“Okay,” Delila whispered to herself. “This is okay. Everything will be okay.” She took a deep breath and tried to relax. She held up her young hands and examined them carefully; first counting her fingers, then each of her chewed-away fingernails. They were perfect. They always were; every morning she’d check. Once she was finished with her hands, she let her arms dangle awkwardly at her sides, hands clenched in tight fists.
“All right,” she assured herself feebly. “All right. I’m okay. Right? Yes. I am. I’m fine. Everything is fine. It’s all going to be okay.”
Delila stepped in front of her full-length mirror with her eyes pinched shut. She counted to three. Her eyes opened and to her relief, her body had not changed. She took a step forward to more closely inspect her face. Her big brown eyes looked normal; they were not bloodshot or missing or another color. Long eyelashes were situated in the right place at the end of her eyelids that were just the right amount of puffiness considering she’d just woken up. Her eyebrows were perched on her forehead, plucked to perfection. The creases in her forehead were in their rightful place; her button nose and ever-frowning mouth were aligned. She counted her freckles. There were forty-eight. “Good,” she whispered at her mirror-self. All that was left were her long, black locks. Her shaky hands lifted to her head. She leaned in closer to the mirror to be sure not to miss any possible flaw. Her shaky hands sifted through her thick hair. After looking at both her left and right sides, Delila reached for her hand mirror to check the back. She kept her eyes fixed on the mirror. Three or four gray-white hairs slid between her fingers.
This was not right. Delila did not have any gray or white hairs. She was too young for that. It couldn’t be. She checked and rechecked and re-rechecked. To her dismay, after pinching herself she knew that this was a living nightmare. She keeled over; her head was spinning. She felt her heart plummet into her stomach.
“I’m getting old!” she exclaimed. “I must be. Why else would my hair be gray? None of my friends have gray hair. My parents don’t even have gray hair yet! This can’t be happening. I wonder what’s wrong with me? It must be some rare and incurable disease!” She began pacing back and forth. She stopped for a moment, put her right leg forward, and threw her fist in the air, “I’m not ready! There’s so much left to do in life, this can’t be it!” She pounded her fist into the palm of her hand and resumed her pacing. “How am I going to break the news to Mom and Dad? Should I write a will? I don’t want people I hate taking my things.” She sprinted to her desk and reached for the neat stack of loose-leaf paper in the left hand corner of her desk. She took a blue pen from the blue pen compartment of the pen drawer and began to write. In perfectly spaced script, she titled the top margin and began to list what would go to whom. As she scratched away, she continued to wonder, “What if after I’m dead people make fun of me? What if people forget me? I guess I’d better make sure I give them really great stuff.” She stopped writing and jerked around, running to her dresser. Yanking the drawer open, she began putting her clothes into piles according to whom they’d belong. “It’s too bad,” She thought to herself. “I barely got a chance to wear these. And now, they aren’t worth anything.”
After emptying her drawers, Delila descended the creaky steps into the kitchen. Every step she took was slower and more miserable than the last.
“Even though nothing really hurts now, I k now it will soon. It will hurt. It just doesn’t yet.” She tried to justify her theatrics. It was painful for her to think of the pain that would soon encompass her entire being.
“Mom, Dad, I have some bad news.”
“You know, Del, I doubt it’s even so bad. Really, how could it be? You’ve already diagnosed yourself with the bubonic plague, polio and athlete’s foot. You’ve pretty much gone through every single bacterial and viral disease known to modern medicine. I can’t even begin to guess what you have now.” Her father didn’t look up from the crossword puzzle he was solving.
“Dad, that’s just it! Something is wrong with me, but there is no name for what I have. It’s undiscovered. I’m the first person to have it! Somehow, I’m aging at an accelerated rate. This is a new disease, do you think they will call it ‘Delila George Disease’ or something?”
“Delila, you don’t have any disease.”
“My entire head is already salt-and-pepper colored. Yesterday, it was jet black! I bet you that it goes all white in a few days. Soon my hearing will go. In fact, I am having trouble hearing already. And then, who knows? I’ll lose my eyesight, and grow age spots and I’ll need to wear diapers. It’s going to be awful, Daddy.”
“Delila, is don’t you think this is a little bit far-fetched?” questioned Delila’s mother with an irritated expression on her face. “I mean, is it possible that you are overreacting?”
“Mom. No! Are you calling me – histrionic or something? I don’t understand why you never believe me! You should show a little more concern since I, your only daughter, am ailing; I could go any minute now!” wailed Delila. “Do you not understand the stress I am feeling right now? You’ve had many years to enjoy your life. I must try to make do knowing that any day could be my last. I mean, sure, I’ve felt that way since I figured out what had really happened to Fluffy!”
“You were only eight when Fluffy –”
Promptly, Delila interjected. “Regardless, it’s completely all right for one to accept their mortality; but, Mom, this is unbearable for me. Will you please be sure not to forget me? Don’t let anyone be too sad, but don’t let them get too happy too quickly,”
“Delila, will you relax for two seconds?” Delila’s father hissed, gritting his teeth. “You’re completely ridiculous. You are young. Enjoy your youth! I don’t see any gray hairs. I don’t see crow’s feet, or varicose veins. You are devoid of age spots. Don’t worry so much; it isn’t good for you. Maybe you need to consider quitting coffee,”
“Dad, I quit drinking coffee when I was twelve, but it was already too late; it stunted my growth tremendously.”
“Jeez, Del, maybe you can take yoga classes or something….”
“I’m developing a hip problem.”
“What about some art classes?”
“Arthritis.”
“Come on! That’s absolutely insane!”
“If you don’t believe me, fine, but when I cease to exist, don’t you say you had never seen it coming!” Being sure to limp a little on the way, she raced upstairs and locked herself into her bedroom. She threw herself onto her bed. She wouldn’t go to school. Why should she? What is the point of a preparatory education if she’d not be alive to go to the college she’d been accepted to? She slung her arm off her bed and groped around to find her cell phone. She excused herself from class.
Delila cried for hours; she wouldn’t be able to mourn her death once she was gone.
After an hour, she rose; deciding it was time to check her condition. Once she’d mustered up her energy, she took several steps and found that her feet felt like they were wearing shoes ten sizes too small. As she continued hobbling to the mirror, an overwhelming pain shot through her lower back, so she had finished her trip across the room with one hand gently massaging her back, trying to quell the pain. Facing the mirror, she kept her eyes shut. She counted to three and opened them. Bewildered, she stood gaping at her mirror-self. Standing before Delila was not the girl that she had seen earlier this morning. This wasn’t a girl at all; she had frizzled gray hair with Delila’s big brown eyes surrounded by puffy and wrinkly skin. Horrified, she looked down at her shaking hands, which seemed to have more veins popping out of them than usual. She balled up her fists in rage.
“I knew it!” She tried to shriek, but it came out as more of a witch’s cackle. She gasped upon hearing her new voice. “No!” She cried. “No! This can’t be! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! They didn’t believe me, but I told them!”
Now, completely deranged, she began to grab at her frosted locks. She furiously limped back to her bed; she needed to collect herself before doing anything else. She breathed deep in and then out. She had practiced this before when she would go to her therapist. In-and-hold-and-out-and-hold-and…. She tried to stand back up, but fell back onto the bed. Neither her arms nor her legs had the strength to support her body’s weight. How could she ever leave this spot?
Determined, she tried again. This time, she was able to manage to throw herself off of the bed. However, as hard as she tried to stand tall, her legs collapsed under her like a broken card table.
“Mom!” She cried. “Dad!”
“Is Del still not giving up on this disease?” Delila’s mother asked, amused.
“She’s obstinate, I give her that. Rapid aging? She’s crazy,” Replied Delila’s father.
“What gets me is, she always is so convinced she’s going to die,”
“Well, at least she’s fervent about her beliefs,”
“Don’t you wish she’d get new beliefs?”
“Yes.” Her dad sighed. “However, for the time being, we’ve a serious hypochondriac to deal with. How do we handle this? Maybe we could schedule her a ‘doctor’ appointment. Sugar pills seem to be her panacea,”
“Just ignore it. She’ll get over it in a day or two.”
Back on her bed, Delila no longer felt like the bright young girl she had been the day before; she was a decrepit old blob, just waiting to croak. Her stomach was empty, but she wasn’t hungry. She was emotionally and physically exhausted, but could not sleep. This was it. No children, no grandchildren, nieces, nephews, boyfriends to look forward to. Nothing. Death. She didn’t know what that meant. It was just a word to her, just like the word “life.” She no longer felt that she knew what anything meant.
Forgetfulness came next. Searching relentlessly for a single memory, she could only picture herself during her last moments. What was her name? What was her favorite color? Who was her first kiss? Her entire life added up to this moment. Curled up, she was back in her mother’s womb; helpless, weak. So this was it. Over and over, she watched herself die.