Yellow Mama E zine

Cancerland

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Paul Radcliffe

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        Make Cancer Great Again. Except there is no need. Cancerland has always been great. It is a shining city on a hill. The citizens of Cancerland are diverse. All that matters in Cancerland is a diagnosis of cancer. There is no discrimination. Every day, thousands cross its borders and they are welcomed. For the rest of their lives, Cancerland will be in their hearts from the moment they wake till the time when they drift into sleep. They will remember why they came. If their dreams could be recorded somehow, they would see themselves wandering the uncertain paths of this, the ultimate porous border. Saints and serial killers, child abusers and rescuers of orphans, all are treated equally. There are no guarded walls here, no passport or visa requirements. Some may leave for brief visits to the skeleton of their life before Cancerland. They may even hear words such as remission, or partial, or adjuvant, offered in guarded tones in quiet rooms. Adjuvant may mislead, meaning that treatment will discourage the cancer cells. But in the end, it will always return. Cancerland loves all its children. It calls them home, in the gentlest of voices. It knows they hear.

 

 

       Paul Radcliffe is an Emergency RN. In the past, he worked in an area where children were sometimes afflicted with sickness of Gothic proportions. Some are ghosts now. As a child he visited an aunt in a haunted farmhouse. This explains a lot. Paul has worked in a variety of noisy places unlikely to be on anyone’s list of holiday destinations. He is also a highly suggestible subject for any cat requiring feeding and practicing hypnosis.

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      Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Ángeles. His artwork has appeared over the years in Medusa’s Kitchen, Nerve Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, and Rogue Wolf Press, Venus in Scorpio Poetry E-Zine.