Dance over the Thunderclouds - 5. Chapter 5 Trigger

Saturday morning: what a glorious morning it was, especially since the sun shone abundantly through the curtains, promising a beautiful autumn day. There was no need to get out of bed early. Tobi didn’t have to go to work and Dominic had no therapy appointments. They could linger in bed and relax, feeling perfectly content being there together.

But at about the hour of eleven Tobi said yawning:

“I guess we have to get up some time, so it might be as well right now”.

“Must we?” Dominic asked with a huge gape of his own.

“Yeah”, Tobi chuckled, “I need coffee!”

He pressed his lips softly in Dominic’s throat and kissed it tenderly. Then he said:

“So, I’m going to make us breakfast. Don’t rush. I’ll call you when it is ready!”

“Great!”, Dominic uttered under his breath, still in a hazy state of slumbering.

Tobi got up and left the bedroom, only dressed in his undies. But he was back within two minutes. With an impish grin he stood in the doorway and said:

“I forgot to buy croissants. Sorry, sweetheart, either we go to the bakery store to buy fresh ones or we’re out of them”.

“Damned, I love them”, Dominic moaned moody, “Especially with marmalade on them”.

“Then get dressed and we’ll go to the bakery”, Tobi suggested.

“Can’t you go alone?” Dominic bitched irritated, “I’m so tired. I’m tired when I wake up, I get more tired over the day and at night I’m exhausted, only to wake up tired again”.

“But you need some fresh air as well, sweetheart”, Tobi admonished him carefully, while dressing.

Dominic looked at him, eyes filled with disbelief and cried out:

“Fresh air? Here? In the middle of Berlin? Have you ever looked out of the window?”

Tobi grinned and switched to another approach:

“Yeah OK, I got your point. But at least you need some exercise. And the bakery is only at the end of the street. My idea: we have coffee first, then we stroll at leisure to the bakery, buy us really fresh croissants and then we stroll back, equally relaxed. And if you are tired on the way, there’s a bench halfway where we can sit down so you can rest. Is that okay with you?”

Reluctantly Dominic came out of bed and sat on the rim, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, wondering what he had gotten himself in to. But on the other hand: really fresh bakery croissants with marmalade were a great incentive as well.

“Guess so”, he sighed, “OK, you win! I’ll get dressed”.

“Fine”, Tobi said with a grin, “Then I’ll make the coffee and we’ll enjoy that first. And then we do as promised”.

And he was gone, back to the kitchen to make the coffee, the smell of which proved a kind of subsidiary incentive for Dominic to get dressed and walk to the living room.

While drinking their first coffee in a relaxed atmosphere, Dominic got second thoughts and he tried to budge out skillfully from the promise to accompany Tobi to the bakery, but not skillful enough because his boyfriend remained adamant and persuaded him to come along with some soft pressure. Once they were out on the street, Dominic had to admit it felt good to stretch his legs again instead of hanging on the couch the whole day. The walk to their goal was relaxed and in a way, Dominic didn’t feel his continuous fatigue, distracted as he was by Tobi’s continuous chattering and the speeding of cars, a sound that made him somewhat itchy and restless.

He became even more tense at the bakery. There were lots of people waiting in the small store, all bent on buying fresh bread for the weekend. Some of them stared at him…at least, that is how he felt it. But it was Tobi again who saved him from panic when he heard the man exclaim:

“Look what they’ve got today, sweetheart: chocolate croissants!”

It tore Dominic out of the slippery curve of the fear spiral that was building up and with gleaming eyes he looked at the delicacy in the showcase. He loved fresh croissants with marmalade, but he loved chocolate croissants even more!

“It was a good idea to come here, honey”, Tobi whispered in his ear, “Let’s buy some!”

With their booty of four chocolate-and four normal croissants in a paper bag they walked back home, but by now Dominic felt really tired and when they approached the bench, he almost pleaded:

“Can we sit down for a while? I’m so damned tired now!”

“Sure, no problem”, Tobi replied good-humored, “We can enjoy the sun a bit”.

They sat down. Without Dominic noticing it Tobi casted a worried look on his boyfriend, wondering what this continuous fatigue meant. Dominic just stared ahead of him, partly enjoying the warmth of the sun, partly brooding about a multitude of thoughts, that had no connection with each other. Tobi made himself comfortable on the hard bench and started chatting again, addressing a myriad of innocent subjects as soon as they popped up in his mind.

While doing so he stared at the other side of the street, observing the many pedestrians, that scurried in both directions over the sidewalk. During week days their number was smaller, but many of them were brought out for the necessary weekend groceries.

After a while, more or less getting out of subjects to chat about, a man came in his field of view. His appearance was striking enough for Tobi to notice him between all the many other people. He was rather large with a distinguished attitude and he was dressed entirely in black. However, he didn’t wear a suit, but a long black robe, that reached to his shoes, that were black as well, as were his gloves (“Gloves? With this weather?” Tobi muttered in surprise) and his sunglasses. On his head was a somewhat pointed and broad-brimmed black hat. His long grey hair fell from under the hat’s brim over his shoulders. In his right hand he carried an expensive cane, which was of course black as well. The man walked with relaxed measured pace to wherever he wanted to go. Anyway, Tobi considered the man’s appearance pure luck, because he found himself a new subject to chat about, so he bent over to Dominic and chuckled:

“You see that geezer on the other side? He sure looks like some weird sorcerer from a comic book!”

He saw nothing wrong in it. Actually, it was a great stepping stone to a new subject to chat about to keep Dominic from brooding too much: Tobi started a lengthy lecture on which comics he had read and some of them even engorged as a child.

He started to doubt if his subject was appreciated, because there was no audible reaction next to him. Although…at a certain point there was a funny sound, a sound that was incongruous with the present weather conditions. It sounded like chattering teeth, interchanged with the sound of gnashing teeth!

Troubled he looked at Dominic, but was fully unprepared for what he was about to see.

His eye found Dominic sitting in an almost spastic condition. His whole body was shaking like a leaf in the storm, his teeth were indeed chattering, his face was livid and his eyes radiated mortal fear. Sweat gushed from his brow and his mouth opened and closed like a fish on dry land, gasping for air.

“My God, Dominic”, he cried out, “What’s happening? What is wrong?”

Yes, Dominic had spotted the geezer, that Tobi had indicated to him. The sight of the man caused a million things happening in his mind simultaneously in a millisecond.

He didn’t see an eccentric, funny coincidental passerby. In his eyes he saw the Evil in real-time, his personal tormentor, the man who caused his unhappiness and pain, his own private agent of doom, his torturer and probably his executioner as well and he saw him not just in nightmares, from which he could escape by waking up, but unescapably right in front of his eyes, in flesh and blood, walking like any other as if he was a normal human being and not the satanic demon he actually was. But Dominic’s mind saw much more than only the wicked warlock. He saw all the plagues, that the toxic sorcerer had poured out on him, pass his mind’s eye, vividly and real time.

By now he was outside the reality around him. No longer was he aware, that Tobi cried out at him and tugged at him to draw his attention away from whatever it was. There was only one reality for him: that was, what his mind’s eye saw…!

First of all, there was this infesting darkness, that all-encompassing blackness, where the evil demon’s curse had plunged his soul in and that from then on controlled every thought, every feeling, each action and behavior and that directed the deadly tiredness, that accompanied him twenty-four hours a day.

Now he knew why he always thought, that his footsteps polluted the sidewalks with an acid poison. He saw it happen right now: with every step the malignant spirit took, all behind him turned black and the area without light expanded with each step forward! Everything took on the same color: the passing cars, the pedestrians, the sidewalk, the bench on the opposite side, the facades with their shop windows, even the flower beds bordering the street…they all went an intense velvet black, as black as the eyes of Martha.

Oh yes…Martha…she must have been one of his wrongdoing brides, sent to him to make his life even more miserable than it already had been. The damned witch…she was just an emissary of this horrible creature! And he…he had become another one. Because just like the goblin poisoned the sidewalk with his venom, so did he on his orders. But the tribulation had not ended yet!

By now Tobi had laid his hands on Dominic’s shoulders and started to shake him out of his condition, by brute force if necessary, crying out:

“Honey, come back! Come back in the real world! Come back to me!”

Passers-by stared at the peculiar duo on the bench, some annoyed, some shocked, others openly curious, even amused. But the iron law of metropolitan inhumanity was strictly enforced: nobody lifted a finger! None of them saw a thing, they didn’t hear a thing and above all, they kept far away from it and said nothing. Tobi was on his own in a situation that was impossible to handle for one on his own.

Dominic went into the horrible phase. First, he didn’t believe his own eyes…but yes…it happened: the surface of the street ripped open and a slit appeared. It didn’t make sense; the cars just drove on, none of them tumbling in, although the slit opening grew and grew. And…and…it sucked him towards the opening with huge force. He couldn’t…there were critters in there…they would eat him alive!

He shook his head to clear it from the dreadful image, but it didn’t work out… the gap remained, the blackness remained and the opening kept sucking at him!

Without knowing it he tried to jump up but was held in place by Tobi’s hands. He started yelling:

“Let me go! Please…let me go! They are going to eat me!”

It became a mantra, screamed out again and again. But where mantras are expected to give relaxation to the troubled soul, this one most certainly didn’t. Because his mind’s eye prompted a ghastly sight: for the first time in his life he saw…yes, saw!...the critters. And they were monstrous.

There was no light left to be seen. Even the clouds in the air had turned an ominous black…no…even worse: the whole sky was black! He only saw the critters, assembling at the rim of the gap, ready to come and get him! They stared at him with their tiny, mean eyes and the saliva dripped out of their open jaws, making the little but oh so sharp, bloodied teeth glisten. And there were even more of them than a few seconds ago, all hungry, all waiting for him! And the first ones of them started to crawl out, lusting for his flesh!

“They’re coming for me! They’re coming to get me! They drag me in…and eat me!”

Tobi knew it didn’t make any sense to even try to say it. His boyfriend was too far gone for reason, but nevertheless…what else could he do? So he yelled:

“Calm down, honey! There’s nothing here that eats you!”

It didn’t help…of course it didn’t. The gap kept growing and in his delusional world Dominic was certain he saw hordes of critters crawling out of it, moving slowly on their innumerable legs towards him.

“I’m dead bait if you don’t let me go!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

With an incredible exertion he ripped himself free of Tobi’s strong hands and he started running away from the approaching danger, that menaced him. But he had not counted on one thing!

Dominic was too far beyond reality to see it and Tobi was so occupied in trying to control his friend, that he hadn’t noticed as well, that a police car stopped at the bench and two officers stepped out, right at the moment that Dominic started his frenzied rush. He managed a few meters before he smacked right into a huge police man, who hugged him immediately in an enormous bear grip, calling out:

“Now wait a minute, son. First, you’re going to tell me what is going on!”

Dominic struggled like mad to get out of the grip, as always kicking, hitting, biting, spitting and screaming, but despite that the man didn’t let go. And when his colleague simply handcuffed the boy as a security measure, Dominic was severely hindered in his defenses.

“I don’t know, officer”, Tobi said panting after chasing a short distance after Dominic, “He simply freaked out. But I don’t know why!”

The bear cop nodded to his colleague who started talking in his handy talkie and within five minutes an ambulance and an Emergency Physician vehicle stopped in the middle of the street with blaring horns and waving blue lights.

The physician stepped out and made a quick visual survey of what was clearly the patient involved.

“Get the stretcher and the straight jacket ready!”, he muttered to the rescue crew, “I have a feeling we might need that last one”.

Then he stepped to Tobi, asked him in what relation he stood to the out of his wits boy and once he was satisfied with the answer, he asked:

“Is he on some kind of drugs?”

“No, he isn’t”, Tobi said almost indignant, “But he is ill!”

“You know what he is suffering from?” came the next business-like question.

“No, I don’t”, Tobi said hesitantly, “But he is under treatment with Dr. Moller at the hospital here in this part of the city”.

“The psychiatrist?” the doctor asked meaningful.

Tobi just nodded. What else could he do?

“OK”, the doctor concluded, “Then let us see if we can get a grip on him with decent means and bring him there”.

Speaking to the police officers and the rescue crew he said:

“We’ll try it nice and easy first, boys. Coercive measures can always be used after that if everything else fails”.

His order obviously led to a misunderstanding, because the police man undid the handcuffs, giving Dominic more opportunities to fight his way out. And Dominic did not look very kindly on what they called a “nice and easy” approach. Being surrounded by two cops, three paramedics and a doctor made him feel really cornered, especially when they closed in more and more. He tried to dodge them by ducking low, first right, then left, but it was all to no avail. They had him completely surrounded and their majority was by far too overwhelming. Within a few minutes four strong men had him in their firm grip and he started fighting again to make good his escape from the atrocious danger, that was coming towards him.

“Don’t throw me in the slit!” he screeched, “They’ll eat me!”

“No, son”, the doctor spoke soothingly, “We won’t throw you in whatever you call it. We only bring you to hospital!”

But it didn’t work: Dominic kept resisting with the courage of despair with every means he had available. The doctor started to fear he had to use these “coercive measures” and nodded to the one paramedic who wasn’t in the direct confrontation with Dominic. The man pulled the stretcher out of the ambulance, unbuckled the straps and prepared the straight jacket. The four who were holding Dominic lifted him off the ground and carried him to the stretcher, Dominic still resisting like a mad man to get away from his imagined danger:

“No! No! Not in the slit! Please…not in the slit! They’ll eat me!”

A second police car stopped and two extra cops joined the effort. Finally, their combined forces got Dominic on the stretcher.

And then it happened again: seeing no way out and reconciling himself to his fate on some vague subconscious level, Dominic capitulated by shuddering briefly, only to fell limp on the stretcher, barely breathing and his eyes wide open in extreme terror.

The doctor rapidly grabbed his stethoscope and checked the vitals, then took blood pressure but finally he inhaled relieved:

“No, he’s alive. OK, let’s get him to hospital. Straps will do, I think he will be out for some time”.

To one paramedic he said:

“Give them a warning that we are coming. And let them have the duty psychiatrist at the ready at Emergency. I think they might need his specific knowledge on this one”.

“Can I…” Tobi stuttered under shock, “Can I…come…with him?”

“Sure”, the ambulance driver said, “Just hop in”.

Tobi did and once Dominic was pushed in the ambulance and safely secured by the stretcher straps, the driver started and again with blue lights and blaring horns departed to hospital.

Tobi sat in front, beside the driver. He was worried sick, but when he accidentally looked at his hand, he truly wondered why he had taken the bag with croissants with him. As if there weren’t more important things to be concerned about.

 

The duty psychiatrist strolled into the Emergency Department. Once there she asked one of the duty surgeons if the psychiatric emergency had already arrived.

“No,”, the man muttered tired, shaking his head, “I think in about two or three minutes”.

Monika Moller got herself a coffee and sat down to wait for her call. Yes, it was her again. As a co-assistant she always drew the shittiest shifts while her better positioned colleagues were having an easy weekend, including undisturbed night rest, that is: on top of her daytime job as a ward psychiatrist. This weekend she got herself another forty-eight hours weekend shift, constantly on the run and even if she was having her “rest period”, she was still on on-call availability duty, trying to do a nap on the couch in the medical staff room, not sleeping more than four hours in a natural day. The government’s horrendous cuts in health care expenditures had led to exploitation on the academic level!

And now she waited, trying frantically to draw a clear-thinking head from a plastic cup of very strong and ill-tasting black coffee.

“Your call is coming in, doctor”, a nurse warned her.

With a sigh she dumped the cup with the remaining coffee in a dustbin - it had been filth anyway -, rose and walked to the entrance.

A group of men, two of them police officers, came in, pushing a stretcher with someone on it.

“What have you got?” she asked to no one in particular.

“You’re the duty psychiatrist?” one of the men asked.

She nodded.

“OK”, the emergency physician said, “Here’s the gist of it: in my opinion psychosis, clear indications of hallucinations without known drugs abuse, extreme agitation, even bordering to aggression, tremor over the whole body and then funny enough catalepsy at the end”.

Monika rolled her eyes and said:

“Oh God, another one who didn’t pay attention at the Psychiatry lectures!”

“Huh?” the man muttered astonished.

“Did it ever occur to you, esteemed colleague, that we might be talking ACD here?”

“Never heard of it”, the man grumbled, his face annoyed.

“Acute Conversion Disorder”, she answered with a mock sweet smile, “Look it up when you have time. You might find it interesting reading. But…never mind, I’ll take him from here”.

“Suits me just fine”, the man acknowledged, “You’re the specialist”.

With the transfer and anamnesis completed, Monika casted her first glance on the patient, only to cry out a bit plaintive:

“Oh no, Dominic, what have you gotten yourself into now?”

“You know the kid?” the rescue doctor asked.

“Yeah”, she sighed, “He’s a patient of mine. Strange however…he is not diagnosed with a psychosis”.

She considered the situation briefly, then decided:

“It’s no use to put him on a table over here. We can take him up right away. Can you guys give me a hand?”

The last question was meant for the ambulance crew. Only then she perceived Tobi, who stood dazedly at a respectful distance.

“Hi, Tobi”, she said with a comforting smile, “Can you tell me what happened?”

The young man shook his head and bleakly shrugged his shoulders.

“Doesn’t matter”, Monika re-assured him, “Just come up with us and after I have taken care of Dominic, we’ll talk it over. Is that okay with you?”

Tobi nodded without too much enthusiasm.

Monika grabbed a phone, dialed her ward and spoke:

“Prepare an isolation! I’ll be up in about five minutes!”

The small and sad procession left the Emergency for the elevator: Monika, two ambulance crew, Dominic on the stretcher without knowing where he was and at some distance, like he was afraid to come nearer, Tobi, who walked with slumped shoulders.

It only took a few minutes before they were at the psychiatry ward. When they walked through the doors, Monika summoned two nurses, saying:

“Gisela, take Tobi to my office and give him a strong, hot coffee so he can recover a bit. Ute, you come with me. We’ll take care of Dominic first”.

“Dominic again?”, the nurse called Ute asked.

“Yeah”, Monika confirmed a little droopy.

It took Monika ten minutes to take care of Dominic but then she entered her office, where Tobi sat, still very unable to comprehend what had happened this morning.

“You’re feeling more or less OK, Tobi?” Monika asked when she sat down behind her desk.

Tobi nodded, but not very convincing.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Monika inquired.

The young man gazed around him absent-mindedly, searching like mad in his memory what might have caused all this. Finally, he said:

“I don’t know!”

“Now, just tell me what the two of you were doing. Don’t search for any clues what caused this, because I think…no, I’m pretty certain…you won’t find them. Just talk through the day”.

Tobi nodded and started:

“Getting up was normal…just sweet, tender…we had coffee and I noticed I was out of croissants. Dominic loves croissants, especially with marmalade on them, you know? So, we went to the baker’s store to buy some”.

It reminded him of something; a glance at his hand proved he was still holding the bag with croissants like it was a gold treasure.

“Can I have one?” Monika asked with a begging smile, “I’m hungry!”

“You can have them all if you like”, Tobi replied, throwing the bag to her.

“And then?” Monika pressed gently, munching on her first croissant.

“On the way back he complained he was tired…you know, this tiredness he always has…”.

Monika nodded.

“So I suggested to sit down on a bench, to rest”, Tobi continued, “I just started chatting…to keep his mind from brooding, just idle chit-chat. Don’t ask me what I talked about. And then…I saw this funny old man on the other side of the street…kind of an eccentric geezer, totally dressed in black”.

“What do you mean with eccentric?” Monika wanted to know.

“He wore a long, black robe”, Tobi even chuckled at the memory, “And a somewhat pointed hat”.

“So…what happened next?”

“I thought he was funny”, Tobi said, “So I pointed him out to Dominic. And I just chatted on”.

“How did you point him out?” Monika pressed the matter.

“Wow…something about…look at him…looks like a sorcerer from a comic book…at least I think that I said something like that”.

“Stop”, Monika cried out urgently, “Say that again!”

“That he…looked like a sorcerer from a comic book…”, Tobi repeated in doubt, “What’s wrong with that?”

Monika didn’t reply right away, but her mind raced:

“What was that? Sorcerer? Dressed in black…I need it now…but I can’t find it. Wait a second…yes…! That’s it!”

She looked at Tobi with a serious face and said:

“Your remark about the sorcerer triggered him!”

Tobi stared at her in shock, dismay all over his face.

“Are you…saying…I…caused it?” he stuttered.

“Don’t feel guilty, Tobi”, Monika comforted him, “You couldn’t have known. Under normal circumstances it had been an innocent remark, just made offhanded, even a remark that might cause a good laugh. But these weren’t normal circumstances. These were circumstances you couldn’t have foreseen in a long, long way!”

“But how?” Tobi asked on the brink of despair, fighting back his tears.

“Your completely innocent remark inadvertently happened to open an avenue of approach to a very dark recollection in Dominic’s memory. So…it triggered him with the results you have seen”.

“My God”, Tobi moaned, “What might that have been? I didn’t know it…really, believe me! I would have bitten my tongue off if I knew it”.

“Like I said”, Monika reacted, “Don’t feel guilty! There’s nothing you could have done to avoid it. Actually, he might have seen the man himself without you pointing him out. The result would have been the same, I assure you”.

“But what is it then, that I triggered?” Tobi urgently wanted to know.

Monika raised her eyebrows in thinking. She knew she was close to breaking rules, but she didn’t want this sweet man, the man who was so important to Dominic although it was always fervently denied, actually a tad too fervently, to suffer from undeserved guilt. After making up her mind she said:

“Have you ever thought about what made Dominic the way he is right now?”

“Yes”, Tobi replied in what was almost a whisper, “But I never found the answers. He doesn’t provide them, that is for sure. He’s very tightlipped about his childhood and youth”.

“What did he tell you?” Monika inquired.

Tobi shrugged.

“Let’s start with his father”, Monika suggested mildly, “What did he tell you about his dad?”

“That he was a mister X”, Tobi replied to the best of his knowledge.

“And his mom?” came the next question

“He didn’t tell me much, but enough to know that she was…how do I call it?...unstable, you know, in a mental way. She went in and out psychiatric clinics”.

“That might be the link to psychosis”, Monika muttered, involuntarily thinking out loud.

“What?” Tobi asked.

“No, forget it! And what happened to Dominic when his mom was in a clinic?”

“He lived with his grandfather”, Tobi answered, after thinking deep, “But… what is funny…he never tells anything about these times, that he lived there. It’s like a closely guarded secret”.

“Exactly”, Monika confirmed, “So, I ask again: have you ever thought about what made Dominic the way he is right now?”

Tobi stared at her, not understanding where the young psychiatrist was going to.

“How about his grandfather?”

“What does he has to do with a sorcerer?” Tobi asked confused.

“That is the way he always calls his grandfather, the wicked sorcerer or the creepy wizard”.

Tobi’s eyes went large, his face horror-stricken.

“Are you saying…?” he muttered.

“No, I’m not saying anything. I said more than I was allowed to. But I think you’re smart enough to deduct it for yourself!”.

Uncertain if she had done the right thing, she toyed with some pencil on her desk. But then she decided it was all right: yes, she had been bending the rules a bit, but under the circumstances it was the right thing to do! As a psychiatrist she had to abide to those rules, but she was human as well!

“I would appreciate if we keep this talk among the two of us”, she said, “I eeeuhhh…bended the rules somewhat”.

“I want to thank you for that”, Tobi reacted sincerely, “It means a lot to me that maybe it was me who triggered it, but that there is no blame on me. It…it would have broken my heart. Next time I’ll be more careful. I promise!”

“It’s OK, Tobi”, Monika smiled, “Now…for the practical side of it all. He’s asleep now. I gave him enough to stay that way until tomorrow morning to get the tensions out of him. For the rest: since the police was involved, he’s here for at least two weeks, because now he’s here under a court order. And court orders are for a minimum of two weeks, no matter if he recovers tomorrow or not. He has to stay here for at least two weeks”.

She rose, more or less ending the talk but as a kind of afterthought she said:

“But of course, you can visit him. I know he longs for it. Yes, he’s asleep now in the isolation but you can visit him right away, if you want”.

“Yes, please”, Tobi almost pleaded, “And eeuuh…I’ll bring Grumbles with me tomorrow”.

“You do that”, Monika grinned, “Come on, let’s go and see the sweetie”.

Within two minutes they wandered into the isolation, where Tobi found Dominic sound asleep on the mattress.

“You gave him a sheet over him?” he asked in surprise.

“Yeap”, was the business-like reply, “He was agitated and confused but not suicidal, so we bent those rules as well”.

Tobi studied the face of the sleeping figure on the mattress. Without facing the doctor, he said:

“At home, his face is even tense when he is asleep. But here, his face is again… serene. And for another time his smile is angelic. Why is that?”

“It is only a question of the proper medication”, Monika answered, “I’ll adapt his sleeping medication for at home”.

“Can I talk to him?” Tobi asked hesitantly.

“Sure”, Monika grinned, “But he won’t hear you!”

It was a déjà vu for Tobi…he had been there once before, in the very beginning.

“I don’t mind”, he said slightly embarrassed, “I just wanted to tell him something…even if he doesn’t hear me”.

“Go ahead”, Monika said encouragingly.

Tobi squatted down beside the mattress and stroked the sleeping boy over his cheek. He continued doing that for some time before he spoke:

“Sweetheart, I start to suspect something that I rather not suspect. But…if it is true, it doesn’t change a thing between us. Because you weren’t the wrongdoer but you were the victim. And I want to make it up for what you missed. I want to give you a good and happy life, the life you deserve! I beg you…please get well, so we can have good times together”.

He bent over and kissed the back of Dominic’s head, continuing, now with a lopsided grin on his face:

“Oh, I’ll bring Grumbles with me tomorrow. I know: he’ll protest I guess, but I won’t give him a choice”.

He pressed another kiss on the head, ending with:

“Sleep well, sweetheart, and have beautiful dreams”.

After a last kiss he rose and with a nod of appreciation he walked out of the isolation, followed by Monika.

Tobi took his leave and walked off the Psychiatry ward, as always whistling some tune. But his shoulders? They were no longer slumped.

 

Next day, when Tobi sauntered over the ward’s corridor, lugging the huge teddy bear again, he was pleasantly surprised to find Dominic in the closed ward living room and no longer in the isolation. With his boyfriend sitting with his back towards the door, Tobi stole in and dropped the bear in the next chair from Dominic like a bolt from the blue, exclaiming:

“Yeah, he put up one hell of a fight to stay at home but I showed him who the boss was!”

Surprised, Dominic looked up, broke in spontaneous laughter and cried out:

“You’re still weird!”

Tobi bent over and kissed the boy straight on his lips. No need to hide anything, not any longer!

“Hi sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

Dominic smiled shyly…or was it more ashamed, when he muttered:

“I feel guilty!”

“Guilty?” Tobi asked in wonderment, “Why that?”

Dominic seemed to think briefly how to answer that question, but finally he settled on:

“I don’t know what happened. I remember we sat on that bench and that I saw this strange dude on the other side of the street and he…kind of triggered something in me, something dark, something ugly. From then on it is all blank until I woke up this morning in the isolation. But doctor Monika told me I made quite a rumpus on the street yesterday. It must have scared the shit out of you. And that is, why I feel guilty”,

“Don’t”, Tobi said, sterner than he wanted to sound it, “I admit: I had a real bad time yesterday, I didn’t know what to do and more than that…I was afraid I was the one who caused whatever it was”.

“You wouldn’t do that to me”, Dominic objected self-assured, “You’re too sweet a guy to do that to no matter who!”

“And especially not to you”, Tobi confirmed emphatically, “Anyway, the doctor explained to me what happened and I found my peace with it. Don’t you worry about a thing and don’t feel guilty!”

The smile that Dominic gave him in reward was priceless and it made Tobi’s heart skip some beats.

“Funny thing is”, Tobi mused out loud, “you remember this dude but now he doesn’t trigger you. Why is that so?”

Dominic shrugged and with a kind of neighing giggle he replied:

“Maybe because I’m still sedated!”

He shrugged again, then added:

“Guess so!”

“Anyway, you’ve got Grumbles back with you”, Tobi switched to a less risky subject.

“Yeah…you’re on your own now”, Dominic kept giggling, but now more teasing, “Can you handle it, alone in bed?”

“It’s hard”, Tobi grinned, “But I can handle it. With the two of us is cozier”.

Dominic’s giggle disappeared, his eyes went lush and his voice hoarse when he whispered:

“I’ll make it up to you when I’m back home. Promised! But I heard I must stay here for at least two weeks”.

“Yeah, the doctor told me”, Tobi confirmed, “But it is only two weeks, sweetheart. We’ll get over it. And of course, I will visit you very regularly”.

“Yeah…please do so!”

The answer was accompanied again with that invaluable, snow melting smile. Tobi’s heart reacted exactly the same way like the first time!