Sunday
28 May 2022

He awoke face-down in a field of grass – a not too unfamiliar experience, he decided, but one he wasn't too fond of regardless.

The sun was hot on his neck. What time was it? Judging by the sun in the sky, it must have been a little past noon. If only he had a watch – he'd lost it along with the rest of his clothes that first day he ended up in the hospital and never bothered to replace it.

His scrubs were covered in grass stains and smelled like putrid refuse. He did not want to think about what he'd done for the past day as he'd drifted in and out of his drug-induced haze – all thanks to that damn badge Goggles gave him. He had a foggy memory of swiping through the secure lock of the medication room door and ransacking the cabinets looking for any opioids he could get his hands on. Well… it was best not to think about it any further. No doubt he just did more despicable, humiliating deeds to further despise himself for.

Speaking of things to despise himself for…

No. He would not think about her. He would not. She was as bad for him as he was for her.

And her face – Christ, he would give anything to forget her face – when she accused him of wanting to kill her. Why had he allowed himself to be so open with her? What good did he think would come from being honest? Of everything else he could have shared with her, why was the bloodthirsty, murderous rampage shit the first thing out of his mouth?

More importantly, though – why did she let him keep talking? She only grew angry with him when he refused to answer her questions. Her actual reaction to his confession of murder had been – accepting. Dare he even say… gentle? Kind. She hadn't judged him for any of it – not outright. She hadn't even been disgusted. She simply wanted him to keep talking about it. She asked him questions. She wanted to understand. Maybe… if he had told her the truth of why he visited her, would she have been as disgusted as he feared? Could it be it was not actually worth her anger and revulsion to avoid her prying, curious questions?

His heart beat twice in quick succession: once for blood, another for hope.

If he… if he went back there… if he told her the truth… the whole truth… would she still be willing to listen? Was it possible for another human being to finally understand?

She was asleep when he entered the room, so he shut the door behind him quietly before padding over to the chair, still sitting alongside her bed. Nobody had moved it in the past day.

There he noticed a strange pattern to her breaths - she was feigning sleep!

"Christine," he murmured in a low voice. "I know you're awake."

Her eyes opened and she frowned back at him. "Why did you come back?"

"I wanted to see you," Erik replied.

"Are you going to kill me?"

It was somewhat unnerving to think they were just picking up the conversation from where they left off yesterday. Erik sighed. "Christine, I meant what I said yesterday."

You are truly the most pitiable woman in the world…

"You're covered in mud," Christine observed.

"Rough night," he said, like an apology.

She stared at him strangely. "Where do you go when you're not here?"

"Typically I go home. I spend most days in my house, alone. Last night was a mistake, though."

"Did you kill anyone?"

She sounded so nervous, he could have laughed. Or cried. "Murder isn't the only thing I do, Christine. I do have a life. Even if that's hard for you to imagine."

"What other things do you do when you're not murdering innocent people?"

"Listen to music." He splayed his fingers before him, as if to rest them on a piano keyboard. "Play, too, sometimes, when I have the energy."

"That's fairly… normal."

"I am a fairly normal man, Christine. I do fairly normal things from time to time."

"Like dress up as a nurse and visit sick strangers in the hospital?"

"Touché."

She mulled some thoughts over in her head for a moment. "Do you have any friends?"

"No," he said reflexively, the word devoid of any emotion. "I'm not the type of person who's good for that."

"Why not?" Her blue eyes shown at him – blue, perfect depths, like an endless expanse of ocean… the ocean… he remembered the ocean…

"I kill people," he reminded her.

"But why?" she persisted. "Why – to everything? What made you into the person you are? It's so confusing…"

Confusing? "What's confusing?"

"Well, you talk about all these horrible things that you've done, but it's hard to understand. I mean – you cried on my bed for an hour yesterday." She said that last part as one quick polysyllabic word. "If you hadn't told me about the murder stuff, I never would have guessed. You don't seem like that sort of person. I just – I can't find the word for it."

"The word is 'pathetic,' Christine."

"That's not -"

"Men are not born monsters," Erik said. "They are molded into them by the world around them. I wasn't born as a thief, or as an extortionist, or as a murderer. I was born as a terribly pathetic child who let the world bend me and break me, until I tried to fight back with the only way I learned how, and then I only succeeded in hurting myself for the worse." He took a steadying breath. "So you are right. It is confusing: because despite how pathetic I appear, I am still a bad person who has done very bad things. I think the trouble is you think it's wrong to hate someone who you pity."

"I don't pity you."

"It's okay to say you do, Christine. I'm a very pitiable man."

"Why though? If you're truly as normal as any other man… why?"

They were encroaching on dangerous territory, Erik knew. She wanted to know why. That's what everyone always wanted to know. But the why of it all…

It was his face. His disgusting, distorted, mutilated face. How could he ever hope for her to understand? Once she saw his face she'd know he was a monster, just like everyone else knew him to be.

And yet –

Her eyes were full of all those endearing promises. Perhaps she could understand. Perhaps there could still be good things in this world…

"I am -" How could he put this delicately? "- very ugly."

A beat.

Her eyebrows raised comically. "That's it? That's the explanation?"

"No, but you must understand, Christine – I'm hideous. A repulsive carcass just yanked from his sordid grave." He shook his head, tormented by long-gone memories. "Even Erik's own mother couldn't bare to look upon him without fear and loathing."

"I'm sure you're not that bad," Christine tried.

"I promise you that I am." He held up his hand before she could protest. "I have heard it all before. You tell me that it's just my face and it's not really me, because it's what's inside that matters more than the outside, even if my soul is black and irredeemable shit - and then you convince me that you can look upon me without fear. And so then I take off the mask…"

He placed two quivering hands overtop the surgical mask – hovering so close above it but not touching –

"And then you see me for what I am, and it's far beyond whatever blemish you prepared your weak heart for – and then you scream. You always scream. I scream, as well, I think, and I'm not sure who screams first, actually, but eventually it ends with you cowering in the corner and me bashing my knuckles on the wall."

He lowered his hands.

"So, see, Christine – do not try to persuade me. I am a very stupid man, even if I'm fairly normal, and so even after many years of rejection, I'm still prone to hope when a nice pretty lady such as yourself says such nice pretty lies to me."

He stared at her.

"I must ask, though, because like I said, I am a stupid man who's prone to the baseless disease of hope." He took a deep breath. "Would you still like me to remove the mask? I will - if you that's what you wish. I know I shouldn't, but I will. For you."

The only response was a conflicted twitch as her eyes searched his.

He moved his hands back up, lacing through the loops around his ears. Now it was off, a centimeter from his face, and all he had to do was slowly lower it and she would finally see -

"Please don't," Christine squeaked.

His hands stopped still.

"I don't blame you," he said dejectedly, looping the mask back around his ears. "Everybody who's ever seen Erik's face has always ended up regretting -"

"It's not that," she said, then coughed pointedly. "I have COVID, Erik. I don't want you to get it."

"Oh," he said. And then again, "Oh."

With that one word, the walls between them fell away. His face didn't matter anymore, because now he knew she would never see it. Something in him told him she knew, though – she knew what was behind the mask. He hadn't had to describe the torturous veins, the broken nasal ridge, or the mangled flesh – she knew without seeing.

With all that behind them now – all the confessions of murder and pain and deformity now over with - they soon fell into a comfortable conversation. For the first time in his life, Erik found someone who could actually match him beat for beat in his musical knowledge. She had thoughts on the twisting passages of the old, archaic operatic forms. She had thoughts on the latest symphonic orchestra to tour through their city. And she even had thoughts on the types of violins which were best – surprisingly deep thoughts, too, which she explained came from a childhood learning from her fiddler of a father.

They spoke at length, about everything and nothing, and the rest of the world seemed to fall away as they chatted for forever and a day.

"It's Sunday," Christine said at one point. "Could you read me a verse from the Bible?"

It was a Catholic hospital, and there was, of course, a Bible resting in the drawer of the bedside table.

"I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with the text," Erik said. "Let me see if I can find something for you, though."

He picked up the Bible and thumbed through it. Yes, he'd read it before – under the stern hand of his God-fearing mother. But it'd been years, and he was woefully unfamiliar with this French translation. Every page looked like a new story he'd never read before.

Somewhere in the book of psalms, a folded piece of paper fell out onto his lap. He carefully opened the faded sheet and looked it over.

It wasn't anything Biblical, but he figured it'd be suitable enough. Throat still raspy, then, he recited:

"Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe
Thursday's child has far to go
Friday's child is loving and giving
Saturday's child works hard for a living
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay."

"It's a beautiful rhyme," Christine said, a dream in her eyes. "What do you think it means?"

"It seems to be from the tradition of fortune-telling," Erik said, re-reading the lines to himself. "It predicts the fate that will befall a person based on the day they're born. For example, I was born on a Monday." Here he stopped abruptly and laughed. "Perhaps I'm not the best example for this."

She cocked her head to the side, golden curls swaying. An unspoken question was on her lips.

"It's a silly little nursery rhyme," Erik said dismissively, before she could ask it. "It doesn't work for everyone."

"I think it's fascinating that there's such a rhyme at all. I never considered that… the course of your entire life can be determined by the day of the week you were born on."

"It's certainly a thought," Erik hurrumphed dejectedly.

"Days have so many meanings…" she murmured, sinking back into the pillow. "If it matters so much what day I'm born on, do you think it matters at all what day I'll die on?"

"I should think not," Erik said quickly, "because you will live forever."

How dare she even speak like that! Did she know what it would do to him if she died?

She grinned teasingly. "Says who – my Angel?"

"Your nurse, actually," he bit back, a little sour. He found he didn't quite enjoy being reminded of his deceit. He turned back to the book and thumbed through it some more. "Let me return - to the beginning…"

Eventually the day turned to night, and the outside world beyond the big picture window turned to black. Did they really just talk the whole day away without realizing it? Talking with Christine just felt so natural. He never wanted the day to end… but Erik found he couldn't ignore the passing of time for much longer.

"It's getting kind of late now," he said reluctantly, standing up from his seat and stretching. "I think it's best if I go now. You need your rest."

"Will you come visit me tomorrow?" Christine asked.

Erik paused. "Do you want me to?"

"It's nice to have someone to talk to."

"So tomorrow, then," he confirmed.

"Tomorrow, " she agreed. "We'll talk some more tomorrow."