For brooke9000. Still a little rough.
Brennan woke up in silent agony. The strong nausea pinned him to his bed as effectively as any wrestler, and terror dulled his wits so he couldn’t gather voice to scream. He dreamed that he was back on the battlefield, watching the demonic Heshan raise his bloody axe overhead. Brennan lay motionless as he had in real life, pinned beneath the corpse of a comrade with his lower leg exposed. The murderous Heshan had looked at Brennan’s leg like a starving man viewing the choicest steak, and Brennan screamed as his real and phantom pains merged in singular agony, then passed out.
Cold water on Brennan’s face woke him up the second time. He gasped like a fish out of water as the cool cloth stroked his burning forehead. As soon as Brennan thought he could do so without unpleasant consequences, he opened his eyes. Brother Numra was standing over him. Brennan closed his eyes and gave way to the eddy of pain. He had stopped looking for ways to dissipate his pain a long time ago. It was his pain alone to bear, his undertow of pain that dragged him to hell.
The third time Brennan woke up, sunlight was streaming through the window at the head of his bed. He had survived another night.
Brennan wished he hadn’t.
The monks had stopped his suicide attempts when his body could not take it anymore, could he persuade them to let him die if his soul could not bear it no longer? Would they condemn him endure the unendurable every day?
Someone in the infirmary sneezed. In another lifetime, Brennan might have been curious about who the person was, but he no longer had the energy for curiosity. He lay there in limbo until Brother Numra came to check on him.
“How are you feeling?” He asked. Brennan grunted an affirmative.
“Good. I brought you some breakfast.” Brennan supposed the oatmeal Brother Numra spoon-fed him might have had a taste, but all Brennan could sense was heat.
“We have another patient here today.” Brother Numra said pleasantly, as if Brennan were a child. “I’d like for you to talk to him. It will be good for you both.”
Brennan wasn’t sure what to think about that. He had lived in his own mind for so long that he had forgotten that other people existed beyond the infirmary walls. Who would he talk to? Another monk? One of the orphans the monks took care of?
Brother Numra pulled a small stool over to Brennan’s bedside. Brennan gathered the energy to move his head to look at his conversation partner, a small boy with a runny nose and a blanket wrapped around him.
“Hi.” The boy said. Brennan grunted a hello.
“I had the flu, but it’s almost gone.” Brennan made another grunt.
“Are you going to talk to me?” The boy asked. He glanced at Brother Numra.
“Don’t be too demanding of him. He’s very ill.” Brother Numra said to the boy before departing to perform his other monkly duties.
“What are you sick from?” The boy asked.
“I don’t know.” Brennan said. Was that rough, husky sound his voice? When was the last time he had used it? Brennan cleared his throat, ignoring the pain that produced.
“How do you not know what you’re sick from?” Brennan’s immediate thoughts to that were ‘I don’t know’, but he waited until something a little more intelligent came to mind before speaking.
“When you go to a lot of doctors and they don’t know what’s wrong with you.” There. That was an acceptable answer, wasn’t it?
“Oh.” The boy said. The silence lagged. Brennan tried to remember what adults had said to him when he was that age, but only recalled that it was terribly uninteresting to him at the time.
“What do you want to do when you’re better?” Brennan asked.
“Build a snowman!” The boy said excitedly. A snowman? It was Brennan’s third winter at the monastery?
“What do want to do when you get better?” The boy asked politely. It was as if for a minute the earth stopped rotating. What did he want to do when he got better? He had never thought of that. It seemed a foolish question to ask when you know that you’re not going to get better. Brennan decided to tell the boy so.
“Why aren’t you going to get better?” Did all children ask this many questions? This boy was taxing Brennan’s strength with inane questions.
“Because I’m not. You see this leg?” Brennan said, pointing at the stump of a leg. “And that isn’t even the real problem! But neither one will get better!” Brennan snapped. The child’s face crumpled. For a minute, Brennan thought that the boy was going to cry, but he moved from the stool back to his cot, leaving Brennan to his previous state of existence.
What did he want to do when he got better? The question popped into his head like a heated kernel. Brennan pushed the thought away. This was the most mental stimulation Brennan had received in three years, sleep overtook him as his brain tried to process it all.
~~~
Brennan gazed out of his window. A blanket of snow dusted the courtyard. Not near enough for a snow fort or something of the like, but more snow was falling. The orphans were gamboling in the snow, throwing it at each other and slipping on the flagstones. Off in a corner, a boy was trying to make a snowman. A snowman? That boy from the infirmary? Brennan gave a small chuckle. What did he want to do when he got better?
Brennan eyed a set of crutches propped against the far wall. No, it was too dangerous. Even thought the outbreaks had been receded, he was still weak. Yet the crutches still sang their sweet siren song.
“No, you can’t do this.” He said aloud, as if when spoken the words had more meaning. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. Yet some perverse streak in him took hold, and before Brennan had time to comprehend what he was doing he was walking towards the crutches, hand against the wall for support. No. He couldn’t do this. He was still too weak. Even with the crutches in his hands, his mind sang the same defeatist tune.
Brennan almost walked right out of the monastery doors before Brother Numra caught him.
“What are you doing? You’re too weak, you’ll slip!” He said, grabbing Brennan’s forearm. Brennan jerked away. He was not too weak! He could do whatever the hell he felt like doing! Strange, those words had never really irked them when he was saying them, but h when Brother Numra uttered them they bothered him to the core.
Brennan pushed the doors open and surveyed his new battlefield, flagstones slick with wet snow. He placed a crutch tentatively on the rock, and then put his full weight on it. The crutch lost purchase on the snow and slid out from under him. Brennan fell on his butt on the snow.
He realized something, sitting there with the seat of his pants soaking. The cool air burned his lungs as he took in several gulps and the noise of children screaming was as natural as the sound of waves on a beach. Underneath those superficial sensations, Brennan could feel Brother Numra. He could feel the monk’s expectations that he wouldn’t get up, that he was too weak. When he peeled that layer of awareness off, he was sensing himself. The turmoil that was Brennan roiled in his psyche, the leftover feelings from his illness. The anger, the remorse, the why-me feeling of victimization, and the despair all rose up and overwhelmed Brennan, and he felt his throat tighten and his eyes moisten.
The coolness of the tears freezing on his face mixed with the heat of the last emotion that poured from Brennan’s soul, like the butterfly fluttering from Pandora’s Box: hope. It had beat its fragile self against the cage of oppressing emotions long enough that it had been set free, and Brennan felt the soaring elation of epiphany.
He was not defined by disease. His body may never recover, but his soul didn’t have to share that fate.
When Brennan stood up, his shoulders no longer hunched forward as if carrying a heavy burden. His lips no longer pressed tightly together to keep screams of pain coming from them. He relaxed, his soul scoured clean.
Brennan made it through the crowd of children and to the boy that had spoken to him only weeks before.
“I want to build a snowman.”
~Fin~
