Misery Ain't So Bad With Company

[Morgan LaLuna]

Morgan arrived at the cottage home still bleeding; he hadn't given the ward time to work. To heal. He trudged across the living room floor careless of the trail of tiny blood spatters he left, and entered his quiet room, already sniffling. He'd learned not to cry in front of everyone. But he knew it didn't mean he wasn't allowed a few frustrated tears. Right? He reached to grasp the corner of the blankets of a well-made bed, all neat and crisp, then tore downward, ruining the clean lines and rumpling covers. Stripping from bloodied clothes, he put his hand on the worst of the wounds, his arm, and muttered an incantation under his breath. The gentle ripple of reddish pink knit the flesh together for the most part, but the wound was deep. Straight to the bone. It would need time.


Slowly, he climbed into the bed, sullying clean sheets with dirt and drying blood, then yanked the covers up over himself, hiding all of him from the world and pulling everything closer until he was a trembling cocoon. Now, he sobbed. At what? All of it. A stone's shadow, pushing a thin blade of fear into his mind without him ever having touched it. An old man somewhere hidden and paying penance. And yet not enough. An unseen threat, recently named, hopefully neutralized, and yet still an unknown. A friend desperate to leave. And the straw. The very one that broke him. Loss, in a very painful way. Perhaps a reminder of humility. He hated that.


His sobs eventually brought him into slumber, blissfully free of dreams. A quiet escape. To his dismay, however, it only served to seemingly bring the waking world back to him that much faster. Still wrapped in his blankets, he stared wordlessly at the wall. Let his eyes trace small patterns and designs. When he was asked if he would be getting up, his response was to grunt and burrow deeper into blankets so his face no longer showed. When he was offered food, he simply replied he was not hungry, for it was truth. His belly was twisted, and his body tired. He turned away, and wept quietly, once more the trembling thing wrapped in numerous blankets.


He laid quietly for some time, refusing to move from this safe and quiet place. He let his phone die, and didn't bother answering those texts and calls that did come through. Messages sent directly went unanswered, as well. In silence he wallowed, until there was a voice. It was not speaking to him. It did not quite drone. It was soft, and calming. All through the very first story, he hid his face and cried silently. Food was set before him, and the first meals sat untouched. Even the smell was unappetizing. Never had he felt so apathetic about tacos.


The second story was not met with tears, but rather a silence. He was listening. He was letting it calm him. He still did not eat, but neither did he recoil from the smell of food. He slept, and he recovered. He listened, he watched fingers turn pages. And again, he slept. Recovered. For the third story, he sat up as soon as he felt the pressure of a body settling in on the bed, heard the crackle of a book's spine opening. Still wrapped, he listened, and watched fingers turn pages so gracefully. Carefully, he picked at the food set before him. He did not eat much, but he managed a bite. Or three.


And then he slept, drifting off somewhere within gentle words from a book. And even more, he recovered. When he awoke again, it was dark. Quiet. He was only awake long enough to know that he was not alone. He didn't know how long it had been. It felt like minutes. It felt like centuries. He shifted closer to that beacon of light, and he slept once more. This time, he dreamt. Such stories played in his mind. Tales of heroism, and love, and loss. Gentle voices and feasts and a moon in a starless void of sky, bright and full. He found he was not sorry to awaken, though he did not want to leave his safe warmth. He needed to recover.


And perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, with patient companionship.