The Shadow

Chapter 11 (Like An Angel Passing Through My Window)

Paul woke up in daze, an hour later. His heartbeat fastened as he realized his surroundings. His body ached when he tried to turn around and check up on his still unconscious father. He stood up in difficulty, telling himself to not sleep on a chair ever again. He groaned as his muscles stretched after two hours of curling up like a ball, on the uncomfortable seat.

He noticed a folded paper landing on the floor when he sat up, and kneeled down to collect it. He furrowed his eyebrows, not remembering having seen that paper before. He unfolded it. There was a text on it, probably a message, and damn it if even understood a single word. Not even a doctor could have such bad handwriting. All of a sudden he smiled brightly when he remembered having seen such again scattered around on another paper, that night in the park.

"Fucking Lennon." he laughed under his breath and tried to figure out what the letter was about. First he realized the name written in crappy letters in the end of the paper. 'J. W. Lennon' and then, with a little fantasy of course, his own name in the beginning. It was something like 'Paul' or maybe 'Paulie' .

'Helpful enough McCartney' spoke a voice in his head, making Paul squint his eyes as if that would help in any way. He felt like an archeologist trying to figure out Egyptian characters or ancient Greek and he now felt pity for them. For sure they used a lot of effort and fantasy as well.

'Meet me at St John's Cathedral at...' Paul could not guess anything about the next word, because he only guessed at the moment. He tried figure out any letter or even think like John would. 'moon', 'room', 'loo', everything seemed to fit. He moaned in displeasure of the situation. Anything with double o's could fit as a word. For all he knew, this could even be numbers, for instance. Like, 'meet me at this date, this hour?' something about time. He reread the sentence becoming desperate with each minute passing by. He almost slapped himself for not thinking it earlier. Bloody 'noon'.

"Alright Johnny boy. At noon it is."

***

Paul waves his hand at the man sitting on the bench, right where they were supposed to meet, behind the cathedral. He approached him while exhaling in the cold making due to the moisture look like smoking out of his mouth.

"Oi Paul." John didn't look up at all and kept on staring at the ground as if it was far more interesting than Paul himself.

"What's wrong?" Paul frowned confused at what had happened to cause such an attitude from his friend.

"Everything's fine. I don't know what you're talking about."

Paul raised his eyebrows clearly not believing him but eventually gave up as John seemed too determined to keep his mouth shut to press it further.

"What did you want me here for anyway?"

John looked up for the first time, and locked his fiery gaze with Paul's own. "How is your dad's health going?"

"He could have been worse." Paul shrugged earning a sighing of relief from John.

"You know you look tired Paulie." he said concerned. The eye bags had started forming under the youngster's doe hazel eyes. It was obvious he had not slept good for more than one or two days.

"You haven't shut an eye lately, have you?"

"Not really. There are many things going on in my mind. Nevertheless, the voices in my head won't stop hovering and blaming me for everything. It creates a havoc in there. I just can't block them away, like I would do before. It's getting harder."