Play Detective

Heartbeat

No one in the room could sleep.

Personally, he wished Clay would stop crying about his mother, because he felt the crushing heat in his chest again. It was wrapping it's thickness around his throat as he was reminded of how lonely he was. He really didn't like to think about that, partially because he didn't know how to make himself feel better. Like the sickness to your stomach you can't reach the pink medicine to, but there's no one to help you when you vomit all over yourself and begin to slip around in your own slime across the linoleum floor of the bathroom.

The answer he had been told many times before directly and indirectly was to introduce himself and be friendly. It wasn't that simple. What was the correct way to introduce yourself? Do you just... do it? And, friendliness is determined by (he assumed) the other person, so how do you determine what they want? Another common suggestion was to be himself, and he already was. It wasn't working. What else was there to be (he wasn't yet at the age of putting on the guises and the individual workings of a "false self")?

He really wished Clay would just go to sleep. He did this most nights. Nothing ever changes.

He also wished John Luke and Winny (Winefred) would follow suit, although he had no idea what they were upset about.

It was apparently contagious, because the tendrils of pressure were pushing whimpers through his lips and hot tears down his cheeks. Suddenly, he just wanted to let them fall. Maybe it would leave him alone. And, he tried to go to sleep, to run away from the discomfort, pulling the covers over his head and feeling the nightshirt run up his thigh.

With a soft knock at the door, a nun entered. It wasn't uncommon for them to roam, they often did sweeps after total curfew (which was about ten o' clock, and when even the oldest boys were required to get to their dorms for the night) in pairs through the upper and lower halls. It wasn't uncommon for them to hear Clay bawling, but only a few have ever done anything more than scold them for being awake. Now they were all awake, and his head swam with dread for the scolding and dizziness from breathing the hot air trapped under the blankets.

"Now, now, what's the fuss? All of you?"

Her voice was sweet and warbling, and he wanted it far away from him. She probably wouldn't want to talk to him anyway, none of the nuns or clergy cared to notice him. Who was being impolite then? No one. They had the upper hand; they were the town criers of all things unsuitable. It was how life was. They laughed when you fell. It was normal.

Memorize your prayers, or you're sacrilegious. Impolite to another power once you enter the sanctuary. People had died caring for this, so don't you mess up.

She walked over to Clay, who was the loudest, first and soothed him into a calm whimper with more unrecognizable warbling and a soft kiss on his forehead. He was easy to comfort, easier still when she turned on the lamp and bathed the room in warm light so he could see her face. Jealousy bloomed like a fire, but it was smothered with more of the constriction in his throat as more tears made the pillow damp and cool below his cheek.

Then to Winny across from him, but he didn't care to watch as she sat on the bed and straightened the covers on his chest. She took his round bifocal glasses off and folded them neatly on the nightstand between the two before he got an audible kiss, as well.

Our focus, slipping his thumb fully into his mouth, reached his fingers into his hair that was just long enough to clutch on to effectively and pulled with the pulse of his headache and his heartbeat threatening to pound if and when he began to really cry. He didn't want to do that.

John Luke was next, and with relief, jubilance, and raw disappointment L realized that he might not be visited after all. He suppressed the urge to sit up and let the pains rack through him, but curled his legs even tighter around his midsection. The grip on his hair was tightening, and his lip was bleeding; he did not want to cry. She smoothed John Luke's hair, and asked soft questions to him- John Luke was always fairly talkative. He blubbered on about how he missed his sisters and his baby brother, and she reassured him thay wouldn't forget him as he couldn't forget them now. And, she kissed him like she had for the others and smoothed his hair one more time before turning to face L.

He was already turned away from her, squeezing his eyes shut and biting his thumb to keep form making any noise. He breathed so slowly he left his head becoming heavier until she pulled the covers away from his face and he dropped the act. It was childish and pitiful- utterly unattractive. While warding her off was the primary initiative, it was inconvenient to perform and may lead to future qualms. It was best not to lie, he'd remembered.

"What are you... Oh, dear."

She worked her away around to the other side of the bed and firmly, but carefully grabbed his shoulders and set him upright, his knees still bent but falling away from his chest. Both of his hands migrated from their previous posts to hide his face and protect his burning eyes from the light.

"Come now, what's the matter? Does anything hurt?"

From her standpoint, he appeared to be in great physical pain, and trying to hide whatever ailment from everyone. She wasn't too far from the truth.

He could lend no answer other than a sharp whine escaping as his right hand returned to tug on his hair, the section now twisted into a cowlick. To his innermost felt shame, the three other boys had sat up to some degree in their beds and were watching him cry. He didn't like it at all, but understood the appeal. He never spoke to any of them; the want had never crossed his mind.

"Oh, shh, shh, it's okay. You can cry, it's going to be all right from now on."

She pulled his hands away from his hair and his mouth to keep him from hurting himself and hugged him into her black robes. His cries were restrained, but forcing their way out of his small body. She raked her fingers lightly through the section of hair he had been trying to tear out, and felt it's unruly thickness but youthful softness. It would become coarse and unmanageable past a shorter haircut as he got older, but he might not go bald but so readily.

She knew he was the black sheep in the flock, showing signs of a mental abnormality, but he couldn't be but so bad. His birthday was October 31st, and particularly suspicious sisters avoided him. He always preferred to be on his own, sitting away from everyone and not appearing keen on being outwardly friendly.

It was fine, her brother was like that as a child, he grew up to be a businessman. His only son was called to war in 1940, and didn't come home, but that was the way in the wartimes.

She could feel his mouth gaping open, and his chest heaving with sobs muffled in his hands and her charcoal robes.

"Let it go, you're safe now."

He simmered down to whimpers and bleats and he wished with the smallest thought he could manage that she would rub his back- it hurt from tensing himself in trying to make himself disappear, specifically his lower sides. Everything hurt, and he felt too hot. He began to feel utterly sick with the nun, and couldn't imagine what would happen when she left. As if he was imaginative to start, but it was a fact.

"Come with me, come now..."

She took his hand and turned off the lamp beside Winny on their way out. He tried very hard not to look up and meet eyes, as if Winny could clearly define him. He had awful eyesight without his glasses. Still, he didn't want to be gawked at.

The back of his thighs felt a chill just as he had predicted, and he pulled the pilled front down to be sure he wouldn't feel an updraft. His stomach protested being folded, and he noticed how stuffed his nose felt. He proved it to himself when he tried to breathe through it after wiping some of the wetness off of his face. She continued to lead him until they were at the mouth of the hallway, and he was thinking about what was going to happen when he put his thumb back in his mouth out of another small wish of having something still comforting.

"Now, then... Are you feeling right?"

He nodded barely enough, he felt unreasonably afraid to look at the face looking down at him in the dimly lit hallway. He speculated quietly that the lights were on for reasons like this and unexpected fires as long as the breaker wasn't flipped or some other malfunction.

"I would still like to take you to the infirmary, can I look at you? Come now, look up..."

He trailed his eyes up the endless cloth and found her wrinkled face smiling gently at him. It hardly resembled a smile, but her eye-creases spelled out her intent.