Metal Wind
On a winter night, I slipped on the stairs and broke my leg. It did hurt a lot more than normal, but I thought that it couldn’t be, so I just went to rest. The next morning, it became red like the tomato so I had to go to the hospital, giving up my work for the day.
“It’s almost a miracle that you could bare until here,” the doctor told me with astonishment, that I broke my right Achilles tendon.
It would take here months to heal it, but I didn’t have to stay in the hospital. After medication, I went out of the room and out of the hospital. It was a major one, full of modern technologies and without even a trace of dust. The perfect environment made me uneasy.
It was snowing outside. Snow covered everything with its white mask, making everything too vague to see. It piled up for almost a meter high.
I went to the station, balancing with one leg, walking like skipping, a clown dancing. I hopped on to the escalator, spotting a crowd moving downstairs. I made myself believe that it was just because a train has arrived, but when the ancient escalator finally brought me up, I witness the scene that almost made me cry.
The one meter high snow was now piling up on the railway, the trains sunk in the snow. Three station attendants shouted to inform us to leave. “The station is closed now due to the snow!” one attendant cried.
“The trains are stopped!” demanded the second person almost as the same time as the first one finished talking.
I might have stood there for a whole minute or just a few seconds, until one of the attendants, brown hair, extremely short in both the length of the hair and the height, and wearing sunglasses that reflected the light which reminded me of snow reflecting, came to me and gently told me that I was blocking the way.
I immediately moved off, facing backwards. The staircases looked as if it would extend all the way to the underground. At least, it seemed to me. I bounced down the staircases, one by one (there was no escalator down), making sure that my left hand was holding the bar so I wouldn’t slip.
Repeating this movement, suddenly an image of a hospital, not the clean, huge hospital I just went but an aged, harmed block house with paint coming off from the wall, came into my mind. There had lived an old doctor, old enough even twenty years ago, when I was there, also breaking my leg, and stay in the same room with the girl who stayed, and went like a gust of wind.
* * *
It was the only hospital in a tiny village, so tiny that it would never appear on any map.
“Hi! So you’re the new one?”
I froze when I entered the room, sitting on a wheel chair.
“Bet you’re the one! I’m…” a girl, may be a few years younger than me continued while I lost my words.
“Louise!” the doctor raised his voice. “I’ve told you a million times not to get up, and never ever shout.”
“I’m not shouting, I was speaking,” the girl called by the name Louise answered back. “You’re way too cautious,” she added, in a much smaller voice and not looking the doctor straight in his eyes.
Though the voice was smaller, I heard it very clearly, so I could gamble that the doctor, who was right at the back of me, heard it too. (May be no, if he had a bad hearing due to his age.) But he gave Louise a glance.
“‘Kay!” but the volume didn’t change for a bit.
“I’m Louise, Louise Wind,” she told me with excitement as soon as I climbed on to the bed. (There were no stains, despite of the dirty hospital. The sheet smelt like the perfume that an aged woman would use.)
“I know,” I tried not to make it sound sarcastic.
“Wind is pronounced Vint.”
“Okay.”
Louise was gazing at me, so I looked her back, carefully. Her brown hair, just like the colour of the trees, was straight and smooth, and extended to her back. She had pale skin, too white that seemed she had never gone outside, and there were no freckles.
I stared at her eyes, odd eyes, not the ones of a Persian cat, but the colour of the sky and amber. Her pupils reflected the shape of me, as clear as a mirror. They were so transparent, almost possible to see through. It was the first time in my life seeing it, and it was beautiful. Not pretty, or adorable, or other synonyms, but beautiful. At the same time, I feared those eyes that seemed to pull me in.
“Do they look scary?” seeing me falling into the silence, Louise asked nervously.
“No, not at all!” I hurried to reply. “They look good,” I both told the truth and a lie.
“Anyway, what’s your name?”
“Um, Rote Stal,” I wasn’t that fond of my name, so I couldn’t say it confidently like Louise.
“Wow! It fits you perfectly!” Louise sparkled her eyes. (And, she was really loud, ignoring the doctors warning.)
“Why?” I said, trying my best to avoid making a scary face and shout “What did you say?! What’s up with you!” though it was impossible for me to do so, anyway.
Giving a glance at my curled crimson hair, she said, “’cause your hair’s red.”
She said it so naturally that I couldn’t even give arise to anger and hatred. Normally, I would erupt by that.
“And, your name’s Rote. It means red,” she continued. “You didn’t know that?”
“No, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard about it.”
“It’s in German,” Louise explained, “Stal is metal, by the way. If you and I combine the family names together, it would be Stal Wind, which gets to Metal Wind. Awesome!” she laughed, like how the strong men in forties would laugh. (This time, I heard the doctor shouting “Louise!”)
“You know a lot,” I said respectfully.
“Well, I’ve got nothing to do, so I pull out the books from he tiny library of the doctor,” she flapped her legs, back and forth. “I already read all of them!”
“Great.”
“So I think I can understand around, um… ten, or so? Languages now. I’ve got no one to test, though.”
“Great!” I was surprised, and said “Great” from my heart.
“Did you know…” Louise tried to change the topic but abruptly stopped. She gripped her neck hard with one hand, and another hand covering her mouth.
She began coughing; leaning forward and now, both hands covered her mouth. The sound was like the cracking of dried egg shell.
Louise suddenly ended coughing, and started to breathe really strongly. She searched for air, and the throat sounded like the moaning of the wind.
I was terrified, seeing this scene unexpectedly, though I hopped off the bed and went near her.
That was when the doctor rushed in.
I didn’t really remember what happened after that. I just saw the slow motion of the doctor running, doing treatment, offering medication, Louise starting to cough again, eventually stopped, and leaned back like an aged granny who lost all the power to live.
For a minute or so, Louise rested herself against the wall, the doctor holded the white towel, and unconsciously dried his hand with it. I was watching them, without thinking anything, just watching the whole scene. My brain went blank, not even a colour, for example, white or black, not even transparent, it was blank. Everyone stayed silent.
Louise was the first one to move. She brought her hands up and looked at them. Her eyes widened, showing that she was frightened.
The doctor went near her, blocking my sight.
“More than last time, isn’t it?” he said with a low voice.
“Am I, am I going to die?” Louise murmured, whispering the last word. But I heard it. Her voice was cracking.
“Um, well…” the doctor hesitated. “ What I can say now, is that you won’t die now.”
Even I’m clear about that! I wanted to suggest out, but I didn’t.
“I’m at the next room,” the doctor told me while he left the room. “Rote, call me as soon as she coughs okay? Even at midnight,” and he left, with the sound of the floor rasping as he walked.
Louise turned to me. “Did you know Rote, that I have TB?”
I couldn’t answer.
“TB’s tuberculosis.”
I couldn’t answer, and remained in silence.
She showed me her hand. There was blood.
Louise didn’t speak for the whole day, and the room was extraordinarily quiet.
The bird nightingale stopped on the window and sang.
In the midnight, I woke up. The curtain wasn’t closed, so the light of the full moon came in, and it was too bright for me to fall asleep again. I turned around and closed my eyes. However, I was totally awakened.
I opened my eyes wide and stared at the ceiling, being really cautious to not make any sound, but Louise was awake.
“But you know Rote,” she spoke unpredictably. “I really liked the disease.”
“Huh?”
“It’s my first time to say this to anyone, but I really do,” her voice was extremely clear and powerful.
“Why?” I asked. However, I could understand a little bit.
“Because it’s a present, a special present for me.”
I couldn’t say anything.
“I really like it, I really do. I really do…” Louise continuously said it and went to sleep.
Fore the next whole month, Louise pulled me to every corner of the hospital and the parts around it. I fell from the stair for several times (I couldn’t bother counting anymore), lost balance and slipped on the snowing roof once, tripped on the rough floor for… um, no less than ten times, at least. I also twisted the injured leg and was caught by the doctor. He was angry at me, but the vivid pain made me forget what he had been talking. So I stayed inside the room and told Louise to go by herself but she replied that she already explored all of them.
Well, hat’s why both of us stayed in the room for a whole week, and talked about languages to exploration, and to world economy, forever and ever. (And, my leg was supposed to be cured in two months but extended to three months.)
Louise coughed almost everyday. Every time the doctor would give her medication, observe it and phone her parents every few days.
One evening, I heard an especially loud sound of he ring when putting the phone down, and the doctor went inside his room, banning the door saying nothing.
Cough, cough, cough, cough.
I was awakened by that. For a moment, I didn’t move, listening to the coughing. Then I turned to Louise, and almost jumped up. Her face was pale. May be it was because of the blue moon hanging over, but it was not only because of the moon light.
I shouted for the doctor as I helped Louise up. I shouted as loud as I could, until a sharp sense of pain ran through my throat.
No respond. My voice echoed.
I called for him again.
Someone rustled out of the bed and came near. The floor rasped.
The doctor did everything he usually did, and went back. He didn’t speak anything, but I believed that it was because we disturbed his sleep.
The next morning, the doctor came, in his serious as usual but he seemed tired. He pulled a chair along.
“I have something to tell you,” he told Louise with a poker face, blocking my sight again. “I can no longer give you medication.”
“What?”
“Your parents are not paying, for at least a month now.”
Louise froze. I froze too.
The doctor handed her a newspaper. It was a brand new one.
“I’ve checked by this.”
The next moment, Louise galloped to the phone.
Ring. No one answered.
She phoned once again.
Ring. No one answered, again.
And so she continued. She started to tear as she kept on turning the numbers.
Louise phoned again and again until the doctor pulled her off the phone. Louise behaved like a child. I mean she was a child but like a much smaller child.
“You can still stay,” the doctor told her. “Besides…” he wanted to continue, but looked at Louise again and shook his head. “No, never mind.”
Louise’s eyes looked hollow, and her sky blue and amber pupils lost light which made them look gray.
The doctor helped Louise to lye down, but couldn’t look her in the eye.
“But as normal, you call me when Louise coughs, okay, Rote?” the doctor checked.
I nodded.
After the doctor left, the room remained Louise and me again, and she told me that her parents’ company had bankrupted.
I couldn’t say anything to comfort her, for I thought that anything I say would sound like that I was making fun of her.
Louise slept, so I quietly slipped out of the room and headed to the phone, with only one crutch.
I figured out that it was the collapse of the bubby economy which caused Louise’s parents’ company to become bankrupted. I wanted to phone my mom to check if she was fine (she also ran a small company, almost earning no money, though), but beside that I hoped that dad could do something.
They were doing okay, but my request got refused. My relationship wasn’t good with my dad from the beginning, so I guess it couldn’t be helped, but I felt frustrated. Frustrated with my powerlessness, and anger raged up, from the inside of my stomach. I felt hot liquid passing my throat, and up to the back of my eyes. I looked up, and saw the unclear figure of the flashing light.
The garden of the hospital had a tree from somewhere of Asia, and the small pure white flower on that tree bloomed first when the snow was still there, standing filled with loneliness.
The snow melted because of the rain, and the flower bloomed. I predicted that Louise would drag me out more frequently, but I noticed that Louise tended to stay inside the bed.
I could move my leg a little by now, so I would walk without crutches sometimes. (If it was spotted by the doctor, he would get mad at me.)
Without medication, Louise coughed more and spilled blood more. The doctor gave her treatment if it seemed bad. He afforded the fee out of his own pocket.
Few days after that, when I called Louise to the garden, she sat down after walking only a few steps.
Louise breathed large every time, trying to let the air fill her lungs, but when it was at the limit, she started coughing. It ended in a several seconds so I guessed that it was no big deal.
That was when Louise started to be in the bed at all times.
“The best solution is to stay in the nature, true nature,” the doctor insisted, but got refused.
When I asked her the reason, she just shook her head, as if that she was trying to forget something, and smiled, squishing the sky blue and amber eyes.
The doctor at last allowed me to walk around without the crutches and I hopped on the rasping floor where Louise wasn’t around. I felt ashamed and guilty of only me recovering and her getting worse, though Louise won’t say anything.
May be from the aura, I realized that there wasn’t much more time left for Louise. My heart felt heavier than ever all the sudden, but I too, didn’t say anything.
It was about ten o’ clock, when the doctor came to me while Louise and I were watching the ancient monochrome TV. He never came to me beside the here meals and the maintenance, and I knew that the maintenance had always been during the afternoon. Also, it was too early for lunch.
“Your dad came,” the doctor told me, turning around already.
“Pardon me?”
“Your dad came to visit you,” he repeated pronouncing each word clearly.
“What?” dad? My dad who I didn’t really like came to visit a son who he wasn’t fond of?
“Stop murmuring and just go!” the doctor scolded.
“So?”
“So? So, I arrived here!” the man in front of me replied in a fishy smile.
“Just to visit your only son?” I asked, raising one of my eye browses.
“Why can’t I? Anyway, Rote, what about your study? Don’t tell me that you didn’t do it for these two and half months? You’re way behind! You don’t need to use your leg to study. When your dad once broke his right arm…”
I resisted listening to what dad was saying after that. One of my dream, or goal was to shout at him that that was what I hated about him.
So, dad kept on presenting his speech to no one and I looked at the sky, looked at the ground, the tree with no more flowers left that was form some Asian country, and the window of the room which Louise and I stayed.
When I had had a view around me, dad wasn’t there anymore. I searched my memories and remembered that he said that he was leaving and I replied that I was going to stay for a while.
Suddenly leaving, that was like my dad, so I went back.
Louise wasn’t there, but it wasn’t unusual. May be she was taking a bath. Louise tended to spend a lot of time drying her hair.
“Lunch time!” the doctor marched in. “Where’s she?” he asked, taking a glance at the whole room.
“Isn’t she taking a bath?”
“She is?”
“She isn’t?”
Where else can Louise be? I inspected around the room. The hand made closet, eleven inches big monochrome TV on the unstable shelf with a vase that looked expensive (may be it was the most valuable thing in the whole hospital). Knowing that it was impossible for Louise to hide inside a vase, I still observed it carefully.
“So, you mean, Louise disappeared?” I doubted.
“I never meant by that!” the doctor rejected.
I attempted to dash out of the room, indication that I was going to look for her, bu the doctor stopped me.
“Eat your lunch first,” he said, in a tone he used when he lectured. “There’s a and idiom in Japan saying that you need to fill your stomach before fighting.”
I wanted to ask if we were going to fight, but the doctor continued.
“You eat your lunch first. I’ll check.”
“So, we’re gonna fight?” I asked, but got ignored.
Did anyone kidnap Louise? I thought about the film I saw recently. Buy why? Who would kidnap Louise? (Other possibilities were out of my mind at the moment.)
The doctor? The doctor could’ve done it at anytime. Oh, but may be Louise’s parents were not paying? Well, however, the doctor couldn’t contact her parents for the money. Besides, he wasn’t that kind of person.
Then who? Who else would be here, except the doctor, Louise and I?
I began wandering in the room, and observed the features again. The cracked ceiling, the rasping floor, the vase again, the windows. Outside the windows were the garden, the tree form some Asian country, the blue sky, and the broken fountain where dad and I had sat no long ago. Wait a moment. Could it be, dad?!
No, it was impossible. I shook my head so hard that the frame of the bed trembled, which caused the unpleasant rasping sound of the dried floor.
I decided to phone dad to check, but I imagined him laughing, taking it as a bad joke. I dived into the bed. Also, I knew that he won’t have the courage to do it anyway.
I grabbed one of my crutches and went outside. The crutch wasn’t for supporting me walking, but a weapon for the ‘fight’.
Even the wind became green when it rushed through the trees, heading towards nowhere. The melting snow reflected the light, and the light projected the wind. The wind also blew the dark brown hair. The untied hair got all messed up. The odd eyes were calm.
“What’s up with you?” Louise asked after being released.
“Nothing,” dad smiled in a fishy way.
The leaves of the trees made the sound of the waves pushing ashore and going back, as a strong wind ran through them.
“May be because,” dad paused. “May be because I wanted to test these?” he shook a syringe in front of Louise’s eyes.
Her eyes followed the syringe as it shook, and made a reflection of it.
“Why on me?” Louise tried to sound as if she wasn’t frightened, but her voice was trembling.
“Why? You had a face that looked like you didn’t wanna live anymore.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, I can’t,” Louise corrected.
“Well, it’s kinda the same,” dad pushed the head of the syringe a little. The opaque liquid came out.
“Could it be heroin?”
“May be,” dad smiled again in that fishy way.
He went closer to Louise, and grabbed her arm so she couldn’t escape. Louise tried to let go, but wasn’t able to. She gave a flap in the face instead. The sharp sound echoed in the afternoon forest. Dad opened his eyes wide, and raised his hand. At the perfect timing, Louise started coughing so dad gave her water. Louise refused, covering her mouth with her hand and gave a glare at dad. Meanwhile, drips of blood spitted out.
“I won’t escape so let go!” gasping for air, Louise cried.
“Okay, since I can do it anytime I want, let me thank you first, for being a friend with Rote,” dad did release his hand.
“What’s your relationship with him?”
“It isn’t important right now,” dad changed the subject back. “He didn’t have many friends.”
“Because of his hair?”
“May be,” dad smiled, not in the fishy way, but sadly.
“But I like Rote’s hair,” Louise affirmed.
“Thanks,” dad thanked as if it was him.
He asked why Louise won’t escape.
Louise replied without thinking. “You just said that I didn’t want to live.”
“That ain’t an answer…well, I do understand though.”
“I know that I don’t have time,” Louse said emotionlessly, like talking about other people.
Realizing that dad was surprised by that, Louise laughed, and added, “It’s my own body, of course I know.”
The snow still didn’t melt at the shadow of the trees, and it reflected the sun light as the wind blew the leaves, making gaps.
Louise narrowed her eyes.
“I was afraid that if I was gonna die today, or tomorrow. Because if I die now, Rote’ll see it, and that’s what I don’t him to witness the most. So it’s okay!” Louise ended with a bright smile. She must felt that the back of her eyes were boiling, and water starting to drip out. She widened her eyes and gazed at the sky.
“You really like Rote, don’t you?” dad asked, stomping on the snow like a child.
“Of course, he’s my friend,” Louise talked so quickly that it sounded like one word. “My eyes look scary, don’t they?”
“No, not at all. In fact, they’re beautiful,” dad answered without hesitation.
“You say the same thing.”
“Yes?”
“Nothing. In fact it’s my second time to tell anyone, but I like my disease.”
“Still, I will only test the medicine on you,” dad spoke abruptly. “Rote phoned,” he turned his back to Louse and said in a tiny voice. Louise understood all just by that.
“I won’t even if you kidnapped me,” she rejected in a strong voice.
“I already kidnapped you.”
Louise lost her words.
“You don’t wanna test it. No problem, then just live. Live without this medicine,” dad’s voice was solemn.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh well, I was intrigued but I’ve lost interest.”
Dad pushed the syringe and the opaque liquid, the medicine spilled out of it, falling onto the soil, some to the snow, slowly making stains and disappeared.
“Why, you…”
“I invented it, so it’s my choice to deposit it or not, ain’t it?” dad hooked his coat on his back with his fingers and stood up. “Your friend came.”
An especially huge wind blew, rustling the leaves as it passed. I’ve spotted Louise, who covered her head, preventing the hair getting messy. There was no one around.
“Louise!” I shouted, running in a strange way. “Where have you been?”
“I came to breathe the fresh air,” Louise replied, as if nothing had happened. It sounded like a lie (and it was a lie), but I said nothing.
My legs had fully healed the next month, and I started packing up my belongings.
“Farewell, crutches,” I said, as I placed them in the closet.
Louise looked lonely, so I told her that I was living in the village so I could always visit her. She nodded.
“I might cut my hair. They’re so annoying,” she said for some reason.
The doctor came for my last check, and tapped my leg with something that looked like a wooden hammer.
“Rote, actually I changed my mind,” Louise told me while I was observing how the doctor did the trick. “Never come to see me, okay?”
“Why?”
“I, I just don’t like the idea of you being normal and looking down at me lying on the bed,” she made an excuse, but blushed.
“What? You want to be normal?” I teased.
“No way!” she threw a pillow at me.
May be because she used too much energy, Louise began coughing as always. She pulled the blood stained towel to her mouth.
The doctor stopped his hand and turned to Louise. He again, blocked my sight.
It lasted longer than ever. I could imagine how she got blue. The doctor rubbed her back.
For the last cough, Louise spitted blood on a large scale, and I helped her to lye down. She looked exhausted.
“Do my eyes look scary?” even in this condition; she asked gazing with those odd eyes.
“What’re you saying? I already told you before that they look good,” I still couldn’t say that they were beautiful.
“Did you know that one third of the whole Earth population have TB?”
I shook my head.
“But only a tenth of those ones would get the attack,” she coughed a little.
“Don’t speak, you’ve just got an attack.”
“True,” Louise giggled. “TB’s 結核 in both Japanese and Chinese, but they pronounce it differently. Rote, why?”
“Who knows,” I replied. “The doctor said that that there’s a quote in Japan that says you need to fill your stomach before a fight.”
“It’s not related,” and Louise closed her eyes.
* * *
I found myself standing in the middle of the snowing road. Everything around me looked like a slow motion, even the woman wearing red high heel shoes who was running so hard in this snowy day. I looked at the crutches I have. They were made of metal, but reminded me of the wooden ones that I carried to ‘fight’. Metal…metal wind, it popped into my mind. What was it, what was it in German? Was it Stal Wind?
“Excuse me, can you please move aside?” the attendant with extremely short brown hair and sunglasses was now pushing an old lady on a wheel chair. (I didn’t even want to imagine how she came down the stairs.)
I immediately moved alongside. The attendant smiled friendly and went, pushing the wheel chair.
My phone rang. It was from an unknown number. I pushed it to my ears.
“Dad?”
Snow covered everything in white, making everything too vague to see. A gust of wind as cold as metal passed through, and curved the track of the snow.
英文第二弾です。前より大幅に長くなってますが、やはり学校で書いたものです。クラスで一番長かったですね．．．(汗) 微妙に漢字が出てます。
