He was back in the bed, back in the bedroom.
It wasn’t hot and steamy and there wasn’t so much noise or people
coming and going. It was a pleasant place to be.
And he didn’t feel bad.
He was propped up on pillows, his hands folded across his chest
(that was a tiny bit unnerving) He was breathing easily and nothing hurt
especially.
He opened his eyes. The room was filled with muted sunshine pouring
through the large window facing east. Muted because the sun was overhead.
He’d built in that window to watch the sunrises over the mountains and
across the lake. The time and trouble he’d had installing all those panes of glass!
It had been such detailed work, but he had never been sorry about the time and money spent.
It was a perfect way to start the day, especially in the Dark Time
that was winter.
There were a couple of children playing some game on the floor. Marbles
maybe. Young, still wearing baby gowns. Couldn’t tell if they were boy or girl
or both.
Right now he couldn’t recognize if they were his children, or his grandchildren, or
maybe one of each.
Closer to, beside the bed, a tall young man with dark almost curly hair was
stretched out with his feet propped up on a second chair. He was dressed in a fancy
suit. A party suit, not a funeral or church suit. Wouldn’t be suitable for a business
meeting, either.
For a moment, he was puzzled that there was only one of the fancily dressed
young man there. Then he remembered that that was an okay thought, because
there really were two of him. His identical brother had been growing a beard the last he
remembered. (He wondered how that looked.)
The fancily dressed young man had a baby on his lap, a small one. An infant.
He wondered distantly who had been expecting before he went running through
that fog curtain.
The young man was talking to the baby, in a cheerful soothing voice,
threatening it with all sorts of dire consequences if it dribbled anything, from either
end, of any color or texture, even see-through, on his suit, which had been
ridiculously expensive and he’d probably never get another one like that.
The baby gurgled and waved its hands, which were mittened.
The young man laughed back and continued making threats in a light tone
in his pleasant voice. He was now telling the infant about his adventures and
strategies that had got him his suit, which Pops insisted was a ridiculous expense.
How he’d like to continue that debate, hopefully with a lot less temper.
Not, the man in the bed noted, to not have argued about it at all. That was
honest, anyway. Funny how the young made such a fuss over clothes. He’d never
done that.
In fact, until he married, he had been satisfied with off-the-shelf clothes that had
never fit properly. They were good enough.
“You’d think,” the young man informed the infant, “that Pops never had
tailored clothes in his life. That’s probably why he doesn’t know it's worth the price.”
The man in the bed raised a hand. “Jamie-my-son,” he said, and was pleased
at the sound of his voice. It didn’t shake, it wasn’t a whisper, and it wasn’t shrill.
The younger man turned and stared at him, his light blue eyes opening wide.
“Pops? Are you AWAKE?”
“Don’t call me Pops.”
The younger man leaned forward and pushed a button that had been wired
into the bedpost. It created a loud buzz outside of the room.
“You couldn’t wait til I was dead to bring in your electricity?”
“Oh, you were dead. You’ve died a few times, Pops. Last week or so, you’ve
been – mostly asleep.”
The room was suddenly crowded with people, and they made a heck of
a lot of noise.
Too much noise, really. He closed his eyes while his son tried to explain what
had happened to the multiple family members who had come running when the
buzzer sounded.
“Don’t call me Pops,” he said again, closing his eyes.
The room erupted in laughter and cheerful, joking talk as he drifted back into
silence.
