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Master at Arms

She sat alone hunched arms clenched across her breast
Her body bend and quaking the tremors of terror
Her breath stuttered in anxiety
Her alabaster face stained and puffed with fearful tears

The room an alcove really
Hospital cold in neutral tones
The high backed padded chrome chairs
Screaming palliative care
For the body
No solace for the soul

She, only weeks ago a vibrantly irreverent
Student of medicine
The victim now of an awakened monster
About to devour her very being
Its rarity defying conventional therapy

Helpless and left to the serendipity
Of experimental drug trials
Warned of unpredicted collateral damage
Her first dose minutes away
Amputation in the wings

White robed and veiled
A woman appeared and purposefully
sat in an adjacent chair
She spoke

Jessica her voice a calm but strong contralto
An ancient hand reached out to touch
A quivering shoulder which recoiled in further fear
Assuming she was to take her to the drug
In dread of the Jeckel and Hide that might ensue

A nursing sister an anachronism she neither knew nor understood
The older woman did not move further but spoke instead
I am a master at arms
I have come to train you in the arts of weaponry
To slay this monster

This fight and its choice was never yours
But its outcome is in your hands
The sister stood
Come Jessica
The lessons begin

I am Sister Invictus
The monster is not your cancer
But your fear
Your condition will resolve
Only when your fear is vanquished

The room dissolved ethereally
Hand in hand they moved
Through time and space
To see a small girl in a field
She is your future
She is the reason you must prevail

Poetry by josephus