It was a late Friday night when the man in the black hood stepped in to the waiting area of the emergency room. No one paid him much attention as he silently stalked towards an empty seat in the row furthest from the nurses' station. Later he would not show on any of the CCTV recordings from that night.
He sat down silently, managing to look comfortable in the narrow seat. Slowly he pulled a book from one of the pockets of his worn hoodie and began to sift trough it. It was a well read paperback with a cracked spine. He held the book in his left hand and turned a page every now and then. The cover of the book showed a man kneeling on a cliff above a crimson sea. Above the man clouds were parting to show a blood red sun dripping down. There was an elderly woman dressed in a faded blue dress seated next to him, her fingers fidgeting and constantly picking at the fabric covering her knees. She looked at the book and at the man. For a moment she seemed to hesitate then she cleared her throat. "Excuse me young man. But I was wondering what it is that you are reading? That picture brings a shiver to my heart." He lowered the book and turned towards her. "It is a book about faith and what it means to be a good man." His voice was no more than a whisper, yet it had a ring to it that reminded the old woman of the church bells in the village where she grew up. Somehow it resonated in her memory. "It is about what you find when the silence of god makes you listen inwards, to the core of what you are." At this he covered her restless hands with his own much larger ones. "Everything will be just fine, Sarah" he said to her, as shadows moved around them. "Mrs Simon?" one of the nurses called. "The doctor will see you now." Sarah, for that was her name, stood up and smoothed out her dress. She smiled at him before she turned and walked over to the waiting nurse. Once again the black clad man settled into his seat and began to read. Time moved, as it always does. All around him the frantic activity of human pain and suffering took place. It flowed around him as the hospital staff did all that was humanly possible to sooth and to heal. It was a quarter to one when the phone rang accompanied by the slow but insistent beeps of staff being called to receive a patient with massive trauma. He could see them lining up, nurses and doctors, all of them fidgeting. The intake doors pushed open, revealing a small and mangled form on a gurney being straddled by a paramedic giving heart compressions. They were rushed into one of the trauma rooms, followed by a crying woman being led by two policemen. He let out a slow breath, putting the book back into his pocket. Very slowly he stood up and moved towards the doors of the trauma room. He lifted his hands to his face and pulled back the hood. Long hair the colour of honey and wheat spilled down his back. His eyes shone like the golden glow of the sun through ember. There was a rustling sound, as of doves taking flight, when he unfolded wings made by the fabric of night. Stars and galaxies moved within them and then time stopped. Silently he walked over to the gurney where the child lay. He reached out and caressed a stained and bloodied forehead. "I have come to take you home" he said, and his words where those of the eternal. He bent down and put his arms under the child, cradling her to his heart. The light that was her moved in his embrace, turning to face her mother. Her small hands reached out to touch the hair of the one who had brought her into the world, trying to bring comfort now that she was leaving. "You will be together again" he said to the mother. "She will be safe and waiting for you." Silence pooled around them, and in that silence a light grew. It shone with the brilliance of a thousand stars, spreading warmth and love. He wrapped his wings around the small form of the girl snuggled in his arms. He smiled at her and she laughed.
0 Kommentarer
Ibland är min själ som glas, skör och klingande. De dagarna dansar den rotlösheten som är jag i vinden och jag längtar efter att hitta jord. Andra dagar är jag av marmor och urberg.
Min uppväxt är ett liv på flykt utan skada, utan krig och konflikt. Den är en lång rad av länder och städer och ansikten. Den är tång, den är hav och den är jordbävning. Jag har luftrötter, som en orkidé. Klamrar mig fast i barken och suger vätska ur luften. Jag är varken fågel eller fisk, varken mark eller himmel. Fångad mitt emellan, i limbo. När vi väl tog mark var det försent. Min kropp visste inte längre hur man slår rot, varken i en plats eller i andra. Jag har slagit mina rötter i mig själv, bär dem med mig dit jag går. någonstans i natten förlorade jag mina ord
mellan martallar och en hed i dimman tror jag att de föll och i det röda ljuset. det tar på själen att vakna och veta att allt du har gjort är att kyssa andar som sedan länge lämnat allt hur jag desperat stulit andetag från änglar för att få det här trötta gamla liket att åter dra efter andan i en kudde full av tårar bad jag natten att återta mig svepa mig i sina tysta vingar innan morgonens bleka ljus lagt mina brutna ben bara |
Jempan
Både prosa och lyrik Arkiv
Oktober 2017
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