Beautiful Dawn

Beautiful Dawn.

I’m sitting next to you. I’m sitting next to you, staring at your perfect face, although it is a little bloody now. I lean back into the uncomfortable hospital chair and allow my eyes to trail over your profile. I note the break in your nose and the swelling in your usually soft lips. The lips catch me and I stand to lean over you. This way I can look directly into your eyes – those eyes that took me to heaven every time I dared to look in. They were the first things I noticed when I first met you. I can remember everything from that moment.

I was sitting on a bench. A black iron bench marked with the inscription “Lest we forget”. I was crying softly to myself and you came and asked me why. I surprised myself and told you how I was feeling. Then I looked up into your face and fell into your eyes. You had me hooked then.

I look out of the window and watch the rain drops run down the window. It always fascinated you how one rain drop ran into another, and then together they repeated it until the rain drops formed one big drop and splashed to the ground.

I tried to keep them in before because you do not like to see me crying, but my tears are flowing freely now. They streak across my face in a random pattern. The tears run off my face. One runs onto my cracked, dry lips. My tongue darts out to lick it away and I am reminded how thirsty I am. I stand in the middle of the room, contemplating whether or not I feel steady enough to walk to the end of the hall and get a drink. I glance at your beautiful but lifeless body. Was it right to leave you by yourself? But you’re gone now.

I push open the wooden doors and wander over to the brightly coloured vending machine and begin to insert the coins from my purse. I notice the picture of you, tucked inside my purse. It’s the one where we are in the photo booth at Liverpool Street. I told you I wanted a nice picture to send to my sister. You’re making a funny face and I’m scowling at you. The corner of my mouth moves up to form a half-smile.

Someone is tapping on my shoulder. It is a woman around my age and she is looking at me in a concerned way. I can see her lips moving but I just cannot make myself listen to her. She is pointing at the coin slot. I have inserted four pounds and sixty-three pence into the machine. All I needed to do was put eighty pence in.

The woman is asking me if I am okay and for a second I feel like turning round and asking her whether I look okay to her. Then the deep sadness rolls in and pulls away any other emotion I am feeling like a great ocean pulling jetsam from a stony beach. I take my bottle from the machine and walk away from her. She is saying something else but I carry on walking.

I breathe a sigh of release when I get back into the safety of your room. I have forgotten my change.

There is a nurse standing over you, just like I was a few minutes ago. She is looking at your face but I cannot see what she is doing with her hands. I take three strides forward and cry out “What are you doing?” She turns to me. I have obviously surprised her with my loud outburst. She explains that she is simply cleaning your body up a bit. I feel my shoulders sink. The chair looks inviting so I go to it and sit down. I watch her hands moving the cloth over your face. There are reddy-brown stains on the cloth. She’s removing the blood from your face. I reach forward and link my fingers with yours. I inhale sharply – your hands are so cold. Like a dead man’s.

The nurse is finished. Your face does look cleaner. The only mark left is the mauve bruise that spreads across your left temple. The nurse leaves and then comes back with several other people. Within minutes the room is clear of all equipment. It looks and feels empty. You are not here to fill it up with your loud laugh or your dazzling personality.

The nurse from before comes in and spreads her fingers and thumb out to indicate that I have five minutes left before they come to take your broken body away. And it is broken. You’ve fractured your jaw bone and your skull in several places and completely broken your left and right arms. I think the doctor said you had broken some ribs as well but I stopped listening after I realised you were gone. You had only broken something once before. It was when you were at university. Your friends had got you drunk as it was your twentieth birthday. You had decided it was a good idea to jump off the bridge, and before they could stop you, you had jumped right over the wall and onto the ground ten metres bellow. I had called you a silly boy and you had laughed at me: you told me it was just a battle wound. Now you have so many…

I get up and perch on the edge of your bed. My fingers slide over your soft skin and push away your damp, dark hair. I just want one last look into your eyes – into your soul – before your corpse is taken down to the mortuary for the post-mortem. I lean down and brush my lips over yours. This would be the last time I ever kissed you. This was probably the most painful moment of my life.

I use my thumb to wipe away my tears from your face. You look like your sleeping.

The wooden doors sing open and two porters come into with their heads bowed. One mumbles, “Sorry for your loss”. His sympathy does nothing to stop the pain.

I retreat into the corner and they start to wheel your dead body away. I have never felt as alone as I do now. It feels like a piece of my soul has just been ripped out and I have no choice but to let it go.

The doors swing shut and I rush forward to push them open for one last look. I briefly consider running after you but I know in my heart of hearts, that it will not do any good. My only choice is to grit my teeth and deal with the ache in my stomach. It is like torture.

And then you disappear round the corner and I know you are good. The next time I see you, you will be in a wooden box, surrounded by flowers, friends and family.

My face is soaked. I should probably clean up a bit before leaving the hospital but I do not want to wipe them away. I want everyone to know about my loss. I want everyone to know how much pain I’m in. Most of all, I want everyone to know that they should make the most of the time they have left. This is the thought that sets me off again. I sink to the floor and begin to sob.

Another nurse enters the room and kneels down beside me. She hands me your empty wallet, red tie and the ring I gave you last year. Your watch is absent. She leans forward and rests her arm on mine. She tells me how the last thing you said was how much you’d miss me when you are in heaven.

She leaves the room and I am all alone again. I gaze out of the window and watch the beautiful dawn break. Suddenly I feel connected.