"Sunlight" (Chapter 7: Orientation--NANOWRIMO)

Chapter 7: Orientation

Present

                “Damir?”

                The soft voice penetrated his nightmares. In them, his father had died, and he had called his father’s parents, whom he had not spoken with in many years. The conversation had been tearful and fast, swift as a dagger’s stab to one’s vital organs.

               

                “Damir… I… I think we need to go…” she whispered once more.

                He was not entirely sure what had occurred after the conversation. Gradually, he permitted his eyelids to part, finding Amira’s face before a dim sunrise backdrop. The walls were white, and the art was quiet; a single painting of nature, perhaps intended to be some sort of inspiration. The lights were fluorescent, far too sharp, loud, enhancing the illumination of the best and worst of expressions. The newest nightmare, like the majority of Damir’s, was not of his imagination. There was wreckage all around him, yet it did not sink in. He was merely another jagged portion of remains.

                The bed before them was empty.

                “Come on,” Amira whispered, slipping his hand into hers, helping him from the seat. The previous night came back in small flashes, of tears, of silence, of her hand in his, arm around him, he, broken upon her shoulder. That is where he’d fallen asleep, he assumed. That sleep had likely not lasted either of them more than a couple of hours.

                There was still more he had to do. The sun existed, but it was eclipsed. His examination belonged only to ruins. The long halls were familiar, the devastation within them, his place. Yet she brought him to the exit, and he was once more placed in a passenger’s seat; he’d been in the one beside it, when he’d killed them. The one with the tightly wound dyed leather. Grey and ordinary. There had been a blue, blue sky, so bright and blue and full of light, storm clouds lurking far enough beyond that they were of no concern. And the grass had been so brown and dry, with only selective touches of green. And the radio had been soft, so quiet, playing some old song that he knew they’d known.

                The woman had wanted to hear it louder.

                “Damir…” the young woman’s voice came once more. His stare was fixed ahead, but the current road was of little concern to him now. She’d wanted the song louder.

                “Damir… you’re… are you… Damir?”

                Strange that he did not recall which song it was.

                There was a yellow line, and there was a slender tree with the beginnings of leaves. They’d wanted to leave. Again, they were going to go… again…

                “You’re shaking… and sweating. Damir, what’s going on?”

                He could’ve stayed, if he wanted. They’d given him permission.

                A sudden sob.

                Movement ceased.

                He glanced at the driver, to see that her own eyes were filled with tears… the sun… sunlight. Amira. Why had he brought her there?

                “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I… I… I… I didn’t want to… I…”

                Her hands held her own face as the salty liquid dripped through them. Other vehicles seemed to fly right next to him. He cringed.

                Damir found no tears remaining in his own eyes. But the deep bitter guilt twisted within him, turning all the rubble within him to tar. He felt it fill him, fiery and viscous, the burn of it increased tenfold by the sun beating down upon him. He had made this happen, he had caused the clouds to gather, caused the precipitation, caused the rain to fall.

                In all he had caused, for those times he’d made her tears fall, for the ends of lives he’d caused, he would never forgive himself. For these moments, he would always hate himself. He could not bring himself to try and comfort her, as the cause of her pain. As the catalyst of mortal catastrophe.

                “It… it’s… it’s not… y-your… fault,” she choked, wiping her own tears with her sleeve. He observed her determination, as she took her swiped her hands on her jeans, and turned the key in the ignition. She safely signaled, checked mirrors, looked over her shoulder, and assimilated into traffic once more.

                Words were no longer spoken, even as Amira passed the turn to Damir’s house, even as she took the route to her own. The backseat was occupied by more than her suitcases and textbooks. She unlocked the doors and stepped out, to meet Damir at the passenger’s seat. His stare was as blank as hers. She knew, she understood, what it was like to have a vision of what no longer existed.

                She was aware of it all the time.

                He woodenly followed her out, not even a few steps behind, as she slowed for him. There was nothing to satiate either’s devastation.

                The daughter rang her former residence’s doorbell. She and Damir were somberly greeted by the Senela parents; they had aged slightly in the three years since they’d first met the young man. But all felt as though they had existed on earth for many more years; as though they’d witnessed all the horror and tragedy of the generations before them.

                For each had experienced the experience that all humans endured. Each had encountered the single experience which peeled away all class and status and material and understanding and joy and aspiration.

                Each had encountered mortality.

                The couple allowed their only child and her orphaned significant other inside.

                Her father put his hand on his shoulder, never entirely comfortable with the young man, but he and his wife had compassion and empathy. Her mother hugged him gently, and led him to the guest room, especially prepared at the request of their daughter the evening before.

                Damir stood at the entrance of the room, fixed on the empty, dark wall before him. He did not notice the bed, the window on the wall opposite, nor the uncoordinated colors of the sheets, blankets, pillowcases and curtains. There was light in the hallway, driving two small steps toward a supposed place of rest. It was then that he recognized the window, the mismatched curtains drawn and the blinds slightly cracked. Dim blue light escaped upon the currant walls. What was beyond them was the same as what was contained within. A near absence of light.

                The comfort of the Senela’s was overwhelming. He desperately wished to be elsewhere.

                “You should rest, Damir,” he heard her whisper. The single source of light in this house. She gently urged him toward the place of rest, neatly prepared and presumably warm. He laid down, awaiting her abandonment; rather, she remained beside him. Both had spent many years alone in sorrow. Though they did not touch, the occupation of space was enough to speak without words, that this was no longer necessary.

                “Shh…” she whispered. He had not even realized his own tears; they still could fall. Her arms were a tentative and slender ring around him.

                “Rest, Damir… we need to sleep…”

He willed himself to sleep, at her request. But the light was apparent, however faint, even with his eyes shut tightly.

The images repeated themselves, yet he tried so desperately to suppress them. The images and the sounds which had occupied his life for the past years. The pieces of life without sunlight, life without reprieve. Life with unspoken grief. Neither man had the will to bring back the ghosts with utterances of the joy or sorrow previous life and loss. He had killed them long ago. He clung to whatever the sun could offer him. The life he’d spent with her seemed to be the only one worth living. Without her, he had been consumed by all the lead weight of grief and brokenness.

“…sleep,” she’d whispered.

Rest and exhaustion were one and the same, to Damir. This he’d known for very long.

“We’ve being moved again, a few states away,” his mother announced; over restaurant dinner, nonetheless. It had been nearly four years. He had spent his entire high school experience in this town, and now, now, they wanted to leave.

They were quiet, their forks posed as they prodded just-served dishes. They paused, the way they typically did, gauging his reaction, as they always did when they gave him this news. Almost four years in a single location. He’d known it was too good to be true. Every time he heard this, he felt the same as he always had; he felt his self reduce from a knowledgeable child, an industrious preteen, a curious adolescent, and an experienced almost-man, into something much smaller and younger, resembling the child who had heard this news the very first time. He had always understood that his parents’ careers required them to move. He understood what it meant to them, the work that they did, the significance of their service, their country, the ones that they worked with. He knew the value of what his mother and father did aside from these careers, as well. It was powerful, what they did, important, significant, something above them and their family.

“We know that we’ve been here a long time… Ever since your first year in high school… I know this is hard. This is a… hard time to move. And that’s why we’re giving you the option to… stay here, if you’d like. We can make arrangements for you to stay, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

“We know you’re responsible.”

“We trust you.”

Blank eyes, blood like tears…

Somehow, he’d convinced them that he was responsible, capable of taking care of himself. He thought of Dan. Of all the places they’d driven home from at unthinkable hours of the morning.

“When… when do you have to go?” he asked, his tone meticulously controlled.

The sound like a rock slamming onto concrete, a brick wall, shattering spiderweb glass…

“A month.”

He was just under a month from 18.

One sharp, shrill, short, shriek…

“Can I think about it?”

Silence.

Both nodded.

Endless silence, in the contorted space…

They resumed their dinner.

The sound of ragged breaths, the agony of the immense task of breathing itself… every movement a new, sharp tearripjab of throbbing torment…

“Did you finish that piece for the Verden House?” he respectfully inquired, the subject change smooth and jagged…

Someone else’s breaths. Someone.

“Yes, I’m just hoping it’s not too… serious… for them…”

Speech could not be possible. He tried…

“Da… Dad?”

His breath caught.

“Yeah. Can we see it?”

She, beside him, he could not hear her… only the blood, the broken…

“We’ll see.”

“I… I… I’m…”

The man was alive, his voice rose from behind him, and then there was a blur of silence, then shrill sirens sounding red, blood, and red light…

                When the young man woke once more, he could not determine his location. What was this softness beneath him, the warmth beside him, beneath…?

                Nervously, he turned his head from the ceiling to whatever was beside him. There, a young woman with wheat colored hair, sleeping peacefully… Amira, he recognized. And last night…

                A nurse in light purple scrubs continued to take vital signs; she was trying her hardest to keep from her face the knowledge she had. The futility of her actions on this man on the bed. His son followed her with swollen, empty eyes. He knew as well as she did. The girl beside him as well. He was young, she probably noted. Not child young, beyond adolescent young, but just barely an adult. He seemed familiar; she did. But it hadn’t mattered to Damir. These were final moments. He withdrew his gaze, finding a small packed bag on the floor. In case the stay had been longer than a night.

                But he knew it would be merely hours. If not less.

                Damir lay motionless on the bed. It had never taken long to understand where he was after such harrowing events. Just a simple glimpse of something, and pieces, if not all, would begin to return. This was Amira’s house, her guest room bed. Her parents had generously granted him the room, for some indefinite period of time.

                “Yes, I… I’m still going back to school to get the rest, Mom,” she whispered, into the phone. His eyes were shut, as though he were asleep, but it was not so.

                “…He said it would be okay.”

                He had said this, but the memory was more or less unclear. More like the memory of a memory.

                “He’s coming with me… no, we’ll leave later… okay.”

                “…Thank you. So much… Okay. I love you, too.”

                He could hear her mother’s voice fade out when she pressed the ‘end’ button. They would be leaving. Later, or tomorrow; he wasn’t sure. They would go to her college and pack up the few things that remained in her room, and they would return to her home, or so he thought…

                She’d taken her seat beside him, and he’d come closer. They had not separated since she had driven them to the hospital that night. He had wanted to leave this room when he’d arrived, but now he questioned if he could will himself from the bed. It amazed him, the sheer, immense amount of effort it would take, to force himself upward and then to shift to the other side, place his feet on the floor. To stand. To walk. To exit through the door and down the hall, to pass her parents’ with their knowing, far too compassionate glances, and to place on shoes and turn the knob on the next door, the door to the outside.

                He couldn’t imagine leaving now. So he fixed his stare upon the ceiling.

                It was the color of milk, almost pure, but curd-y, white. Popcorn was what they called it. Days. He’d spent days here so far. He couldn’t keep count of the amount, however. And he asked the same questions, they told him. At the moment, the pain he knew was present were vague aches and some prods, in varying places… whatever they had given him earlier, had been a high and pleasant dosage. He’d become accustomed to the popcorn ceiling and company it was to him.

                His eyelids were drooping again… sleep only ever arrived when it was uninvited.

                When he next woke, he did not comprehend his location. What this place was, with its white ceiling and the white wall and the sharp dull throbbing sharp piercing sensations all over, more noticeable in some places than others, but he couldn’t say a word about them because they just kept coming. There was something, something that had brought him there, someone… his parents. Where were his parents?

                Screeching chalkboard canyon sounds the shattering, the shhh of their uncertain landing, the gray that rose…

                That was what had happened.

                “Where…” he began.

                The woman in the boxy blue clothes looked at him.

                “Hi, Damir… What is it? Does something hurt?”

                “My parents…” he whispered. “Where are… where are they?”

                He sounded clearer than assumed.

                “They’re here in the hospital, Damir,” she replied, soothingly. Had he asked her before?

                “Can I see them?”

                “No, not right now… sorry, hon.”

                He attempted to catch his breath, but he could not, as he felt saltwater on his cheeks. It stung, and he desperately lifted his hand to his face, bringing with the realization of drug-dampened throbbing in that arm.

                “It’s alright… You should be able to see them soon…”

                Either he, or the doctors, had a very strange definition of “soon”.

                He spent a lot of time in that bed, staring at the ceiling, during that time. However long it was. But it was longer than “soon”. The ceiling was nice to gaze upon, however uninteresting, but at some point, it could not occupy his murky thoughts, and within it, he began to note disturbing images. He did not notify anyone of this sight, for fear of sounding out of his mind, not that he wasn’t, but he did not feel the urge to be told he was so. He seemed to cry enough to be some sort of crazy, at this point. He spent most of his time sleeping, he supposed, as his every waking moment seemed newish. But with the few glimpses of consciousness without milky, cloudy drugs, the clarity of the pain he was truly in appeared to be enough to be certifiably insane.

               

                “Damir?”

                “Hm?”

                “You awake?”

                “Yeah…”

                Her eyes were the color of a cool blue lake, on an almost-clear day. But she could not pull him from the waters. Her hand was around his, but he would still drown, and if he did not, he would only pull her under.

                “Okay… you can still sleep if you want,” she whispered.

                He shook his head, staring into those eyes. He still did not comprehend the idea of exiting this room. He could not see past this very current moment. There was nothing beyond this, and too much behind it. If he slept, he would not awaken again; it would only be then, on an endless loop…

                Her eyes remained on his for a moment, before she turned and faced the door. But it was not the door that she saw.

                They were not alone in this room.

                After her cousin’s graduation party, they’d met at a pharmacy.

                Approximately a month afterward.

                He did not see beyond last night. Nor beyond that morning. Not beyond the year without the sun. Not beyond three years ago.

                Not beyond sixteen years ago, when he realized that life was entirely out of his control.