All the Love in the Universe

Nineteen. Twice on Sundays-Alec

Sometime around 4am, John was ready for visitors. Alec came first, alone.

"I had a heart attack, man." John's voice was raspy, weak, but otherwise, he seemed like himself. Alec had expected much worse. But John's cherubic, fresh-faced glow was still there; his eyes glimmered with health and even contentment.

"They told us," Alec replied in a low voice. "You're good. No drugs, no beer, no sex for a while. No band. Just recuperation. You'll be right as rain in no time."

"No." John closed his eyes, softly, for just an instant, before training them back on Alec. "I'm done."

"C'mon, man," Alec pushed. "Don't say that. You're healthy, just need to rest. And medication. Maybe a surgery, I don't know. But you're good."

"I said no." John's face was set in steel, a gravitas flickering on his brow. "I'm not talking health, I'm talking future. I'm done with the lifestyle for good. I want out."

"Out?"

A nurse shuffled in and wrote something on a clipboard pad. The boys waited until she left to continue.

"It's not the heart attack," John confided, scratching his chin with a casualness his hospital bed and attached medical machines belied. "I was thinking this stuff beforehand. Maybe it's what caused the attack, not the other way around."

Now the hair on Alec's arms began to bristle. This was going to be deeper than a medical conversation. This was going to be the true life or death conundrum.

Music, the band, was their life. It was their connection, brotherhood, their bond. In a way, if John's physical heart had stopped beating, it would make more sense than what he was proposing right now. This new perspective was alien to their entire landscape; novel, terrifying, eerie.

Alec had never prepared, not even tonight in the waiting room, for such a scenario. He was left speechless.

"Let me show you something." John reached for his phone and brought up a website. "These people are where it's at, man. I met one of them a few months ago, and everything he said made sense in a new way. It was like I'd finally found everything I've been searching for."

Alec glanced at a cover photo on the site showcasing a group of young men and women gathered around a desert bonfire, dressed in sandals and t-shirts.

"This is everything you're searching for? A bunch of hippies in the middle of nowhere?" Now Alec's own heart was shaky, doing backflips in his chest. "No, man, this isn't you. This is your fear talking. You almost died today and you're so scared you're willing to throw it away."

He almost walked out of the hospital room, but turned back and regulated his breathing. His fists balled tightly against his sides and he lightly bit the tip of his tongue.

"Alec," John leveled, "I've been in this mental space a while. These people have answers. I'm going to give it a shot."

"Listen to yourself!" Alec suddenly cried out. He'd tried to stay quiet, but this was too much. His hands gesticulated wildly, making castles in the air, as he desperately rambled. "You're speaking horseshit! None of this sounds even remotely like you. None of it. You're out of your mind. I've never seen you this crazy, not even drunk or high or nuts over a chick. Your entire brain is entering some kind of psychosis. In fact!"

He turned back to the door in a theatrical show of distress.

"Alec."

"No. In fact, I'm going to get a doctor right now to explain all this. Must be some kind of reaction to a treatment or the heart attack or—something."