Writer in the Dark

8 Spring, Year 1

Tomorrow morning comes with a whimper and the color of faintly milky coffee. Soft brown eyes stare inquisitively down at me, though not yet meeting my gaze. They shift to look at what seems to be the blurry form of a clipboard. The quiet but familiar sound of a pen scraping against paper reaches my ears, sending an ache to spasm out across my temples like the ripples of a stone thrown violently into a pond.

Oh, dear Yoba, what had become of me? A night spent ravaging my fragile human body at the saloon? The pounding in my skull brings to mind days woken up with the same pain; a hangover, those which affect me more harshly than they do most, what with my usually rather fragile constitution. At least, it's fragile after drinking my weight in ale.

This flow of thought merely aggravates my aching skull and I grit my teeth, now focusing with all my mental power on overcoming the flashes of light and shadow marring my sight. But even through the feather-light orbs, I could see my darling friend Harvey, eyes trained on the spot where my heart beats unevenly in my chest. A cold rush of air alerts me to the fact that I am, indeed, in a very immodest position, with several tape-like objects stuck to the white flesh of my abdomen and wires protruding from each fastened square. I think perhaps they are monitoring my heartbeat, as Harvey seems to be doing on his own at the moment. As I watch, he scribbles a number or such down on his clipboard with a studious nod, as though he is merely a student in a lecture hall, not a man with a town full of lives in his hands.

"Hello," I force out of my lungs. They ache in response as though they stir now from slumber for this sudden usage, and it occurs to me to be concerned as to how much damage I had incurred during whatever had gone down during the night. Whatever had happened to cast me awash in a morning sea of confusion on pain, moored on a glorified gurney, had obviously mistreated me so that I am in such a state to be hospitalized. The aches and pains prove such a hypothesis.

Of course, there's no response from my beloved physician friend, but then again, he often can be caught dreaming at the best of times. I have no desire to blame him for this, either; the youth--though I use this phrase liberally with him at this point in his life--of Pelican Town are almost universally a group of people with dreams.

Harvey continues to scribble away furiously at the paper clipped to his board, and my crusty eyes turn back to the ceiling as I wait for my lungs to once more tolerate more than the shallowest of breaths. Patterns make their way to my gaze, new constellations in the pores of the ceiling panels. The thought of stars reminds me of Haley, and my dulled mind wanders briefly to question the presence or absence of my friend. If she is here, what condition does she lay in? If she is not here, then why not? Whatever had happened last night, and I have no clue what that might be, had she suffered some fate so horrible as to not have made it to the hospital? Or was she in such a fine state that she had been simply allowed to go home?

This thought troubled my broken mind the most. Had Haley survived whatever had happened in good enough health to be let go, wouldn't she be at my bedside, worried for me? Waiting for me to wake up? I certainly would do the same for her. My heart gives a twinge of pain at the thought, and I turn my head weakly once more to survey the room. Perhaps she is just in a bed somewhere else, hanging on to dear life.

But with this head-turning comes returned focus on Harvey, and I ready myself to speak once more to him.

"Hello, Harvey."

Harvey instantly becomes a blur of half-finished thoughts and quarter-finished gestures, jerking first downward to grab his fallen clipboard. "Sure glad that wasn't my mug--oh, Elliott!" Partially through his journey to the floor, he jolts back upright and reaches out toward, me, eyes wide and mouth hanging halfway open. "You're alive! Awake! Come here!"