Waiting for His Steps - 1. Chapter 1

I opened my eyes very slowly, woken up by stabbing pain pulsing in my head. The only thing I was able to see in the first moment was the pure, crystal-like whiteness, so intensive and deep that you couldn’t confuse it with any other color. ‘Am I dead?’ I asked myself right away, thoroughly confused about the situation, hearing nothing more but the echo of my own heart, beating so fast, so unstoppably. The headache seemed to be fiercer and fiercer with each passing second; it was gradually invading my whole body, my arms, legs, chest and back. There was nothing more but the throbbing, unbearable pain.

Hissing, I tried to move my head up in order to catch any detail that could say anything about the place I’d been taken to. The room I was in was pretty small; it resembled one you have surely seen while visiting a hospital or a private clinic. Almost every single thing, except for some strange medical devices I couldn’t give name to, was painted white. The walls, however, was dusty and gray, full of awful cracks on its rough surface. As far as I could see there was nobody else in the room. The place was illuminated by a strong light coming out of a discharge tube up on the ceiling. It was buzzing silently; the sound pulsed in my head on and on. ‘Hello?! Is anyone here?!’ I cried as loudly as I could.

There was no answer. ‘What could have possibly happened?’ I wondered. ‘I might have had an accident. I might have been beaten up on the street. I might have…’ As the list of alternative possibilities grew on and on I couldn’t recall anything constructive about the last few moments of my life. I remembered my name, my address, my home and family members, but all that seemed to be so distant and unfamiliar, unfriendly in a way I could not understand. ‘I’ve got to find someone to explain me everything,’ I was trying to calm myself down. ‘There’s no need to get panicked. There must have happened something strange, but now it’s surely OK. I’ll spend some time here to recover. In few days I’ll be able to go back home and my life will be as usual. I’ll wake up early in the morning, open the window and look down at the almost-deserted street at dawn. Than I’ll go downstairs and make some espresso. I’ll spend some time preparing to school, and then, as usual, I’ll go out at eight to catch the bus. I’m sure nothing serious happened. In fact, I’ve never had any health problems. But I’ve got to find a doctor, first,’ I thought.

I decided to get out of the bed and open the door on my own. The throbbing pain was still pulsing in my legs, yet I was able to move them a little bit towards the polished, tiled floor. There were two syringes stuck into my arm that I hadn’t seen before. I knew I had to get rid of them but after few attempts I figured out it was just wasting of precious time, as long as there was no way to escape from the hospital that was presumably full of people. I felt too drained, too weak. I started calling for help. My voice, so thin and weak filled up the whole room but there was still no answer. I got more impatient. ‘Maybe I’m not at the hospital at all?’ I asked myself, sorrowful.

Surprisingly, a few minutes later I could hear someone’s steps outside the door. I deducted there must have been two people approaching to release me. ‘At last someone heard my calling!’ I thought in anticipation, struggling with the strange premonition nesting deep in my mind; ‘But what if they are not going to help me?’

My heart started pounding in my chest as the door opened. The first person to enter the room was a woman. She was in her late thirties, I assumed, attired in a white medical uniform and navy blue jeans. She had shoulder length, dark blond greasy hair and pretty oval, a little bit wrinkled face. She was wearing glasses, very characteristic ones, with dark old-fashioned frames from the seventies. ‘She must be a very intelligent woman,’ I thought. Her serious and cold facial expression, however, indicated that she had no good intentions at all.

There appeared another man by her side, however. Except of his somber look, he didn’t resemble the lady accompanying him. He was quite tall, slim and very young-looking person with dark short hair and an earring in his right ear. He didn’t differ from most of my schoolmates. My first thought was he must be a kind of an internist, an assistant of the doctor. He looked confused, just as if he was waiting for something strange to happen. His hands were shaking as he was looking at the notepad he kept in his hands.

‘Who are you?! Where am I?!’ I asked without more ado but they didn’t respond. Actually, they didn’t even look at me; the women took a syringe out of her pocket and injected the white liquid into my hip. ‘What the hell are you doing?!’ I yelled writhing on the bed. The young boy clutched me so that I could hardly make a move.

‘We’re gonna talk when you calm down,’ the woman said decisively and hid the syringe. Her voice was the last think I could remember before I passed out.

 ***

‘James, hurry up!’ my mother said with a glimpse of impatience in her eyes. She was sitting in her car waiting for me as I was running across the schoolyard. ‘I don’t have the whole day to stay here and wait for you!’ she added with a grimace trying to hasten me. It was a beautiful springtime day, I remember. The sun was shining high on the light blue firmament and cool wind was shaking the thin branches of the trees, scaring away the birds that had found there a convenient perch. I could feel the beautiful scent of nature that woke up after the long and harsh winter. Everything around me – the grass, leaves and hedgerows – everything was getting green and full of live. It made me feel really joyful.

‘Sorry I’m late. I had to stay longer today,’ I explained quickly, ‘Math was longer than usual.’

‘You should have called me,’ she said soullessly without looking at me. ‘We need to be in the church in ten minutes. You know I hate when we are late and everyone looks at us with their suspicious eyes.’

‘I sad I’m sorry. It was not my fault that the lessons were-’ I was trying to explain myself but my mother seemed to ignore me. ‘-were longer,’ I added, unwillingly.

‘You’ll go to the referent and explain the whole coincidence to him.’

‘No, I won’t!’ I objected immediately.

‘You will, James!’ she responded with irritation. The tone of her voice was deep and aloof. I knew I was not able to make her to change the opinion. She had always been a bossy and domineering type, this is why I hated her so much.

‘Why do I have to be sorry for something that wasn’t my fault?’ I asked.

‘Because that’s your responsibility to be kind and polite. Sometimes you have to feel guilty, even if you didn’t do anything wrong. You have to show you feel sorry because that is - appropriate. The sooner you will understand this principle the better for you.’

‘What if I don’t want to follow the rule?’ I thought to myself, sadly.

A few minutes later we finally reached our destination. The St. Martin’s church, erected in the colonial times was one of the most prominent buildings in the town. It was made of dark grey, especially prepared stones transported from surrounding mountains. ‘Plenty of people who were helping with the construction died here,’ my teacher said one day. It was usually called by locals “The God’s gift for mankind”. For me the name should be rather the opposite: “The mankind’s gift for God.”

Every time I admired its lofty and massive walls of stone, I couldn’t help an awkward feeling of being a small kid. My parents would take me there from the first day of my life. I was baptized there and, to be quite honest, I spent most of my childhood in that place. Every day me and my parents participated in a mass and asked the Lord for better life; the fact gave us a sureness of being good people. In fact, we wanted to touch heaven almost forgetting that we are still on the earth.

‘Let’s hurry. Everybody’s waiting,’ my mother said in a low voice so as the people on the churchyard couldn’t hear her. I remember the fake and artificial smiles, the gestures she used to make every time she wanted to show the others that she had a perfect life with no problems to face up. They were full of untruth and sadness, though. I’d always wondered how people could be so naive to believe in this stack of lies. I wondered, but I’d never been brave enough to raise this question aloud.

‘What if I don’t want to follow golden rule?’ I asked myself again entering the temple with a glimpse of reluctance in my eyes.

 ***

‘He’s gonna be fine.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘From experience. They always get fine, sooner or later…’

Mysterious voices took me out of my dream. The consciousness was coming back to my mind gradually; the first thing I felt was a great relief: the headache disappeared. I opened my eyes to see who was standing at my bed.

There were two strange women I’d never seen before. They looked as if they were nurses, attired in white uniforms that contrasted with their pale complexion. One of them looked quite short and chubby, whereas the other one was a little bit taller but equally overweight. I didn’t know them at all but I knew one thing about them very well: they must have been smokers. The stench of cigarettes simply grossed me out.

We were looking at one another for a short while.

‘What’s happened?’ I whispered. ‘Where am I?’

‘Don’t be afraid. Everything will be alright,’ one of the women said slowly trying to chill me out. She was looking straight into my eyes but made no gesture.

‘What is that place?’

‘It’s- it’s kind of hospital,’ she said softly and glanced at her companion. They both looked confused and sort of tensed that they have to talk with me. ‘There are people who will help you,’ she went on, staring at my perplexed features.

‘What’s happened to me?’ I resumed. With each second passing away there were more and more questions I wanted to ask.

‘You’re ill, son.’

‘Ill? With what?’ I inquired, surprised like never before.

‘You’re-’ one of the women wanted to explain but the other one nudged her suddenly and warned with anger: ‘Be quiet! We are not allowed to talk with him!’

‘We’d better go,’ suggested the first one without looking at me. She was about to leave but I managed to grasp her hand with enormous strength. I felt desperate to know what was going on at all cost.

‘Let me go!’ she shouted trying to set herself free. ‘What the hell are you doing, you idiot!’

‘Tell me what is it all about!’ I roared, ‘Tell me!’

I tried to keep her as long as possible and find more answers. On the other hand, I knew it made no sense at all. At the bottom of my heart something was telling me I should let her go. ‘It’s over. They don’t want to tell me the truth because they are fucking cowards. I am gonna die soon, for sure.’

I felt like crying. I pushed the hand of the woman back immediately and closed my eyes, shaking. A few moments later I heard steps on the corridor. The doctor I’d seen before I feel asleep entered the room and beckoned at the two nurses to make them leave. I was surprised because she had no syringe with here and obviously was not going to make me sleep.

‘I see you’re getting better,’ she said gently, looking at me all the time. Then she took a chair and moved it closer to my bed to have a sit.

‘Who are you,’ I asked ‘And what is that place?’

‘It’s a kind of hospital. But not an ordinary one. It’s only for unusual people, just like you,’ the doctor explained.

‘For people who are incurably ill?’ I asked after a short pause.

‘Partially, yes,’ she answered, her voice soft and quiet.

‘What do you mean? You can’t be partially dead, can ya?’

‘Throughout all these years of your life you were dying… And it may sound a little bit odd, but you’ve already got used to your death,’ she answered, putting stress to each single word.

‘What is it? Cancer? Leukemia? Something worse?’ I asked, nervous. I felt the warmth of the blood flowing through my veins and the fear that filled up my heart.

‘Don’t you know your illness, James? Don’t you know what is wrong with you?’

‘Enlighten me then,’ I said.

‘Do you remember the last summer holidays at the camp,’ she said calmly as if she was getting some kind of satisfaction ‘When you were sixteen? It was one year ago, am I right?’

‘What is your point?’ I asked.

‘Marquez? Do you remember the moment when you saw him on that bus? Do you remember when you were scrutinizing him with your eyes full of desire? The old melody he whistled and… Should I say more?’

I felt shocked. I had no slightest idea where she’d gotten to know such intimate details from my life. ‘Where do you know that,’ I inquired.

‘I know much more about you,’ she said. ‘But there was too much talking for today. Take care, James.’

‘Answer me!’ I shouted at her. ‘Where do you know I am gay?’

‘I know many things about you. But be patient. It’s not too late for you,’ she answered and closed the door.

 ***

I’d been gay since the first day of my life. I’d been gay since the moment I looked at the other boy and realized that I was in love with him. I’d been gay since the first touch of other boy’s hand and since the first gentle touch of his lips. I’d been gay and I’d never wished it. But what does being gay really mean?

I’d say it is like living and being dead at the same time. It is like building a brand new reality inside your mind; reality which is known and accessible only for you and where you can hide your feelings from others. Finally, it is looking for someone who would share the world that you created and who’d understand you like no one else in this planet.

I’d say it is also a kind of never-ending fight. Looking back to my life, I had to struggle with myself and other people on and on. As a boy I was uncertain about my sexuality; I had to fight with some dorks at school laughing at me all the time. I had to tolerate my parents who expected me to be a lawyer while I wanted to be a musician. I had to be silent when someone was talking about love, not because I was single but because I was gay. I remember all the lies I was telling to the people I knew. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’. ‘No’. ‘Why so? You are attractive, intelligent. You are smart…’. ‘Love is not for me, you know’.

My life had been always full of lies, but they were “good lies”, I think. I’d been a liar because that seemed to be the only proper way to live normally in this world full of madness. I had been insisting on telling lies because I was afraid of loosing the world and values I’d been creating in my mind. In a way, I was scared of becoming a “normal one”. I didn’t want to change anything in my life. I accepted myself and I was ready to fight.

The doctor mentioned Marquez when she was talking with me last time. I was extremely shocked because ,theoretically, no-one could know the guy that had been my greatest secret and whose name I had never dared to mention at loud, even to my close friends. Nobody, especially a woman that should have no idea about my past.

‘Where does she know such things from? There is only one person that could give her any information. Marquez himself.’