The Progress of Sherlock Holmes

Anchorite

Half second of disorientation that dissolves sharply into perfect awareness. Pain radiating from my face. Stabbing ache in ribs like a punch in the gut. Broken rib, probably. More than one? Uncertain. Hurts on inhale, exhale. Morning.

Strange dream lingers: John with teacups for eyes, disposable razor blades for fingers: disturbing. Odd sensation coiled up in chest, like breath not caught. Distress. Fear? No. Couldn't be. Even with teacups for eyes, it's still only John. Sadness, perhaps. Loss. Regret? It fades. It’s morning, dreams always fade.

Dreams are irrelevant.

Roughly twelve degrees outside; nearly a degree cooler than yesterday morning. The long slow trudge toward midwinter. Boring. Muted light through the window; roughly quarter past seven, mildly rainy, deeply overcast. Has been raining since somewhere around 4am. Will be muddy down by the riverbank; must remember to wear boots.

Though: won't be permitted to even leave the flat today, probably. Not if John finds out about the rib, certainly. John will bar the door (as if that will help), and Lestrade won't let me near the crime scene. May find a way to arrest me to keep me away, keep me from moving around too much. Pity. Will be a trying day. Hate being arrested. But: what needs must.

Right leg stiff, more than a bit sore: twisted? Strained? Impact of the fall, surely. Secondary injuries untended by my careful and concerned doctor. His face: so full of compassion, of care, of everything beautiful and pure in this world. How does he do it? How can he hold his heart in his hands like that without leaving a trail of blood everywhere he goes? A certain kind of bravery, more mundane maybe, but no less exceptional. He doesn't know about the rib yet. Didn't see that set of blows. Wrist: broken? No. Bruised, surely, maybe mildly sprained. Will make playing violin more challenging, but a little pain never hurt anyone.

Vulgar Tchaikovsky concerto in my head, why? No space for Tchaikovsky today. Perhaps later tonight? John likes Tchaikovsky. Doesn’t ever seem to know it is Tchaikovsky when he hears it. Doesn’t seem to care.

“I love that, what was it?” he'll say, sitting in his armchair, eyes shut (usually, sometimes not, sometimes he watches me play, and I watch him right back). I imagine what he says instead is I love you, and bask in it. Feels like sunshine radiating out from him, like heat, like fingers of smoke that stroke me. I imagine he hasn't said it yet, only feels it, feels the urge to. And then there’s me caught in the moments just before he says it, the moment when it’s utterly true, before it has a chance to degrade, fall apart. He’s about to say it, to say, I love you, to me, of all people, to me, words about to appear in the air in front of him like smoke rings. I let it hover over me, the fantasy, the sensation. Him listening to the sounds of my violin, of my fingers pressed against the strings, my bow, the sound that vibrates through my chest first before it reaches him, his eyes shut (or not). John sitting in his armchair loving Serenade for Strings, or a bit of Swan Lake (as I said: vulgar) instead of loving me, but it’s so close. I concentrate, play even better, push the dire depths of my maudlin heart strings into the violin strings. “I love (you),” he says, “what was it?” how can anyone not recognize Swan Lake?

Every time. Every time he asks, it’s Tchaikovsky. Why? Does it appeal to some angst-ridden homosexual tendencies in him? One can only hope. A soft heart, a romantic heart.

Still vulgar, though.

Don’t want to open my eyes yet; reality is never quite as interesting as the insides of my head. Teacups for eyes? How bizarre. John was naked in that dream. Naked and fourteen-feet tall. Still irrelevant. I was tiny; he could hold me in the palm of his hand, trap me with his disposable razor blade fingers. My subconscious is mad.