assumptions that this isn’t real. I’d be fit, and healthy. The perfect witness to a terrifying future. 

If I was better, there would be no more nurses in and out every hour. No more visitors holding vigil at my bedside. No more people for me to protect. 

I’ve been holding him back for so long. None of you get it.

I’ve been holding all of this inside of me, but I’m drowning in it now, Doctor. 

You don’t understand what he’s going to do. 

You don’t understand what he’s going to make me do. 

I could lock myself away, and find a way to be truly alone. I could find a way to cast him out, if you’d just leave me alone for a little while. 

You have to get them all away, Doctor, because they’ll get sick like me. Can’t you see that?

It isn’t working, Doctor. Nothing you do is working. Don’t you want to know why? 

Other patients like me are better. Why aren’t I? 

Why is he still here? 

Why am I still here? 

WHY IS SHE STILL HERE?

He wants to know why I’m still here. 

He’s in my dreams now. 

They are not mine anymore, they belong to him. 

He wants my dreams. He wants my thoughts. He wants my life, and I can no longer keep them from him. 

The second that my eyes close, he is upon me, and I ache, asking again and again for my freedom, knowing that it is futile, wishful and a waste of words. 

I still make wishes, even though I don’t believe, because it makes him happy, and his huge eyes seem to soften a little when I pick a star from a sky I cannot see, and entrust it with a hopeful prayer. 

I wish for my freedom, every time, and he snickers from behind his hands, his enormous, empty eyes rolling to and fro as he tuts and twirls around the room. 

“You’ll never be rid of me, little girl.” He cries, night and day, like a broken record. “We’ll do dreadful things together.” 

My dreams are plagued by his petrifying fantasies. 

The fever will find us all, that’s what he says. He shows me, every night without fail, and with a gleeful grin. 

Tearing ourselves to tatters. Enslaved and enveloped by his dark desires. 

I’ve begged him not to make me. Please Doctor, don’t let him make me. 

He wants to destroy us all, and I will be his vessel. 

Please don’t shake your head again, Doctor. Don’t give me another sedative. Don’t send me to sleep, Doctor. Don’t leave me to our dreams. There’s something so dark inside of me, Doctor. Help me to get it out. 

SHE’S TIRED, DOCTOR.

It isn’t just polio anymore. I don’t even know that it ever was. 

Do you understand, Doctor? 

Our sickness will become your sickness. 

It can go for miles. 

It can go for years.