"You have cancer." Three words no one expects to hear in their lifetime. Three words. The doctor looked at me, face blank like ice, and uttered them without feeling, without emotion. I looked at my mother and asked, “Am I going to die?" Only silence. Her face, like the doctor's, was blank like ice. Is this how glaciers collapse? The silence and nothingness filling the void until something gives? I wanted to leave the room, throw up, run as far as I could before the water rose to my neck. I couldn't swim and it was too late for lessons.
Christian Ward is a UK-based writer, currently recuperating from cancer treatment for stage 4b large t-cell lymphoma.