Dark Dream

10. A Meeting of Minds

Charlie  tried to call a cab but his once familiar mobile felt alien to the touch, as if his fingers had lost all memory. He gave up trying, threw the device on the bed and dressed in what seemed like slow motion. Shooting pains rushed up and down his spine as he gingerly lifted his arms and put a sweater on over his chest and itching back brace.

When he finally rolled out through the whooshing exit, he felt the oppression of the hospital lift around him as the darkness came to greet him. The distant motorway sounded hollow and mechanical but it only drove his senses further as the memory of the creatures made him instinctively reach out to a dusty iron bollard, scratched and picked at by a sea of bored patients. Ignoring its tacky surface, dotted with pink and white chewing gum, the posts cool solidness seemed to ground him and keep him anchored to the earth. While sitting in his chair, his left hand resting on the post, head bowed as if worshipping at some ancient temple, the smell of smoke made him aware that he was not alone and he swivelled his chair to face the figure that stood beside the hospital's sliding doors.

"All right," Charlie  said, feeling foolish at his own surprise but also unsettled by something else which he couldn't put his finger on; something about the man's presence that struck him as strange.

"All-right," the wild haired man echoed. Charlie  took in the slim (some would say thin) figure and he tried to look past the darkness that shrouded him.

Charlie  was going to leave it at that but then he got an inexplicable urge for a cigarette and a chat with another human. "Do you have a spare one?" he said, not expecting much of a reply.

"Sure," said the man as he shifted his weight from the wall he lent on, "as long as you don't mind makin' it yourself?" He rummaged around in his pocket and fished out a heavily worn tobacco tin. "Here. You'll be needin' these, too", he said as he palmed some rolling papers and a lighter into Charlie 's free hand.

Charlie  took the offered items and tried to put them to some use. It had been a long time and it showed. The packet felt greasy and he felt slightly repulsed by it. He doubted the contents to be recycled cigarette butts found on the streets but didn't close his mind to the possibility. He'd seen many a down-and-out fish a stump or two from the street and lit it.

He was in the throes of making what looked like a badly packaged spliff, when the guy said, "Here, I'll make it package. I'll have no tobacco left if I let you make it."

"Thanks," Charlie  said, feeling slightly humbled, "it's been a long time."

"It shows," the man said with a slight smile as he pocketed the lighter and proceeded to make Charlie  a roll-up.

Charlie  looked on and marvelled at the ease of the guy's cigarette-making abilities. It was like watching a magician flip a coin over his knuckles. Using just one hand, his fingers went about their work with a precision and gentleness that seemed surreal only pausing before licking the gummed area of the paper, as if giving him the option to do this for himself. Charlie  shrugged and the stranger sealed the deal, darting his tongue out and licking the gummed paper with an equally practised flourish that was something in itself.

"Here," he said and passed the freshly made cigarette and lighter towards him. Charlie  took them both and managed to light it without too much embarrassment. He suppressed a cough and nearly choked as a result. It reminded him of Drum, a pipe tobacco his grandfather used to smoke. It tasted pretty harsh compared to his usual brand of cigarette.

"You look like a man with things to do and people to see."

Charlie  found himself mildly intrigued by this statement. "No, not really, just glad to get out of there," he said, looking at the bland concrete of the hospital. Hospitals always made him shudder. Their revolving doors ushered people into the world and into the grave, with equal measure and candour.