There was a moment of silence, and I could tell the boy was becoming emotional. “The doctor did tell me this,” I said, “but not like you. He was entrenched, with what I know now after speaking with you, was grief. While I cannot imagine the pain he suffers, I can understand what it is like losing someone you love. A few years ago, my father died of the flu, and it affected my whole family. My brothers, of which I am the youngest, they all left home to pursue their dreams. Sometimes it feels like they abandoned me. And with my mother’s illness, I have become a mother myself, caring for her at all times. It’s lonely working at all times of the day, no matter if the work is meaningful. I assume the doctor feels the same, so in that way, I can understand his pain. I find myself often laying my head on the pillow before bed, wishing my brothers would write to ask how I was doing, how our mother’s condition was. But sadly they have not, and I’ve had to bear it all alone. Some days it feels like the pressure of it all will snap me in two, and I’ll do something drastic.”
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We pulled Samuel down a stone path decorated with pruned bushes and flowers. We came around a bend and I saw for the first time the doctor’s personal hospital, the place where cared for patients who needed more longer term attention. It was a large white tent, similar in both material and look to the ones used by the military. There was a little table and chair near the entrance where Dr.Snape sat, asleep, with a near empty bottle of Scotch. He laid his head on the table and his long, brown hair covered it in tendrils. The glass of Scotch was in the grass near his feet.
Snape wore dark green dress trousers and a white button up that he rolled to the elbow. A thick leather cap laid on the table near the bottle of Scotch. It was wide brimmed and weathered with tear shaped water stains that stood out under the soft yellow hue of lantern burning at the entrance of the tent. From inside the tent, I could hear moans of pain, wet coughs, and one sharp, “Oh God! I'm dying, it's really happening! Here it comes!”
This roused the doctor, for he had an ear for pain. He looked lazily around, and without noticing us, he stumbled into the tent. I looked to the boy, who, unaffected by the scene, waved me apathetically to continue with him into the tent. We stepped in, and the atmosphere beyond the tent’s mesh door was thick. It was heavy and smelled of gauze and antiseptic.
There were six beds, five of which were full. There were three beds on each side of the tent, with a narrow passageway between them, and in the center. Each bed had a nightstand with a little candle, and some had books laid on them and journals. At the back of the tent was a wooden shelf with medical equipment in it. There were thick books and leather bound journals and bottles of mysterious liquid with labels of small text that had long faded past legibility.
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