Once again, thank you all for the lovely comments...thank you, you really help me, guys!
Not Even Human--Hospital and Hospitable
The boy was foaming from the mouth, as he stared up at the starless heavens. Three men and one woman were gathered around the drugged-out young man, their sooty shadows spreading across the alleyway, eerily.
Two men were watching the limp little boy, and a slim, slinky little man glared at the woman, cautiously. The lady was in a thick, black trenchcoat, an article of clothing that would have definitely kept her toasty in the cool winter night—but she was nonetheless trembling.
Edward slowly lifted himself up from the floor and spied over a tin garbage can to see the scene at the other end of the alleyway.
The trenchcoat lady and the weasel-man exchanged brief murmurs at first, but they soon evolved into shouts. Their angry breath floated mistily in the icy midnight air, and their voices lifted higher than the club's booming music.
"Listen. The boy—no, listen to me!—he's in some sort of coma, don't you see? He's terribly sick, please, he needs help, can't you see that?" The lady said, picking the boy's floppy arm.
The weasel-man shook his head, "He's fine... C'mon...! Hey, what did I just tell you? He's all right, okay?"
"No, he is not. Just look at the boy! Go on, just look. He's been overdosed or something, can't you see? We need to call an ambulance! Somebody call an ambulance!"
No one moved a muscle. She wasted no time and quickly got out her own cell phone.
One of the men snatched the phone out of her hand and threw it to the broken concrete ground, the phone made an explosion like fireworks; white sparks and blue stars bursting in the air. There was a brief hush.
The trenchcoat lady's mouth opened, her glasses glittered, and her breathing started to get fretted and quick as she saw the murderous gleam the men had in their eyes. She gingerly took a step backwards.
"The boy..." She cried, her face becoming seashell pale and her eyes widening with apprehension. "The boy needs medical attention--!"
"Look here, you little nosy bitch..." The weasel man, snarled, his green eyes sparkling with weed and money, "You can't do that. Now. I'll ask you really nice just to leave."
"No, no...you don't seem to understand—the boy is sick, he needs help. You can't just let—" The lady said, her mouth opening and her glasses shining a solid red in the club light's light.
"We have every right, you realize!" The weasel-man said, puffing his chest up like a balloon, "You have been disturbing my customers."
"By trying to save them from the hell they are living in? By trying to help them know that they can live a better life than living in sin--?"
"Listen, preacher, I'm not asking for a fucking sermon, all right?" The weasel-man said, "I want you to start leaving by the count of ten, or I'll be calling the police, okay?"
"No, it's not okay!" The lady protested, urgently. "This boy needs help, as do all the people in that building over there—as do you! Can't you see?"
"Ten." He started counting.
The lady scooped the teenage boy up and dragged him along with her, as if she were a little girl carrying an oversized rag-doll. The men monitored the weasel-man's face, as if they were waiting for instruction. Then, in a burst of action, they started shouting and grabbing the boy out of her arms.
"Nine!" The green-eyed man shouted, yanking the lady away from the boy.
The woman in the trenchcoat got a whiff of the boy's breath, and she winced, disgusted. But not soon after, she lifted her head up, slowly, and frowned. She had uncovered something.
She pushed her sliding glasses up with a trembling finger, "You gave him marijuana? You...gave him...? You're drug lords."
"I swear to God—if you tell anybody—"
The woman glanced, from left to right. She nervously pushed her glasses up yet again, and she flicked her frizzy hair off her face.
"You're going to let a boy die?" The lady said, "You are going to let a boy die."
"We don't know if he'll die." One of them said, unconvincingly.
The lady looked down at the boy, shaking her curly head, "At this rate, he almost inevitably will!"
Edward watched the men start to spit and shout at each other, wrathfully. He pondered on such little things, like what a drug lord was, and how the impish little man resembled the man whom so graciously gave him 'weed'.
"Just look at the boy!" The lady wailed, trying to lift the young man up, "Help him!"
The boy was indeed dying, if not already almost quite, in the sense, dead. He lay flat on his back, unmoving besides the weak heaves of his perishing chest, and the boy's face was transforming from snow pale to dangerously death-like fish belly white.
"Help him!" The woman pleaded, coming closer to the quarreling brutes. "Stop it and help him! Help--!"
Edward heard the lady give a short, painful yell as she was tossed to the floor, her body landing right next to the almost soulless teen. The lady's glasses cracked and smashed across the alleyway's hard floor, and the trenchcoat lady did not get up, but just laid there, still and soundless.
The posse of men gazed, hypnotized by the lady and the boy, and their breathing became fast and irritated. They slowly stepped backwards with each breath, their eyes still glued to the bodies.
One man asked, his voice hushed, as if in church. "They dead?"
"Oh, Lord. I don't want to find out." The weasel-man gasped, holding his stomach, woefully.
And the weasel-man coughed, clutched his stomach, and fled from the alleyway. The two other men kept staring, then they slowly looked at each other, confused. The two tall men carefully stepped over the bodies and leisurely walked out of the alleyway.
Doctors are an elite bunch of maniacs. They always have charts and thermometers, and they jabber on about intelligent things. Well, a particular group of Urban City doctors were clustered together, dissecting Mr. Edward Hands' character and motivations. They, doctors, can be rather like housewives sometimes, Edward thought.
"Do you know this woman?" A doctor asked, delicately.
Mr. Edward Hands shook his head. The doctors nodded, simultaneously, and they shifted their weight from one leg to the other.
"Do you know the boy, Mr. Hands?" Another enquired.
"No."
"And...you ran all the way over to the hospital, carrying both?" They all chuckled a little, finding the man's bravery funny and a little idiotic.
Edward felt abashed, but hadn't the slightest knowledge of why, "Yes."
The doctors fell into a perplexed silence, and their eyes widened, surprised. Their lips tightened, curiously, as they checked their charts (for no particular reason).
"But why?"
Mr. Edward Hands answered, worriedly, "It...was the right thing to do?"
Did I do the wrong thing again? Edward thought, utterly ashamed of himself.
"Oh, no, no, no, my poor boy!" One plump, pompous doctor laughed, touched by Mr. Hands' ignorance, "Calling the police would have been the right thing to do! They can properly handle such things!" The doctor shook his head, and tisk-tisked Edward, "What were you thinking, my young man? Ah, no matter now...the damage has already been done..."
"There has been no damage, Dr. Potter!" A reasonable doctor debated, frankly, "The man did a very brave thing. He was just confused at the time, like any normal person would be!"
At the stroke of midnight, the police arrived at the city hospital, swarming here and there, shoving the doctors aside and getting down to business.
Edward took deep breaths, and he panicked when he thought of how angry Kennedy would be when he catches wind of this. He put his sweaty hand to his blistering hot forehead, and bit his lip until it bled.
"You Edward Hands?" A policeman roared, impatiently, "Hey, son, wake up, will ya? This is important—you Ed Hands?"
Edward wiped the copperish blood off his lip, and nodded.
"All right, son," The policeman said, "Now, I'm gonna have to ask you some questions, okay? Come with me."
The policeman motioned for Edward to follow him, and the mechanical man did so, obedient as always. The policeman put him in a separate waiting room, where a mixture of doctors and policemen talked and interviewed. Edward saw that another policeman was interrogating the trenchcoat lady—it was a comfort, at least, that she had only been knocked out cold and not killed.
"Oh, dear, no!" The trenchcoat lady exclaimed, looking right at Edward, "He didn't hurt me, are you kidding? That man saved my life!" The policeman murmured something, and the lady frowned, and said, "No, of course not! He is completely innocent, and anyone who says otherwise is mad."
"Dr. Potter to room one seventy-three," The speakers announced, loudly, "Dr. Potter to room one seventy-tree, please."
Plump little Dr. Potter waddled over to room one seventy-three, with an air of a spoiled, furry pet dog.
Edward liked people watching, because he always found people so entertaining—they were always doing something strange. They talked and talked and talked until their jaws became weary and stiff, but Edward loved listening to them chatter on. It calmed him down, just listening to them, just watching them.
He needed calming down right now, his nerves were all shot, and the police interrogation had not gone well. Police made him nervous, they always had since that night they chased him up the Hill.
So, Eddie watched self-centered Dr. Potter trot along the halls, pass Edward, and enter room one seventy-three. Well, almost, enter room number one seventy-three—the doctor paused before he opened the door, turned towards Edward, and said:
"You, boy, can you give me a hand with something?"
Edward eagerly offered his assistance, and Dr. Potter beckoned the mechanical boy into the room, thankfully.
Always be of service, Edward. The Inventor had always lectured pleasantly about decorum, bearing, and table manners. Edward remembered every single word. Be polite when asked to help, especially when a lady asks. Eagerness to work is a distinct sign of good breeding, Edward.
What Edward saw lying stone-still on the bed sent tremors up his spine, and a slight groan croaked in his throat. He wished he hadn't been of service today. What Edward saw was the boy from the alleyway, eyes shut, mouth shut, and body shut off to any soul it had once so carefully housed, long ago.
Dr. Potter hummed a cheery tune as he walked around the boy's deathbed, and he casually asked Edward to help him shut off the boy's monitor. Dr. Potter unobservantly, almost witlessly, flicked the deceased boy's life support off.
Edward Hands approached the bed, a bit afraid of what he would see laying on its surface.
"Is he...?"
"Oh," The doctor laughed, dryly, "Dead? Yes, yes, he's very dead, indeed."
Edward bowed his head, feeling the impact of death hit him hard, but Dr. Potter merely shrugged his comfy shoulders, unaffected.
"Ah, well, when you're a doctor, you become well acquainted with death...especially young death. These kids nowadays seem like they almost want to die, you know." Dr. Potter took the chart off the boy's bed and wrote something on it, "I was like you, Edward...you know. I used to be so disturbed by death, but I was younger then... and I soon realized that death is everywhere," He laughed a little, "And if there wasn't death and disease, I'd be out of the job, wouldn't I?"
The doctor walked out, while spitting out a quick 'thank you and good-bye', but Dr. Potter stopped himself at the doorway and commented, "My boy, you're in the city now. You'll get used to death soon enough..."
His stomach frizzled and bubbled with nausea, I hope I never do. Edward prayed, feeling his glass eyes begin to ache and itch.
He slunk out of the room, his heart weak from the night's events, and sank deep into one of the waiting room seats, covering his face.
The first rays of peach colored morning sun slid gracefully out the hospital's windows, warming Edward who was under the golden rays of morning. But a cold shadow blocked the sunlight from his eyes, cooling down is baking face.
The mechanical man opened his eyes to see who was blocking the glorious morning sun, and the shadow was none other than the trenchcoat lady.
She was not actually wearing her dark trenchcoat anymore, but now wearing a new grey-green shawl—so she therefore, since such an article of clothing was no longer present on the woman, she became the 'shawl lady'. The shawl lady moved out of the sun's way and wearily sat next to Edward Hands.
The shawl lady was a plain young woman, the only striking feature about her were her eyes, and they weren't pretty eyes, just striking eyes. They were hard and solid, like gray marble, concealed behind a transparent barrier of small spectacles. Her mouth was red and sore-looking, and her plum pudding-brown hair was curly, springy, like copper coils. She wore a white and purple crucifix around her neck, and she had been given a new pair of golden-rimmed glasses.
"Thank you, Mr. Hands." The lady said, turning her head I his direction.
Edward frowned, slightly, for he could hardly recognize the lady without her trenchcoat. But when he did recognize her, it struck him that the shawl lady looked vaguely familiar. He nodded his head, in acceptance.
"I'm...well, I hardly can repay you for what you've done." The shawl lady continued, carefully, "But thank you..."
Edward nodded, weakly, and the rest was gladly left in silence. He turned his hollow gaze over to the dead boy's room, and something inside him crumbled and died away.
The shawl lady, to his utmost surprise, followed his gaze over to the room containing the dead young man. She froze, horrified.
"Oh, I see..." The shawl lady had a sad revelation, "The boy died?" Asked shawl lady, monotonously until the end, when her voice broke, sadly.
Edward whispered, "Yes."
The shawl lady bobbed her head up and down, gently, as she hid her face for a moment, and rubbed her shawl and her eyes together, "The poor mother—how will she be when she hears about all this?"
Edward shook his head, somberly, as his gaze drooped down to the tiled floor. The shawl lady bent her head down and she looked at the floor, too.
"You did everything you could, though. I did everything I could, the doctors did everything they could." Shawl lady said, tightening her grip on her shawl, frustratedly, "Why...why do people...try stupid things like that? What was a boy like that doing in a nightclub, for goodness sakes? I mean, the boy was hardly seventeen, you realize..."
A policeman respectfully approached the two mourners, "Pardon me, ma'am," The policeman said, lowly, as he handed two letters to Edward and her, "If you would read these, please. They're just telling you that you'll have to appear in court—that you can't, under any circumstances, ma'am—and sir—leave Urban City without official approval."
"Yes, of course." The shawl lady said, reading the letter and handing Edward his. She pushed up her glasses again, irritably. "When is the court appearance?"
"That's still being decided, ma'am." The policeman says, giving a suspicious glare towards Edward. After all, Edward had saved the lady and the boy on strange terms, and people do talk...
"And you're free to go, but you'll be monitored by police, only as a safety precaution..." The policeman nodded, politely, and then went away.
Edward felt his heart sink into his stomach, and it wallowed there, painfully, for quite a long time. He had been caught again, he would be found out, and a whole monstrous world of horrific things would happen to him. Not to mention how infuriated Kennedy will be. This meant the end of normalcy...
While he was noiselessly brooding away, the shawl lady stretched, tiredly, and stood up to leave. The lady stared down at a depressed, heart-broken Edward; the shawl lady shivered, pulled her shawl closer.
"Are you going to stay?" She asked, politely.
Edward looked up at her and nodded his head.
"Are you..." The shawl lady said, civilly, "Do you have a home?"
The man swallowed, looked down at the turquoise floor and breathed, "I don't know."
"Um." She said, pushing her glasses up, carefully, "I see. Well, I'd be happy to help you. Do you need money? Um, food? Shelter?"
Edward shook his head and stared back down at the floor.
"Well, it's morning..." Shawl lady said, staring at her old wrist watch. She examined Edward, but not like other women—she looked at Edward with not a sly sort of pleasure, but with pity and, perhaps, a small chance of friendliness.
"I'm going to have breakfast tea soon...Would you care to join me?"
Edward saw no reason not to; he didn't want to stay, and he didn't want to go back—he might as well go forward—"Yes, please."
She grinned, victoriously, "Well, I think it's the least that I can do, really, Edward. Considering what you did for me and the boy..." She trailed off, sleepily, "Well. Let's be on our way then." She stopped herself "I haven't told you my name, have I? And here I am, talking away to you, and you don't even know me..." She confessed, obligingly. "I'm Victoria. Victoria Emerson, and it's a pleasure to meet you."
So the shawl lady was hereafter known and referred to as Miss Victoria Emerson.
I am done with this chapter...(head falls on keyboard, and I blissfully fall asleep)
Ah, sleep.