The Request

The Request

It was a beautiful evening, in the world that he saw. He sat atop his lonely hill and looked out over of the rotten expanse but didn't see the blood or the death or ruin, only the twilight and the haze. The world was disintegrating before his very eyes, but slowly, like the breath of a dying man through labored aspiration in the grip of winter. The world soundless, filled only with color now—color that he could feel, velvet color. His body shook, but he felt the warm embrace of the world.

The light waxed, indistinct as the setting sun through a bank of low clouds—dispersed and magnified and indistinct. He followed the light, but a step behind—always now a step behind, the world moving faster than he was anymore. The warmth and the cool of if it drifting through him as he sat, observing the light of that dying day.

And then she appeared, that woman tall and lithe and the embodiment of all that he found beautiful in the fleeting world that he remembered; but here she was now, in the world that he saw. Like and angel stepping through the vapid boundary of this dream—and the evening was alive now, bursting with light and he forgot the chill of it all trickling away invisibly where he sat—the life of him and the pride, too. His hand grasped vainly for the lance that he was sure stood nearby and ready—ready to slay the beast of his fancy, all for her. Always for her.

'You're looking awfully pale today, Mr. Jergens,' he heard, like some lilting song through the warped annals of his memory. Mr. Jergens? Who was that?

Oh, but it is me, he remembers—remembering only that the name is his, but nothing else about it. He grasps for the lance again, wanting her to know it is there—that he is there, and for her. I am Jergens, he reminds himself, and I am a knight.

'How are you feeling today, Mr. Jergens?' she asks, sitting beside him on the bend in the park in full view of the hospital, the sun shining down on them both and warming them. He sees her through the haze of his altered world, the white of her scrubs like snowy linen and the hat on her head like a wreathed diadem to adorn her auburn crown. The light surrounded her, burst from her. Her words were lost on him.

'May I...' he reaches out toward her, in the same way that he reached toward his lance before. His fingers groping, his eyes wide and dull, vacant.

She recoils—his leering glance unnerves her as always it has, and she fights to maintain the smile that she must wear as if it is part of her uniform, too. She moves away from him, clipboard in hand, as he continues to reach toward her with unruly, unsightly desire. His eyes vacant and dull, like two slumbering galaxies.

'You're sprightly today, Mr. Jergens,' she says, laughing. Rising and brushing her skirt—him grasping still toward the place where she had been. 'I think you'll be just fine.' And she walks away, a little too briskly perhaps, but she knows he won't notice or care. As the doors open and she waits for the doctor to exit, she glances over her should; he is grasping still. She wonders if he even knows she has gone.

In the glowering shadow that has taken her place, he sees the fiery embers stretch wide and he grasps for his lance—desperate now, the toll of his aged heart sounding wildly against the frail cage of his surgically repaired chest. It is threatening to break free--but the greater threat is the monster that has taken her place. He feels the coolness seeping out of him now, like a breeze blowing against his back; but he steels himself against it, determined now to slay the monster that has been haunting his dreams of late—the same monster that would take her from him forever. The glory of her remains, her warmth the only that he can recall now—but it is fading too, rapidly, and he feels the darkness surrounding.

The two glowing embers stretch out of that darkness and burn, they want what remains of him—they are hungry for him. From the darkness that surrounds he sees or thinks that he can see the great maw of some fiery beast stretch wide, its teeth sharp and burning and wanting him. He grasps for his lance, but it is out of reach now. It is nowhere to be found.

'He asked for you specifically, you know,' the nurse said when she returned to the station. She could still see him on the bench, sitting, his hand limp now on the bench seat beside him, his eyes wide as if looking into some faraway landscape that nobody else would know.

'Mr. Jergens?' she asked.

'Yes,' said the nurse, 'that funny old man. I don't know what he wanted you for because you never even tended to him, did you? But maybe he saw you in the halls, or maybe you tended to somebody he shared rooms with. Somehow he knew who you were. He wanted to see the moon one more time, that's what he said. Funny, isn't it?'

Twenty minutes passed, and when Mr. Jergens did not show any sign of movement, the nurse went out to check on him. He was dead.