Dark Dream

Dark Dreams, Part 10: A Meeting of Minds

Charley tried to call a cab while sitting next to his bed, 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.

As he made his way out, no one on the ward stopped him — there wasn't a nurse in sight. There were a few sleeping patients, and the constant beep of hospital equipment that could drive you mad — but otherwise, all was still on Charley's ward tonight.

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 post's 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," he 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. Charley took in the slim (some would say thin) figure and he tried to look past the darkness that shrouded him.

Charley 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 Charley's free hand.

Charley 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 light them up.

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

"Thanks," he 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 Charley a roll-up.

Charley 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. Charley only saw him pause once before licking the gummed area of the paper, as if giving him the option to do this for himself.

Charley 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.