Beneath The Orange Sunset ✔️

Thirty Nine

A miss is as good as a mile

~39~

Casa doncella de hierro
Longueville Provins

Darkness enveloped the skies much sooner than expected. The night was disturbed by irritating noises of night creatures - frogs mating, birds crowing - and it irritated the man.

Each day's activities had almost turned into a routine. He didn't need the clock to tell him what time it was. If he wasn't mistaken it's been a year and three months since the accident.

After two brain surgeries and a spinal rejuvenation correction he regained life in his upper body - good news. Left with a partial memory loss and a weak limb, the bad news was that he will be stuck in a wheel chair forever.

He was lucky to be alive.

A good samaritan took total responsibility of making sure he survived the ordeal. Thanks to his partial memory loss, he couldn't remember ever meeting the man who had insisted he was a friend of the family.

The only souvenir he had with him - a constant reminder - were two smart phones whose screens were shattered. They were picked up from the scene of the accident and mysteriously sent to him. He had no recollection of ever possessing either of them or who the owners might be. He feared to get them repaired or replaced. He never could tell what awaited him from the past.

Rather he wasn't ready...

The corridors in Casa doncella de hierro, an average guest house located south of Provins, beamed to life when the central power source was activated. The hidden guest house was under managed. They conserved electricity through solar panels during day and made use of it at night. It wasn't the best in terms of comfortability but the man loved it all the same.

His room was dark except for a small rechargeable white lamp that illuminated the reading table. There was a double bonker bed beside the wall.

What hotel uses bonkers for bed? The man often smiled when he thought about it.

A small television hung on the wall opposite his bed was switched off. He barely watched it. His few clothing was neatly hung in the open walled wardrobe. The room was spacious enough to accommodate three other bonk beds. A large glass window on the left accentuated the petty design of the room.

This good Samaritan guy have been patient and kind. After he was discharged from a private hospital, he was moved to a hotel.

'It's for your safety.' The man had said. He was protecting me from something... someone. But why? And who?

One time he tried to strike a conversation with his nurse. He'd asked if she knew anything about this good Samaritan guy?

'Oh Mr Sebastian. He is a lawyer. Works in a big firm.'

She had given a smart answer in a professional way.

Yes she... What was her name again?

'You don't have to think about such things sir. Think of the present.'

She'd always say before she left for the day.

Think about the present.

The man wheeled his chair towards his writing table and read the last story he had written. He felt proud of his new found talent.

He was never a writer to the best of his knowledge but he found writing quite therapeutic. Last week, he had written a short story about a woman and her little daughter who found diamonds in the ocean. This week he wrote about a little boy who lost his brother in an accident but still sees his ghost.

Today, he was writing about another boy in his teens whose father left home and never came back It was going to be an adventure story since his father left clues before his disappearance. He called the boy Max.

Max

He didn't know why but the name sounded strangely familiar.