He healed Me

~chapter eighteen~✔️

~chapter eighteen~

When they went in, it was pitch dark outside. Flora had said goodbye earlier and had been asleep for a few hours. Tree women go to bed early, Nic had said. Maybe because of photosynthesis...

Andy was already asleep when Dario put him back in the van. He laid him on the mattress that was unrolled there. Smeared ointment on his hand, on the wound that had closed in the meantime. And left the car again. "Are you sure you want to sleep out here?" Nic asked.

"Yes Yes. It's not the first time." Nic smiled. "You really are my son, aren't you? A real free spirit. Well then, good night."

"Good night."

Nic went to Dario, squeezed his arm again and then went up the iron steps.

"Sorry," he said, turning as he was at the door. "You don't happen to have anything to smoke there?"

"What to smoke?"

"Yeah, something to smoke." Nic put two fingers to his lips in the classic gesture. "Do you happen to have anything?"

Dario shook his head.

"Very good," Nic said. "My son is great. That stuff isn't for kids either." He waved goodbye to him and disappeared into the Delivery truck.

No, weed is not for children. Of course not, dad, it never is.

Dario put his hand in his back pocbeen. Dario put his hand in his back pocket. But here's something, here's something to smoke, hey, you probably wouldn't have expected that, but I always have something with me. Dario fingered the plastic bag that yielded under his fingertips like a creature to be molded in his own image.

And then Dario pictured himself smoking weed in the car with his father, the six-pack of beer and the bowl of wild artichokes on the table. And he felt resentment at the idea of ​​smoking weed with his father, actually smoking weed with someone like Nic in general, whether he was his father or not, because Dario would not have chosen someone like Nic in a million years to to smoke with him.

He spread a blanket on the deck chair and then lay down. closed your eyes You could still hear the seagulls screaming. The clouds had lowered a little. He fell asleep immediately.

Dario was awakened by a noise, a metallic sound, coming from far away in the forest and echoing between the trees.

He looked up at the star-studded sky. The trees around him, motionless and colorless, as if lost in love. That trumpet could be heard intermittently, ragged, erratic notes. Who was that playing the trumpet in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere?

Dario got up, ran across the meadow to the edge of the road. He looked both ways, the little transformer house at the back lay in the dark, the traffic light blinked with one eye in the night. The wind swept across the street in light, prolonged gusts. Now the trumpet could no longer be heard.

He opened his eyes, lay there and listened. It sounded like one Trumpet.

A bird squawked and a car passed the crossroads. Dario turned and started back. Then he heard a sharp braking and a thud. Then silence, in which only the sound of a running engine could be heard. "Hey!" Dario yelled loudly. No Answer. "Are you all right?" Silence. Just the engine idling. Oppressive Darkness.

Dario started running, reached the intersection and ran around the corner down the- There was a car with its taillights on, two red ones down a shaky street.

Points in the midst of the almost black landscape.

"Hey!" he called again.

The car drove off quickly. And disappeared into the night.