A benign tumor took her to the hospital. A heart condition kept her there.

“It’s alright,” she announced. “I’m bored, but it’s not serious.”

She enjoyed the gifts, bemoaned the IV.

One surgery for her heart, another for the tumor.

She said it would be alright.

For once, it was.

Kai Raine is a graduate student fighting university bureaucracy and working on a novel. Kai’s work has appeared in the anthology Denizens of Darkness and the periodical Suddenly Lost in Words.