“
What’s wrong?” Dr. Jones
asked.
Luke would not stop screaming as he
scratched his face and chest.
The psychiatrist calmly took a needle
and inserted it into Luke’s arms. Luke finally stopped screaming
and fell into a deep slumber.
* * * * *
When Luke awoke, it was pitch black
outside. He felt a little better, but he could still feel the
blotches on his skin.
He climbed out of his hospital bed. He
needed to get out of there. He wanted to get back home.
He passed a mirror, and stripped off
his hospital gown. He stood there stark naked. He needed to see the
extent of the inflammation.
Boils covered every part of his body.
They were on his chest, his arms, his face, his elgs. He turned
around. They were more on his back, his ass, the inside of his
thighs. It was like some parasite had made Luke its permanent
home.
Looking at himself in the mirror, he
thought he looked like a monster from a horror movie. Disgusted at
himself, he shuddered.
After dressing himself in his own
clothes, he looked around to make sure he had not forgotten
anything. His cherry blossom was on the bed, so he picked it up,
and inhaled. It smelled fresh. He did not recall why it was
important, but he knew it represented something very important to
him. Something to do with Alyssa. He could not remember what she
looked like. He could not remember her passions or hobbies. He
could not remember the way she smelled.
He stuffed the flower into his pocket.
All that could be solved later.
He opened the door and peeked into the
hallway. No one was there. He stole into the hallway, turned a
corner, and arrived in the bright lights of the waiting room of the
Emergency Room. The exit was just on the other side of the
ER.
Peeking around the corner, he saw a
single triage nurse sitting at the triage desk. It was not someone
he recognized. Luke strolled past her nonchalantly.
The nurse looked up from her computer,
and smiled. “Are you lost?”
“
No,” Luke said. “Just
visiting.”
The nurses nodded, and returned to her
duties.
Luke breathed a sigh of relief when he
arrived at the exit. The automatic doors slid open and he stepped
into the warm night air.
Then, he heard someone scrambling
behind him. He turned around and saw it was the triagenurse. “Wait!
Stop! Visiting hours were over hours ago. Who are you?”
Luke turned around and sped
away.
Behind him, he heard the nurse scream,
“Security! Security!”
Luke rounded the corner and kept on
running. After a minute had gone by, he looked behind him and saw
no one chasing him. He could not hear the triage nurse’s screams
anymore.
He continued to run, then he hit his
head on something solid.
Recoiling, he rubbed his aching
forehead. He saw that he had run into someone. An old man in rags.
A homeless old man.
“
Watch where you’re going,”
the old man scolded, rubbing his own head.
Looking at the old homeless man, Luke
was reminded of that bum he saw that day a year earlier, the bum to
whom he had given ten dollars. It was even before he had met
Alyssa. It was earlier that day.
The young homeless guy had asked him
whether he would still want to know the love of his life, even if
she ended up breaking his heart the hardest.
And Luke had said no.
And the bum had replied that Luke
should come see him if he needed to.
Luke felt his boils start to flare up.
He scratched them until they bled. He was beginning to look like
someone whose cat had scratched every part of him.
He really needed to see the homeless
guy now.
* * * * *
Chapter 18
Luke wandered around downtown
Vancouver, loitering around the office building where he used to
work. He had not seen a single soul since he had been
there.
Where is that damn bum? He
thought.
Just then, he heard something shuffling
in the alley to his left. He peered into it, but could not see
anything. The orange streetlights did not reach that far
in.
Then he heard the rattling of a
trashcan, so he took his chances and went in.
“
Hello?” he said, his voice
echoing in the alley. He saw someone by the trashcan so he
approached, getting excited.
“
Who are you? Get out of
here!” a voice said. It was a female voice.
Disappointed, Luke backed out of the
alley, apologizing the whole way.
He was about to give up hope when he
noticed someone leaning against the wall of the building on the
other side of the street. He peered into the darkness. Yes, there
was someone over there.
He crossed, not expecting
anything.
“
You’ve come back,” a voice
said.
The streetlight shone on the man by the
wall. The man had brown hair, and bad teeth. It was the homeless
guy Luke had been looking for.
Luke sat down beside the guy. “I’ve
been looking all over for you.”
“
Is this about a
girl?
The
girl that
I mentioned?”
Luke nodded. “Look at me. I’m breaking
out in hives. I don’t want to suffer anymore.” He shook his head,
and felt like crying.
“
Do you remember what I
asked you that day?” The homeless man shifted in his position. “I
asked,
‘How would you feel if the love of
your life gave you the greatest gift, then broke your heart? Would
you still want to know her?’”
Luke nodded.
The homeless scratched his hair
vigorously, as if there were fleas in it. “And you said no, you
would not.”
“
I change my mind. Let me
know her.”
“
It’s not up to me. It’s up
to you.”
Luke raised one eyebrow. “What do you
mean?”
The bum sighed, as though
explaining the basics of addition to a slow student.
“
If the girl is worth it, you would gladly
suffer for her so that you could love her still. I think that’s a
worthy trade, don’t you?”
Luke considered what the guy was
saying.
The homeless young man stared at Luke.
“Are you willing to suffer for your love?
You loved her. She died. Shit happens.
That’s life. You can’t control that. Now, what you can control is
how you deal with it. You can either mope around in your fancy
apartment, or you can do something about it.”
“
What do I do?” Luke asked,
scratching the blotches on his face. The unhygienic bum may have
smelled, but Luke knew that he was the one that was
disgusting.
“
You have to let nature take
its course. Don’t fight it,” the homeless guy replied, staring at
Luke’s boils. “Feel the pain to prove that she meant something to
you. Allow yourself to feel the pain. Let yourself grieve. It’ll
all be worth it. And you’ll be OK. And you’ll learn from it and
feel better.” He pointed to Luke’s boils. “And all that will go
away.”
That was more or less what Mike had
said, thought Luke.
“
But I did grieve,” Luke
protested. “I cried once, that day in the cafeteria. The server saw
me. I never cry.”
The homeless guy was unfazed. “You
cried just that once and you expect to be all better, just like
that?” He snapped his fingers. “It’s a process. You can’t fix it
just by doing one thing once. It takes time. I’m not telling you
something you don’t already know.”
Luke considered the response in
silence.
“
But it hurts,” said Luke.
“It hurts a lot.” He pointed to his face and chest. The blotches on
his body were beginning to itch and burn again.
“
Of course it does,” the
homeless said rather impatiently. “But it’s all worth it, isn’t
it?”
Luke considered what the homeless guy
had said.
He finally understood. It was being hit
in the head by a football. He had finally woken up.
I have to allow myself to
grieve, he thought. Since she died,
I have
seen a psychiatrist, distracted myself with other girls, attempted
suicide, enrolled in painting classes, and almost overdosed on
sleeping pills, all to avoid feeling the pain of losing
her.
I didn’t really allow myself to grieve,
he thought. I just wanted to feel better.
Luke turned to his new
friend
.
He was
glad he had given him ten dollars that day. “How do you know all
this? Are you psychic?”
The homeless guy smirked. “All you need
to know is that I’m a spiritual guy. Your reaction is the typical
reaction of anyone grieving. They only want to feel better, but
they don’t realize that unless they genuinely allow themselves to
feel the pain, they won’t move past it.”
The guy wagged a finger at him. “You
can’t take shortcuts.”
Luke then started chuckling, then
laughing uncontrollably. He laughed like a hyena inhaling laughing
gas.
“
What’s so funny?” the
unkempt man asked.
Luke clutched his sides when his
laughter started hurting his body. He laughed until tears streamed
down his face.
The man looked at him funny, but said
nothing.
Finally, Luke stopped laughing. “All my
life, I was afraid of the pain in relationships, only to find that
feeling pain was the answer.”
The man nodded. “That’s irony for
you.”
Luke got up. “Thank you,” he said to
the young man. He took out a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet
and gave it to him.
The homeless man smiled. “Thanks, I’m
starving.”
Luke turned around and was about to
head home, then paused. “Why did you ask me that question that day?
Did you know this was going to happen?”
The guy shrugged, smiling. “No idea. I
just people interesting questions just for fun. You happened to be
the guy I asked that particular question to that day.”
Luke furrowed his brows, trying to
understand what was said. He gave up after a while.
Spirituality, he thought. I’ll never
understand it.
* * * * *
When Luke got home, he lay down on his
bed with a renewed feeling of resolve. He knew what he had to do
now. He took out the cherry blossom from his pocket and sniffed it
again. It smelled fresh.
He was cradling it in his hands
lovingly when it started to disappear. He set it on his bed, and
went into his bathroom. Now was not the time to worry about
that.
He found a bottle of sleeping pills. He
unscrewed the lid, and took out a pill.
He was about to put it in
his mouth when he frowned, then put the pill back in the bottle,
and threw the bottle of
SleepAid
into the trashcan.
He then stripped and hopped on his
treadmill. He was going to fall asleep the natural way.
Luke ran on the treadmill for a good
forty-five minutes. When he was exhausted, his head hit the pillow
but he found that he could not fall asleep, so he tossed and
turned.
The pain on his body was now cranked up
to the maximum level, but this time, he did not fight it. He
allowed himself to feel the pain of the boils and blotches on his
body. It stung like a thousand bees burying their stingers into his
body, but he did not resist. He simply accepted them. He felt the
itching sensation, which gradually turned into deep
pain.
As he tossed and turned, he winced as
his arm hit the bed sheets, disturbing the boils.
“
Ow!” he said.
He then remembered to permit himself to
feel the pain.
“
Bring it!” he yelled into
the darkness.
The pain started up again, and he
screamed. He screamed so loud that the whole apartment must have
heard.
As he tossed around,
he thought about Alyssa, and how much she loved
him and how much he loved her. He thought about how she had cheered
him up when he was passed over for a promotion, how she had brought
him dinner at the office when he was working late, and how she had
cared for him when he was sick.
Most importantly though, he thought
about their time at Qualicum Beach, when he was on top of the
world. He had had the most beautiful girl in the world with him.
She was telling him that the waves were not noise, but nature’s
music. He remembered falling asleep to the sound of the waves and
to her soft fingers caressing his cheek.
Then, he thought about how excited she
was when she discovered she was pregnant, how she had already begun
choosing the names, and talking to their unborn
children.
Luke thought about the miscarriage,
then the disintegration of their relationship.
Finally, in his mind, he saw the image
of her dead cold corpse in the morgue.