The Gravely Journal

Healy and Me

Being the honest person I am, I won't understate what I did next. I was hungry for Healy and believed he was interested in me. Okay, there is a gap between "hungry" and "interested", but it was a starting point I needed to explore. My mission was to get him out of his clothes as quickly as possible, and rub our bodies together as quickly as possible. If he responded, for example - got a visible erection, that would be good enough for me. Another motivating factor was the dream in which my mother, coffin-bound as she was, told me I would meet my Prince Charming soon, and that, at first, he wouldn't come across like anything special. That description fit Healy. So, what did I have to lose, right?

Being that he was bruised and obviously dazed, I helped Healy up the stairs. He was in no shape for a tour of the premises, so I guided him into the mortuary where I could have a better look at his wounds. His right eye was swollen shut, and, thankfully, I don't think he grasped where he'd ended up. I sat him down on the edge of the steel embalming table. Blood oozed from his mouth onto his white shirt, and he wiped a trickle of it from his chin, looking at the result on his fingertips. He tried to say something but his tongue couldn't form the words.

I asked me if his head ached. He nodded the affirmative. I asked him if he remembered his name. His shoulders shrugged. When asked if he had ringing in his ears and if he was "seeing stars", his face went confused and blank. After a few seconds of thinking, he nodded yes. Healy squinted against the late afternoon sun that beamed through the window. That spoke volumes. His symptoms and responses all pointed to a concussion. I shut the blinds and he stopped squinting.