Thank you to my zekesmummy! (you still remember when I first started talking about this?! mega glomp), StZen, Annika Preminyer, Sa-kun and Mrs.MonkeyD.Hitachiinx3 for your reviews!
I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
I paced backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, outside the room with the closed door.
Hiro was in there. And they wouldn't let me in. Why? Because I wasn't family, and I wasn't his wife.
"I might as well be," I muttered, barely even aware that I had spoken aloud. There was no one to hear me; nobody wanted to stray too close to the brooding, bitter man in the corner, talking to the walls to vent my frustration.
How long have we been together? How many people, over the years, have told us that we weren't right for each other, that it was a combination designed to bring only hatred and pain?
Yes, there had been arguments, terrible, blazing ones where I had struck Hiro and Hiro had struck me and we had spoken cold-blooded words in anger before retreating to fume in solitude. Of course there had been. We were two homosexuals with fiery tempers struggling to survive in a world where homophobia was still the common reaction to seeing two men share a kiss.
But there had also been wonderful times, mainly when we were alone together. As headstrong youngsters, those moments had been distinguished by the hot passion, by the clumsy gropes and moments of pure ecstasy to be had in a bare, cheerless room with clothes strewn across the floor - cleanliness came easily to us only when an impression needed to be made. As we had grown older, the passion had faded, the groping and ecstasy slowed into virtual non-existence. We had found a rightness in simply sitting next to each other, happy to co-exist in our perfect world until the next row blew it apart.
We have never said the words "I love you" to each other. Not in a different form, not even in our minds. Not even after one, memorable time where I broke his arm and he knocked me to the floor and kicked me in the head, not even when we had got back together after that had those words been said.
Why did people place so much importance on words? Neither of us had been at all talkative. It was actions that counted. And twenty-seven years of actions counted for something, didn't it?
Now, because of a simple operation gone wrong, all that could be taken away in a flash.
Go in with a kidney stone, come out in a coffin. A twisted, sarcastic laugh rasped from my dry throat as I momentarily slowed my pacing and ran my hands through hair that was beginning to lighten with hints of white.
A ruptured kidney, they had said. It'll be fine, they had said. Then it was kidney failure, dialysis. Internal bruising. Internal bleeding.
"Sorry, sir, you can't see him. Family or spouses only."
Didn't they have any idea how much this hurt? Being helpless out here, clueless. It was so rare Hiro showed pain, so rare he showed vulnerability of any kind, but as the ambulance screeched up, he had done both those things in quick succession.
Suddenly, the door opened. The nurse looked almost as if she wanted to retreat and close the door as I stared at her and demanded,
"What's happening?"
"I'm sorry, Brooklyn, sir, I truly am ... Hiro ... " she fell back on clichés, "he is not long for this world."
I had never fainted before. I'd often wondered curiously what it felt like, in fact. I didn't faint then, but the world spun and shrank around me until even the wall I was leaning against felt soft and unsteady.
"Let me in." I didn't recognise my own voice.
"I can't."
"Please?!"
"I'm sorry, you're not a relation, I can't let you in."
I begged, pleaded, threatened and raged, had to be restrained by six nurses and a security guard, but I was still outside the door when I heard;
"Time of death; 3:30 am."
I'm delighted people like what I'm doing here - almost wish I'd get some flames though, so I knew that people who didn't already understand the message were getting it, you know?
Anyway, review?
xIlbx