Bleeding, he ran towards the forest, hoping
that his attackers wouldn’t follow him there. He didn’t stop moving his legs
until he found a place between trees that were too close, a place where he
could hide. He sat there and waited. Sure enough, they came rather fast. He
even tried not to breathe while they were close. They checked their
surroundings but not with enough care. Eventually they stopped looking around
and returned to the place they had come from, in town.
He could breathe again but not the most
comfortable way. His clothes were drenched in blood and, when he tried to begin
walking again, he almost fell on his face. His legs were not responding
properly and his head was spinning, hurting a lot. He tried to gather himself
and at least make a plan of what to do next, because he couldn’t stay there in
the woods. He came to the conclusion that those people didn’t know much about
him and that his home was probably the best hiding place.
That posed two problems: the first was that
his home was in a city two hours away. The other problem was that his attackers
had vandalized his car and now he didn’t have anything, including his wallet
and house keys. The latter wasn’t an issue as he always left a spare in the pot
next to his apartment door but he did need money to get to the city or at least
to convince someone of taking him there. Besides, he was bleeding and he didn’t
know how bad his injuries actually were.
He decided to fin the closest road and just
risk it. Hopefully someone would take him somewhere, no matter if it were the
hospital or his home. The sun was rising far and he soon had enough light on
the road to know where he was walking. Finally, he made it to a road and was
lucky enough to be picked up by a lovely elderly couple. The good thing was
that they were travelling very early to his hometown. The not so good thing was
that they didn’t realize that he was injured.
The wounded man tried to act as if nothing was
happening. Maybe it was for the best if they didn’t notice his blood all over
his shirt. He just kept talking about all the good things to visit in his town.
That, at least, made the journey home less painful in every way possible. When
he finally got home, he was about to faint but the voice of the old lady woke
him up in the right moment. They left him in front of his building. He thanked
them once and twice and then the car left and he walked into his building, took
the elevator and went straight home.
He plunged his hand into the big pot by his
door and, in seconds, he found the keys he was looking for. He tried to leave
everything as it was, in order for people not to know those keys were there,
but his hand was trembling too much, as well as his legs. He opened the door as
fast as he could. The first thing he did inside his house was looking for the
phone and dialing a number he had recorded a long time ago but had never dialed
because the need for that person had never arisen.
About thirty minutes later, the man arrived.
He was called Fred and didn’t look to be very bright in particular. The man had
met him once, a long time ago in a job he had to do in a very bad neighborhood.
Fred was an unfortunate kid back then, who had been able to educate himself but
had never had the fortune to actually go to college and achieve his dream of
being a doctor. Instead, he worked as a veterinarian assistant, in the same bad
neighborhood they had first met about two years ago,
Nevertheless, he came running and didn’t ask
any questions. After all, they had discussed it a bit back then and he still
remembered how any types of questions were not rally welcomed by someone like
that man. Young Fred brought something like a purse, filled with many things a
veterinarian and a doctor would both use. The man didn’t ask if he was needed
at work. Silence was their common language. Fred cleaned the wounds, close what
had to be closed and gave the man a paper with things he had to buy to stand
the pain.
When
he was about to leave, the man spoke. He said “Fred”. The young man turned
around, to see the man pointing at the kitchen counter. There were some bills there,
which Fred took before heading to the door and leaving. The truth was that the
man would have wanted the young man to stay because he didn’t only feel pain
but he also started to feel lonely. After all, there was no one in his life to
take care of him or at least to visit him in this, his hour of need. He was
alone.
The man decided to take himself to bed. He
walked to the bedroom slowly, trying not to mess up the work Fred had done. In
his room, he took off all of his clothes and then entered his bed, covering himself
with the various layers of fabric. He felt really cold and his limbs were
trembling even more. Through the closed curtain he could see the sun that day
was bright and beautiful but he didn’t really care about it. He only cared
about resting and just closing his eyes and go somewhere else, somewhere where
he could get a life for himself that he liked.
He
fell asleep fast and he dreamt for various hours.
