4: Daniel

Adam looked terrible. What could be seen of his face through the patchwork of dressings and micropore was swollen and distorted, livid with purple bruising. His right ear was swaddled, his chest strapped, his arm in plaster. A tube ran from his nostril, another from the corner of his mouth. Ferrying away agony and hurt, perhaps.

Daniel just watched him breathe.

It had been two days now. Three, since they were really together. Everything had been so taken for granted. A blithe farewell, vague plans to meet, a few idle moments of telephone chit-chat. A dinner date, nothing special, just dropping by after work. They'd cook food and watch some TV, hang out, go to bed, make love. Daniel had been there, waiting, a few streets away, but Adam never arrived.

Daniel heard sirens that night, as he was making green curry paste, but there were always sirens in the city. Sometime later he cooked the chicken anyway, and ate it, furious at being stood up. Shoved a bowl of leftovers in the fridge. His calls to Adam's mobile went straight to voicemail. He fretted and raged, eventually went to miserable sleep; and when he woke up everything went to hell.

He wasn't the first point of contact. His picture was in Adam's wallet but his name and number weren't. Why would they be? He was just one contact among many in a malfunctioning mobile phone, nothing to mark him out as the partner, the lover, the next of kin. Under other circumstances he might not have found out for weeks.

"Hello?"

"Daniel? It's Rebecca."

"Becky? What the...?"

"Adam's in the hospital."

Suddenly he was wide awake, all vagueness gone. The moment snapped into focus and he found himself blinking into the abyss.

"Fuck. Why?"

"He's in a coma or something. I think he got attacked. Beaten up."

"What?"

What? What? What? What? What?

Fuck.

"He was found unconscious in the street. I don't know the details. Can you meet me there?"

Of course he could.

Adam's chest rose and fell hesitantly, struggling against its bindings. His breathing was shallow and liquid. Between each gurgling breath was a ghastly silence, fraught with the possibility of remaining unbroken. The doctors assured Daniel that Adam was stable, but his battered body seemed so frail and vulnerable, and he just wouldn't wake up.

Daniel felt sick the whole time. He longed to get into the neatly made up bed beside his lover and hold him, hold tight, drag him bodily back to life, but the web of wires and tubes was impregnable. Sometimes he would lay his head lightly on Adam's heaving chest, sometimes whisper words of encouragement in his unscathed left ear, but mostly he would just sit and watch, helplessly.

"Come back to me, baby. I don't know what to do without you. Don't leave me to deal with this alone, I'm not ready for that. I'm trying to be strong, trying to hold on, because you'll need me to be solid and there for you when you return, but I just don't know how. You're my beacon in this, my anchor. You should be showing me the way to get through, to find you and bring you home. Please. I need you by my side. You're so much better at all this than me. I just don't know what to do. Please. Please come back."

Daniel never said these things out loud, but perhaps Adam heard him anyway. Perhaps Daniel's voice called to him on the dark and bloody battlefields he roamed in his dreams, called across the mud and slaughter and made him put down his sword, summoned him home to have his wounds nursed.

Perhaps it was just time to open his eyes.
Posted by matt at November 5, 2004 02:00 AM