All the Time in the World (English)

Chapter 3 - Live

Jack Robinson, the kind doctor who had helped him in the castle's dungeons, looked at Guy and he put his hand on his shoulder, reassuringly.
"This examination may be a bit unpleasant, but you don't have to worry about it: it's not painful and we need it to see if your head has been damaged when you've been injured."
Guy frowned.
"I was hit in my belly, not my head."
"Your heart has stopped and for a while you didn't breathe, we need to check if the lack of oxygen, of air, has left any consequences."
"Did I die? If my heart has stopped, it means I've died."
The doctor tightened a little the hold of his hand on his shoulder, with a little smile.
"You seem quite alive to me, I have never heard such a talkative corpse."
Guy sighed.
"But if I'm alive, what happened to the world?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's all so different. There is nothing familiar anymore, and there are so many things I can't even comprehend... Did I become mad, or it's everything else that has changed?"
"The examination we are going to do will help us to understand it. Come on, lie on the table of the scanner."
A nurse approached, but the doctor motioned for him not to come near and he himself supported Guy, helping him to get up from the stretcher. He helped him to walk to the table of the magnetic resonance scanner and to lie down again.
Gisborne closed his eyes and took slow, deep breaths.
"Is everything alright?" The doctor asked, and Guy opened his eyes.
"I walked only for a few steps, yet I feel exhausted and dizzy..."
"You've been in bed since you've been wounded, you still have to get back your strength. Do you feel well enough to start the examination?"
"What... what should I do?"
"You just have to stay still. Before we begin, I will immobilize your body so that you can't move, then the table will enter inside that tube and you will hear strange noises. You will hear my voice and I will tell you when to breathe and when you will have to hold your breath. Do you think you can do it?"
"Will I feel pain?"
"No. Only unusual sounds. Some people can't stand the idea of being in such a restricted space."
"Can I close my eyes?"
"Sure. And I'll put in your hand a button similar to the one that you have on your bed to call the nurses. If you should feel that you can't go on, just push it and we'll stop everything. So, do you think you can do it? Can we start?"
Guy nodded.
A little later he was staying still, with his eyes closed, listening to the bizarre sounds produced by that device.
"All right, Guy?" Dr. Robinson's voice asked, and Gisborne wondered why the man was so worried.
Ever since he had woken up in that incomprehensible place that they called 'hospital', that device, which just made strange noises, was perhaps the least threatening thing he had to deal with.
He had to do nothing but obey the doctor's instructions, and that was something that had always been easy for him, for better or worse. Obeying to someone else's orders made everything easier and, unlike what happened with Vaisey, to lie on that table and to hold his breath when he was told to do so, couldn't hurt anyone.
The only unpleasant feeling was to be immobilized, but in any case it wasn't too important because he wouldn't have the strength to move anyways.

Alicia Little was standing in the corridor, when Jack Robinson came out of the elevator. The woman glanced at the stretcher that was pushed down the corridor by a nurse: their mysterious patient had his eyes closed and he didn't move.
Alicia turned to look at her colleague.
"Is he alright? What happened to him? Was he too agitated and you had to sedate him to do the MRI?"
Jack shook his head, vaguely amused.
"No, indeed... He fell asleep during the magnetic resonance and he didn't even wake up when we moved him back to the stretcher."
"He must have been tired. He always looks so terrified of anything... I wonder what really happened to him."
"We all wonder. Yesterday a policeman came to talk to him and to ask who had hurt him."
"Did he repeat the same story he told us?"
"In the least detail. He says he was hit with a sword by the sheriff of Nottingham while trying to save Robin Hood, and that he was stabbed in the back by a certain Isabella, who seems to be his sister..."
"Did the magnetic resonance reveal brain damage?"
"I sent it to neurology department to be examined in every detail, but from what I could see, it seemed perfectly normal."
"Was it the trauma to upset him so much, then?"
"Maybe, but we must also consider the hypothesis that he was like that even before being injured. Have you seen the clothes he was wearing when we found him?"
"No."
Jack nodded to invite her to follow him.
"Come."
She took her to one of the cabinets where the personal effects of the patients were kept, and extracted a plastic envelope. The doctor pulled out a leather jacket, torn and stained with blood, and placed it on a table.
The doctor gave him a perplexed look.
"Shouldn't it have been given to the police? That poor man has been hurt, it's a proof!"
"His clothes were on the helicopter, and one of the cleaners had put them together with the waste to be disposed of. We only found them out this morning, after the policeman had left. Tomorrow they will send someone to get them, but in the meantime look at them."
The woman passed her finger on the carved leather and on the shiny buckles.
"Apart from the cuts and the blood, they seem to be of excellent quality: the leather is finely worked and they are robust and well-finished clothes, certainly not a Halloween costume."
"You're right. And it seems to me that every garment has been sewn by hand, there are no manufacturer's labels or logos."
Alicia nodded, looking at those unusual clothes.
"He could belong to one of those historical re-enactments groups. I know they take a lot of care in making their costumes similar to the original ones... Maybe the incident happened during one of those re-enactments."
Jack looked at her, surprised.
"Actually, it could be possible. A simulated combat that went wrong, and the others ran away abandoning their wounded friend, while the trauma made him to mix up fiction and reality. He must have believed that he was the character he played, I think I heard that sometimes it can happen. I'll have to point out this hypothesis to the policeman who will come to pick up the clothes tomorrow."
Alicia Little sighed.
"If we could contact his family, it would be easier to help him. I don't think I've ever seen someone so lost, in my life..."

Sherwood's forest was fresh and full of shadows, and Guy followed the path through the trees at a fast pace, almost running.
Once, the forest was a hostile place, the shelter of the outlaws whom he couldn't capture, a dangerous place, but now it almost seemed to Guy as if he was back home.
The thick, wild trees were something familiar, something he could understand, so different from the white, nightmarish place where he had woken up.
He saw Robin's familiar figure amidst the trees and he ran after him without even pausing to think.
When he reached Robin, he clutched him in a fraternal embrace, clinging to him with relief.
"Hood, I didn't think I could ever be so happy to see you again!"
Robin stepped away from him with an ironic smile, and raised his eyebrows, pretending to be amazed.
"What's up, Gisborne? Aren't you happy to be the only one still alive?"
Guy winced in hearing those words, and Robin spoke in a sad tone.
"The poison you gave to Isabella was even too effective. I didn't live to see the sunset."
"No!" Guy cried out, in horror, and Robin looked at him with compassion.
"No grudge, my friend. Some regrets, maybe, but I'm in peace. And I'm not alone."
"She... She is with you."
"Yes. She forgave you, she asked me to tell you."
Guy fell on his knees and covered his face with his hands. Robin, standing beside him, put a hand on his back.
"Let me come with you," Guy begged him. "I won't talk to her, I won't even look at her, but let me stay at the camp with you. Give me just a corner beside the fire, but allow me to stay there!"
Robin crouched to look at his face and his expression was kind.
"We'd love it, you know? All of us. But this is not your place, Gisborne. Not anymore. You are alive, and we are not.
Robin stood up and Guy imitated him, grabbing his arms to stop him.
"No! Don't leave! Please! Don't leave me in this terrible place!"
"Terrible, or just different, Guy?"
Robin's body began to change and wrinkle like a dry leaf, until it shrunk into a fragile skeleton that crumbled into dust between Guy's fingers.
Gisborne opened his hand to look at what was left of him, and a gust wind dispersed even that last pile of dust.
Nothing remained of Robin Hood but the echo of his voice in the forest, repeating a single word: "Live."

Guy opened his eyes with a start and he found himself in tears, seeing again the scary and incomprehensible place where his life had been restored.
"Robin..." He whispered slowly, turning on one side to bury his face into the pillow and hide those shameful tears.
He was alone, desperately alone, but he had been offered an opportunity that none of the others had, a second life, perhaps undeserved, but that didn't have to be wasted.
His situation could be scary, but he couldn't surrender. Even though it was difficult, he would have to adapt to that place, to try to learn the things he didn't know, and to honor the memory of the people he loved, continuing to live for them as well.
He would do it, he promised to himself.
Later.
Now he only felt the uncontrolled and desperate need to cry, and he did so, suffocating every sound in the pillow so that nobody could hear.