The Dead and the Broken

Chapter 1 - The Incident

July 8th 2014

Blurry images and torturous sounds of the cardiac monitor connected to his bleeding girlfriend echoes in Jack Dealy's imagination.  Beep... beep... beep. Her weak little heartbeat ringing in his ears. BEEP... BEEP... BEEP.  Why would she do this? BEEP...BEEP... How could she be so selfish? BEEP... Fuck, how am I supposed to get out of this one? BEEP.

"What did I do to deserve this?!" Charlotte screamed across the kitchen, pain pouring out of her trembling voice.  

"You brought this on yourself! This is all your fault," Jack snarled back, anger searing inside him. He stared at her from the living room, itching to lunge himself at her and make the screaming stop. 

"I didn't bring on shit! You always put the blame on me, you never take responsibility for anything you do! I try and try so hard to make you happy and you just throw it in my face, every time!" She became desperate. Desperate for the love he could never give.  

The words of a lost lady replay in his mind, over and over, becoming an earworm rattling his brain. Maybe if he just said the simple word 'sorry' he wouldn't be sitting here in the hospital right now. Maybe if he had at least pretended to listen to her she would have stopped the dramatic screams. Maybe if he hadn't been so surly toward her, she wouldn't have been so angry. Too little too late. He sits up in the uncomfortable plastic chair in the waiting room and rests his heavy head in his hands that had been covered in blood just a couple of hours before. Jack still sees the blood everywhere in his mind. He had washed the real blood off as soon as he got the chance, but the image had stained his eyes, and all he can see is that horrific, bloody scene that had unfolded at his home earlier in the afternoon. 

The silence surrounding him is broken by small clicking sounds of a young boy sitting opposite Jack and he lifts his head and looks at the cause of the annoying rattle. Superman in one hand and Batman in the other, the young boy brings them together and Superman hits Batman, then Batman strikes back in ravage and Superman tumbles. The creative story of heroes being played out in the toddler's mind, free from care, free from poisonous emotions that eventually, later on in this innocent boy's life, he is sure to experience, such as the angst that's consuming Jack currently. The toddler looks up at the pretty woman sitting next to him, presumably his mother, (the only thing that Jack decides determines the difference from possibly being his older sister are the crow's feet printed on the outer corners of her eyes and the sad dark circles underneath, a solid indication of tired mum eyes) with a huge smile on his face, lifting Superman up closer to her face for appraisal. She peers from behind the Good Housekeeping magazine she was buried in and smiles back tiredly at him before returning to her page. She peeks over the top of the magazine at Jack curiously for a second, long enough for Jack to lock his crystal blue eyes with her mysterious brown ones, before hiding herself behind her cleaning tips of the week. She has luscious long locks of dyed dirty blonde hair, strands of her natural brown creeping their way out from her scalp. Thin body, but not too thin, petite enough to fit Jack's fancy. No ring on her left hand displayed clearly in Jack's view. Dressed in washed out blue jeans and a white crop top that showed off a sun kissed midriff and a faint definition of abs. The type of woman, who on any other normal day, Jack would probably have made a pass at, but even the sleazebag inside him decided now is not the appropriate time.  

The near empty waiting room in the hospital holds another grieving soul. An elderly man in the far corner of the brightly lit room flicks through an old newspaper that he had picked from the messy stack on the square wooden table next to him. A look of impatience on his face while he restlessly shakes his left foot hanging over his right. A head full of ashy grey hair, which seems lucky for someone so frail looking, no signs of reseeding, nor thinning. Jack looks at him, wondering what he's waiting for, or who. What possible tragedy he could have experienced the same evening as Jack had experienced his. Surely not the same experience anyway. Jack further scans the room and looks over at the reception to his left, a feeble old woman behind the counter, tip-tapping away at the keyboard to her computer. She had judged him the moment he rushed Charlotte in, cradling her in his bloody arms, just like everyone else had. The couple of nurses walking around the front, attending to their own business had exchanged some judgmental looks and the two men leaving through the same doors had given Jack confused and criticizing glances as Jack cried for help until someone rushed to his aid. Not the woman and son though, she had kept hidden behind the barrier of pages and the boy was oblivious to everything apart from his superheroes battle.