Talking to Cancer
By Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, first published in FIYAH
A woman with the ability to cure or cause cancer faces a challenge when her ex-husband's lover asks her for help.
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Plot Summary
Layla, an Advance Practice Nurse with the ability to cure cancer simply by telling it to stop, makes a living off of curing people's cancer as a last resort for $99.99. When a new patient, Hiba, arrives, Layla is perplexed as the cancer does not respond to her commands. When Layla recognizes the necklace Hiba wears, she realizes that she knows Hiba from a sex tape her then-husband made with Hiba. Layla continues to try to help Hiba, but without success. When Hiba stops arriving for her appointments, Layla goes to Hiba's house, and her ex-husband answers the door. He admits that he referred Hiba to Layla, and Layla feels betrayed because before they ended their marriage, he said he'd never see her again.
Layla remembers her romance with her husband as well as the time she discovered that she could not only cure cancer, but cause cancer. In a fit of anger, she had wished cancer on her neighbor, who then got lung cancer and died. Her husband didn't believe it was her fault at first, but when she proved it by wishing cancer on various mice, he began to distance himself from her and eventually had an affair with Hiba. Layla realizes that to help Hiba, she must forgive her first. Layla returns to her house to talk to Hiba's cancer.
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