by M. J. Logue
Russell had no idea where he was, and he lay in the dark feeling very odd indeed – knowing this house, and yet not knowing if it was real, or how he might have come there.
If it was some fiction of a disordered brain, that in his head he had returned to the one place where he had been happy and useful –
He did not think he was lying dead in a ditch. His feet were warm, and he could hear the weather outside rattling on the windows and the roof-tiles, and whining in the chimney behind his head.
(The window still thumped in its casement when the wind took it, and surely that meant this could not be illusion, for when he had dreamed of this place – of clean linen, and laughter, and peace, and kindness – he did not remember a loose window, and yet now that he heard it, he recalled it -)
If he was lying dead in a ditch, it was a good ditch to be in.
He did not know where he was, and his aching, over-strained body did not care. Tired of the long, cramped days that were his bread and butter, now: of hunching twisted over ill-written papers in a chair made for someone six inches shorter, of creeping headaches in dim, stuffy rooms, parsing other men’s scrawls.
He knew this place, for it was where he went to in his head, while his body knew no other freedom. And he was afraid to open his eyes, lest it be a dream in truth, and he find himself again surrounded by leering, cruel faces and mockery disguised as humour, and a long, unending loneliness.
He tried to be afraid, rather, but he was past the worst of the fever and he was limp and weary with the utter exhaustion of healing. His toes twitched, feebly, against the delicious heat of his warm sheets. (Warm, smooth, clean sheets that smelt of sweet herbs and fresh air.)
Blankets. The bed was piled high with blankets, and he was melting by slow fractions, the ache in his bones dissolving away to a lovely leaden lassitude.
Rain. Sleet? Pelting the window like shot, while that whining bitter wind fingered the loose casement. And it was outside, that was the blessed relief of it, it was outside, and he was inside, safe, while the world scrabbled at the windows outside trying to get in at him.
Through his lashes, the flame of the tiny night-light floating in a dish on the press beside his head shimmered. Darkened. Shimmered again - wake, Russell, you must not sleep, you must not drop your guard even for a heartbeat, open your eyes -
Darkened again.
And he was gone.