While reading, please listen to the music of the Cloud Atlas trailer. You can easily find it on youtube but I can't embed a link here.
He couldn't stand it anymore. He couldn't stand the continuous urge to vomit. He leaned against the wall to find support but kneed down in the small alley and had to puke.
Coughing he tried not to choke on it and he walked on from wall to wall until he finally sat down. He didn't care for anybody passing by or glancing at the fine gentleman in the alleyway sitting in the dirt. He closed his eyes but the pictures didn't want to leave his head.
Why?
Couldn't he have come a second earlier? Couldn't he have come a day earlier? Or a month? Why had he hesitated for so long?
His long dreams, his longings and desire for love, why hadn't he found time to come, whatever the consequences might be? And now it was too late…to late forever. When will I join you, Robert? he thought.
You will be waiting for me. And I'll be coming.
Rufus Sixsmith couldn't stand Britain anymore. He needed to get away from the cold country and all the blood that had been needlessly spilled. Nobody was there to hold him back and whatever he did, he knew that one day he could join Robert.
Rufus had packed only the most necessary things, a few clothes, shoes, all letters he has received, as much as the one that hadn't been sent yet. He would carry them forever and finally pass them on.
Nothing lasted forever and now he unfortunately had to find out. And now he was sitting in a train again, trying not to fall asleep. He was scared for his nightmares coming back and the last time in a train he had had a wonderful dream about meeting the love of his life again. So easy everything could vanish.
He saw two children running through the wagon, was I ever so young? Have they both ever been so young and will they once be again? Rufus didn't know what happened after life, if there was rebirth or if it was like Robert described?
He really hoped that there was a better world waiting for them, and that he'll be waiting for him.
Please be there, Robert, I'll need some more time down here.
He didn't know either why he decided for Morocco. Perhaps because it was far away, perhaps because he thought it would only be for a short time. He had been offered a work in the United States but he had declined, stating he would need time to think about it, a year break was probably to less of what he needed.
What he needed was simple. A change. A complete change.
He didn't want to forget Robert, the only person he'd ever love.
Rufus smiled when he remembered their secret nights together, first only because they liked doing something 'wrong', then it became more and more serious until something special developed. And where did this special thing lead us to, Robert?
Sorrow and grief and nothing more than pain for both of us. He has taken his time to listen to the finished Cloud Atlas Sextet, beautiful music that will never leave his mind. He has taken his time to re-read all the letters that now would stop.
Rufus thought about the letter he had received from the hospital in Morocco. Although he had no experience, he had been accepted as spending a year abroad, just to flee from the real world. He didn't want any people around him and a hospital lead by monks somewhere in deep Africa was the loneliness he was looking for.
It was much warmer than he had expected. He stepped out of the train and into the crowd of people. It was loud and the air seemed to be filled with dust. It took three hours until he arrived at the hospital.
Everything seemed so foreign and brown-yellow-colored. He was welcomed by one of the doctors who guided him to a small apartment at a nearly abandoned hospital wing.
An hour later, Rufus returned to the gardens and another doctor showed him the patient's rooms. It was so much different than in Britain, a lot of people were crowded into one great hall, no privacy and Rufus hardly believed that anybody could be cured in this building that seemed so sick itself.
"And he is one of our most lonely patients. Only once he has received a guest and he disappeared when he found out that he was still so weak," the doctor said and pointed at a small creature sitting on a bench in the little park area. He wore the ocher patient's garment, his brown hair was cut short and he seemed like having given up all hope to recover.
"What does he suffer?" Rufus asked, he had pity with the poor guy.
"Strong alcoholism, he was brought in with tremble and fever. You can bring him his medicine. He gets some medicals and herbs every morning, after lunch and at night time," the doctor answered and grabbed a bottle and a spoon of the table next to them.
"He's friendly, but I think that something terrible has happened to him," he said and Rufus took the medicine and walked over to the man.
He guessed him being around thirty, his eyes looked much older. He might have cried a little while ago and dried tears were shimmering on his cheeks. Rufus couldn't breathe as he recognized this familiarity of his face. He looked so much like Robert that Rufus would have loved to drop the bottle and scream out his name.
But now he silently sat down next to him and watched his head slowly turn. "I'm Rufus Sixsmith, a new nurse," he said and gave the bottle into his trembling hands.
"My name is Sebastian Flyte…you are British?"
"Yes," he answered, surprised on how high and pleasant his voice was.
"Then what are you doing here?" he asked while slowly swallowing the dark brown liquid from the first spoon that Rufus gave him.
"I…needed to get away from the Island."
"I know the feeling," Sebastian answered, and it seemed as the tears continued running down his face.
"Why did you come here?" Rufus asked. He felt so familiar with him, his similarity with Robert was unmistakable. The same face, the same voice, the same expression in his eyes.
"I…" he began to say but then turned away.
"You have become very lonely…"
"You as well, or you wouldn't be here," Sebastian mentioned and tried to wipe away a strand of hair that he long time didn't possess anymore. "Who did you lose?"
The words cut in deep into memories that Rufus had wanted to bury with his past and England. "My love…" he whispered.
"Me too," the man said and shortly smiled. "And my family turned away from me as well…how?"
Rufus needed some time to clear his thoughts and hesitated before he answered: "He took his life. I was too late to…" Pictures of Robert appeared in his view. The small, so breakable, soft body, lying innocently in a white bathtub, red blood running down.
He had been so tender, so nice. Rufus didn't want to burst out in tears again as he did so many times while travelling here. He felt a hand touching his back.
"He fell in love with my sister," Sebastian said and lay his head down at Rufus shoulder. "And now we both are doomed to spend the rest of our lives alone."
Rufus nodded slowly and put his arm around Sebastian's waist. He was so slender, his pale so skin as well.
"Perhaps not completely alone," he answered and now, without hesitating or thinking, he bend forward and kissed him gently on his mouth.
When Robert waited for him, he certainly didn't want Rufus to spend his whole life in sorrow and alone, but to make a better life out of it, so that he could finally join him in a better world, waiting for all of them, also for Sebastian…
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