Waiting for His Steps, Ch. 1

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Waiting for His Steps

I

I opened my eyes very slowly, woken up by the stabbing pain pulsing in my head. The only thing I was able to see in the first moment was the pure, crystal clear 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 had been taken to. The room 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 could not give name to, was painted white. The walls, however, were dusty and gray, full of awful cracks stretching 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 could not 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. Then 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 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 first 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 sorrowfully.

Surprisingly, a few minutes later I could hear someone’s steps outside the door. I deduced 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 at all?’

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 did not 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 did not 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 waking 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 and enthusiastic.

‘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 said 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 mountain ranges. ‘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…

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