Amidst the Mists 7

He was still in the bed, but sitting up more and better. 

In other words, he was getting bored. 

Tonight, for several rare minutes, he had been alone, while voices and doors

and all the sounds of a full busy household sounded around him.

He watched out his extravagant window as the darkness fell, long and slow,

and the mists gathered off the lake and wandered down from the treetops. Winding,

whirling, dancing. 

He thought of the clean living smell, and wished he was out there once more.

“No, you don’t,” a voice said next to his ear and he looked around but no one

was there.

“You aren’t here, go away,” he said crossly.

“Now how can I go away if I’m not here?”

“I don’t know how you’re here when you aren’t here.”

“Temper, temper.”

“Oh shut up!”

His wife looked into the room. “Do you need something? Are you talking

to me?”

“No. Just – just talking, I guess.”

“My silly man,” she said, came in and kissed him on the forehead and

adjusted the covers around him, like he was one of the children. 

“Don’t,” he ordered, but then caught her hand before she could retreat. 

She waited. 

“Do you s’pose, ” he said hesitantly, “that I could sit in the window?”

“With night coming on? Do you think that’s – safe?”

“If it’s not, I have more work to do on the window. Besides, night air being

sick isn’t true.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah. I do.” He turned her hand over and studied it, then rubbed it softly. 

They were silent together, then she sighed. “Jesse and Jonny

are still here. I’ll send them in to help you.”

“Alright.”

“You have to let go of her hand,” the voice beside him advised him. “She’ll

stand there all night letting you hold her hand.”

He sighed, and let the hand go free.

Amidst the Mists, pt 1 of Part 3

    He was sweating again, and gasping, and he was in a hot place. He

hoped he hadn’t died yet, as that was a bad sign if he was, when

suddenly sound was all around him, as overwhelming as the heat.

       Maybe not though, as the heat felt and smelled steamy rather than ashy.

They probably didn’t have water to make steam in the bad place. Unless

somebody was melting a snowball? (What did that mean?)

    Voices, and people were moving around. A mix of male and female voices,

as well as children’s voices more distant. He knew the voices, and was

satisfied they were NOT dead people, so he must not be either.

That was a good thing. 

Maybe?

    He tried to take in a deep breath, but somehow choked on it,

and, good lord did it hurt! Breathing wasn’t supposed to hurt

living people, although sometimes it did.

If they were sick or something.

He stopped choking and managed a swallow of air that (still) left him panting. 

At the sound of the breath, the voices rose, and congregated closer to him,

speaking quickly to one another and doing things to him, although he was

unsure of what they were doing.

    Whatever it was they were doing, it did ease the squeeze from breathing

and his breaths were not so loud and raspy now.

    The panic over breathing calmed, and he began to make more sense

(if one could call it that) of his situation.  He was lying on his back, propped

up on pillows. He was covered with at least two quilts or blankets. (They weren’t

effective.Despite the hot and humid room, he was cold, cold, cold.) He wished he could put his arms and hands under the covers and pull them up around his neck, if not over his head. 

    He thought the thoughts, but nothing changed. His arms and hands were still

lying beside him on the outside of the covers. How very strange that they weren’t

doing anything. 

He managed one deep breath. That was better. 

    There was a bitter taste in his mouth. Some medicine they had given him?

The taste was familiar, although he couldn’t name it. Probably something he

had given others when his plants and concoctions had been the only

medicines available. 

That was a long time ago. He’d lost interest after Mark was killed, plus they’d

had a doctor by then, for all the good she’d done. 

Aha! That was one of the voices. The lady doctor. She was probably the one

who kept picking up his hand by the wrist and holding it for short minutes

at a time.

“His hands are so cold,” the other female voice said. She was sitting on the

bed (?) next to him, holding his other hand, fingers entwined. 

He liked that. He liked the holding, and he liked that her hands holding his

were warm. Her voice was warm, too, and worried. 

She shouldn’t be worrying about things right now. 

Actually, she shouldn’t be worrying about anything. Didn’t he take care of

everything for her? For her and – and what? Or who?

    He struggled to hold onto the thought, but it slipped away from him,

like the vapors filling the air.