Room 304

The weirdest part of this story is that it is partially autobiographical...

Norbert had cancer.

It was eating him up for so long now that he didn't pay any attention to it any more, despite the ever present pain.

Harold was mainly suffering of dementia.

He had forgotten all of his past as a stone mason and was now maintaining the looks and habits of a little polite and stunted professor, with a gift to persuade visitors to bring him chocolate bars, despite his diabetes.

Gregory just had bad temper and a high propensity to fall.

All together, they were 237 year old and the occupants of the room 304, for what have seemed an eternity.

Then the lad made his entrance.
Or at least, two porters made it for him.
Norbert was dozing, while the other two were bickering.
Harold had spent the last five minutes puffing and panting.

- “What's wrong with you again?

- I'll be honest, I seem to have some difficulties to get up...

- So what? Shut up!"

That was when the two men burst in, pushing a bed loaded with various equipment. You could see a young man, semi-conscious, shaken by irregular convulsions, in the middle of it all.

- “Greg, leave Harold alone. Let the young lad have some rest.” Even feeble, Norbert's voice commanded authority.
- “Maybe we should call an ambulance?
- Grrr! It's not my fault if the old fool is completely senile!
- Excuse me?
- And deaf!
- Enough!”
All felt silent and the calm settled on room 304. A peacefulness only perturbed by the noises common to all hospital wards... and the feverish whimpers of the lad.

Later that night, a strange ballet took place.
Harold, blindly feeling his way, put his hand on his Zimmer frame; Gregory managed to fall out of his bed without attracting the attention of the nurses and Norbert dragged his tall and gaunt body, towing his IV behind him in the dark room. They all came to look at the young lad and watched him.
He had his eyes half-closed, a sallow complexion and was sweating so much that he seemed to be melting. He was shaking and moaning constantly.

Against him, he clutched a little clay dog that, obviously, some small clumsy hands had taken a great care to shape. They had all seen him this afternoon, the little boy with the blond curls and the worried eyes, into the arms of the mother who kept crying at the bedside of her husband... Even Harold remembered.

Without a word, they looked at each other and nodded.
Gregory required more insisting stares, but finally acquiesced with a grunt.

In the morning, it was discovered that Norbert had died of a pulmonary embolism, sudden and nocturnal. It was assumed that the big-C had finally won.
A little later, Harold quietly fell asleep and forgot to wake up. Old age presumably...
Gregory muttered a sardonic “Things come in threes”, looking at the lad. His humour was rarely appreciated... In the early evening, he made an innocuous fall on his way to the toilet, yet, this time, he did not get up again.

When the lad's fever dropped, the doctor declared, smiling, that he had passed the worst of it.

Close by, and yet so far away, three indistinct shadows were watching...
- “Do you think he will remember us?
- Of course not, he would eventually ask himself questions.
- It's too bad in a way, because...
- Oh, shut up will you!”
And the faint shadows faded away.

Ignorantus Travelicum

   This was written almost seven years ago and is all true.
It was brought back to my mind by a recent conversation I had with a friend, of which the conclusion was: “I would more gladly excuse profound stupidity than ignorance, as, if you choose to do so, ignorance is curable.”


I have a new best friend. She makes me laugh!
I don't even know her name...

I met her yesterday when I was going to enquire about the different means at my disposal to, from the country of the Lambs and Leeks, go to say hello to the “vahines”. I'll explain: For our honeymoon trip, I would like to take my beloved to Bora-Bora but, as it isn't a very popular destination from the British Isles, even with the Tinterweb, I struggled to find any clear information.
Therefore, with a nonchalant gait, I never the less drove – it's about 10 miles away! – to the closest Agency for Travelling.
It was when I was pushing the door of the humble store of the second biggest British purveyor of exotic scented dreams – my muscles bulging under the light material of my little blue summer dress, the one I like to wear on Thursdays, the one with the very cute print there – that I saw her for the first time.

To say that she looked average would be to pay her a compliment. Her forties come and gone, she had a face wrinkled by the expression of eternal surprise of the simpleton, with tired hair sporting a do that could have been fashionable back in the 80s, in the region of Holdrege (Nebraska), and two long and scrawny arms. Despite this, she was radiating experience behind her small orange counter, which is an effect relatively easy to achieve when you are the eldest of twenty years of any of your colleague and have a pale complexion, perfect to reflect the orange colour. So, I was walking towards the ugly woman (at that moment of the story, she's not yet my friend) when she spoke to me along this line:
“Hello, can I help you?”
… I understand your surprise, I too was astonished.
She had said 'hello'! In the United-Kingdom?! The proverbial Albion wouldn't be as perfidious as one might think?

Sorry. Let's start again.

Her: “Hello, can I help you?
Me: Hello, and you most certainly can. I would like to go to French Polynesia, departing from here, or from London, which ever is simpler. Could you find the information for me please?
Her: er... like we may have a problem here, because, as for us, we don't do them, the train bookings.
…
Me: Even better! The French Polynesia is situated in the South Pacific and I was favouring the idea of taking a plane.
Her: Oh sorry, I thought you said “Pyrenees”.
Me: No, Polynesia.
Her: Not the Pyrenees then?
Me: No.
Her: Gosh.
Me: Quite.”
I was starting to like her a lot, that lady. I carried on with the usual platitudes of this kind of conversation, with a renewed interest and a gently amused curiosity. Where exactly? Bora-Bora. How many people? Two. When? In six months time.
And we resumed our verbal tango:
Her: “Like, I can't find any international airport in Bora-Bora me...
Me: It's normal, there isn't one. The closest is in Tahiti.
Her: Well... Like I can't find any either... I know, I'm going to call the people of the planes.”
Then she told me that it might take a while and that if I had something else to do in town, I could maybe pop in later... What?! Our newly born and fragile friendship just blossomed that she was already rejecting me? With a torn heart and a heavy soul, I got up from my seat, ready to return to the street and its anonymity, where no-one would make me laugh for at least five minutes.
I suddenly pulled myself together.
Was this a way to treat an 'almost' friend? No.
I had to have faith in her professionalism and trust her expertise. Yes. I will comeback later. And yes, this woman will have all the answers. The cost, the flights, the dates, why you should never put the milk before the boiling water, the hotel, all of it!
I took advantage of my free time to sneak in a nearby similar agency where I found all the answers I needed (but not the milk/hot water one) in five minutes. Then, after a few purchases, as I couldn't stand it any longer, I went back to see my friend who I already missed.
Her: “Ah! I couldn't speak to the people of the planes but I have some information for you.
Me: Wonderful.
Her: So, for the flight, it should cost £1056.64.
Me: But that's fantastic!
Her: Isn't it just? I thought that too.
Me: Per person?
Her: No no, for the both of you.”
What a surprise! The nearest quote I got was of £1500 per person. What a bargain? I knew that this woman was gifted!
Me: “This is really amazing!
Her: But be careful though, this is just the price for the flight from London-Heathrow to Haïti like.
Me: ...
Me: You mean Tahiti?”
And then, with the most imperturbable smile and without any trace of embarrassment, she replied:
“Why? Is there a difference?”

After the brief explanation that “yes, there was a little one, like: they're not in the same ocean/sea", I assured her to return very soon in her small shop, to enjoy her amicable company again.
Then, I left, smuggish, feeling at ease in my own skin and comfortable in my knowledge of geography.

I think I'll go back tomorrow.
I tell you, she is my new best friend.
She makes me laugh!

Heart-Break

~ Three days ago I received a call from the school. My little boy had broken his arm on the playground. It turned out to be a rather nasty business, with surgery, 24 hour in hospital, etc... but he's fine now and very proud of his red cast.

However, the feelings that this call had awaken were somehow deeper and more complicated.

It reminded me of this old text below.

It's my worst translation to date, for which I apologise, but I still wanted to share this with you.

It happened a little over seven years ago and this is what I felt at the time.

All is true... ~

She is resting next door now. She fell asleep peacefully front of an old Audrey Hepburn film, her favourites. I can hear her breathing, regular and light, and it is good.

I still have flashbacks. Images which come to me, of the kind that keep you awake at night, that haunt you whenever you leave your mind wandering in the wrong direction. Images that send a long cold shiver down your spine, hollow out your guts, eat your life away. I'm ashamed to admit that those visions have nothing to do with war or famine, there are no children dying in my mind... only her. She's there, lying on the floor, still. A tiny drop of blood pearling at the corner of her lips. A small red puddle has already formed on the pavement and my heart forever stopping.

My darling, my love, my life... My Geinor has had an accident this weekend. 
 
There are a few things that I understand better now. Most of them are literary expressions, like sick with fear or knots in the guts, the others are more difficult to explain... certainties which somehow became suddenly even clearer, like: "Shit. I couldn't survive her."

I've experienced the most excruciating minute of my life, followed by the ten most intolerable.

When I turn around to see her there, on the ground, inert, almost at my feet, the realisation is almost immediate. I don't have time to laugh about it that my mind already registers the off-key details: an arm with a slightly odd angle, a sudden pallor – for fuck sake why is she not moving? – and of course the blood. The blood that fills her mouth, that drips from her nose, drop by drop, for fucking Christ WHY is she not moving?! My retina can only see red, this horrible viscous colour which has nothing to do out here. I can even feel its metallic taste in my mouth. Time stops. Everything becomes of a precision like white-hot iron branding my memory of the burn of the deepest anxiety imaginable.
Everything turns into a confusion of primal chaos, in a blur that has nothing of artistic, which smears all the sharpest details.
That big moron who tripped her, like that, just for fun, what colour was his t-shirt?... Yellow? Green?... This seagull cry piercing the sudden silence, tearing my soul, will I ever forget it? Why doesn't it shut the fuck up that stupid bird?! Down here, my world's falling apart.
 
Everyone rushes, nobody talks, except the idiot babbling unintelligible excuses like: “it was just a joke...” I can't even bring myself to be angry with that twat, she is alive and I thought I'd lost her, I don't care, he is nothing to me... and at that precise moment he's just a remote satellite in my reality.
She has no reaction... oh good lord. My knowledge of first aid flies away, my insides go hollow, my eyes overflow. Her mouth is open, there is blood everywhere now ; her eyes are open too, glassy, distant ... she's gone. She has the face of Death. I can't stand my crying any longer, my heart in my throat is about to explode. How horrible is that obscene and uncontrollable selfishness of those times of unbearable pain? I don't want to live without you.
God, don't leave me alone. Stay with me, me, ME...


They always speak of a panic wave. It's stupid. A panic tsunami overwhelms me, I'm shaking, my stomach is but one huge cramp, I am a torrent of tears. I vaguely hear that someone called an ambulance, I think... I stroke her hair, holding her head. Someone is trying to calm me down. He takes care of her too, he tells me that it's going to be al'right, those silly little words that we always repeat in such circumstances, void of sense, hollow. Everything is hollow without her... I don't even know if she's breathing? I don't any more. I don't know if her heart is still beating? Mine has stopped.
Ten intolerable minutes. We talk to her constantly now. Ten interminable minutes...
Her eyes close and then open slowly. After a little while, she regains a bit consciousness, says her name, pronounces mine. A landslide of relief almost crushes me with happiness. Nothing can stop my tears any more. And finally the ambulance arrives.
 
She walks to the door, I support her. At the hospital, they make me wait in an anonymous room where the tired seats have probably never seen better days, just the time to examine her. The apprehension suffocates me.
We fill in the few compulsory forms common to all the hospitals in the world and after two or three hours, I drive her to her mums, close to our home.
She's still in shock, we need to monitor her for the next two days, in case of trauma, but other than that, it's fine.
I'm still in shock, it will last more than two days I think, but other than that, it's fine. She is alive.




Whilst organising our wedding, we re-contact many friends who we have more or less lost sight of. It had been three days that one of them was trying to contact us. So I take advantage of Geinor getting some sleep front of the fire to call her on her mobile. She is an actress, has a lot of talent, my age and I like her a lot.

"- Hello sweetie.
- Oh Jeffw! So how is it going in your whales country?
- Well, it could be better. Geinor just had an accident, we just returned from the hospital. I was very scared...
- Shit... Nothing serious?
- No. No, it should be fine. Thanks.
- So... nobody told you then?...
- No, what? "
And then she tells me that a year ago to the day, on the 20^th of May, her beloved Maxim, the man of her life, had a serious car crash... I'm speechless.

He died on a first of June. Yet, it was such a nice day that day...