Waking
Warm. Everything was so warm. He couldn’t breath. He couldn’t open his eyes. Dark and hot. Had he fallen asleep? Last thing he remembered was a voice calling his name. Had he been found?
He coughed. Felt the pain in his throat and chest. He was still alive. Sick, but inside, save. Why me? He didn’t want to feel this relieved about it.
Someone near him was snoring.
He tried to move, to get rid of the blanket, the heat. He couldn’t. It even took him some time to finally open his eyes. A warm wet cloth had been placed on his forehead but it had slipped and was now dripping on his cheek. Why had everything to be warm? He almost felt like melting.
With some effort, he managed to put himself in an almost sitting position. He wasn’t home like he’d thought at first. He didn’t recognize this place, or the bed – not that he usually remembered beds. What he recognized, though, was the white haired man snoring in the armchair next to the bed. Maybe he had died anyway and this was a weird kind of heaven or hell?
It couldn’t be him of all people who had come to rescue him, who had searched for him and brought him someplace war. This wasn’t his bed. No way this could be his bed, his of all people’s.
He coughed again. Hot pain flamed inside his chest. He pressed his hands on his chest, bending forward in the hope this would dull the pain or at least make him stop coughing. He didn’t want him to wake up yet, wanted to look at /i] his peaceful face a bit more. He had never seen him like this before.
For the first time in years, he felt like smiling. He was sick, too warm and in pain, but happier than he had been on a long time.
When he recognized that he was also wearing one of his pyjamas, the smile even grew wider. He felt like he had gone mad. Smiling like this did count as a prove of insanity, he was sure of that. He was no one to be this happy. He of all people knew that. As soon as he felt happy, someone would see to it that he regret it. And still he couldn’t help feel insanely happy.
“What are you smiling about, idiot?” croaked a hoarse voice. He had trouble recognizing it first. Then he saw him into the eyes, grinning. The both held that glance, full of warmth, for some time. Then, from one moment to the other, they started laughing.
“Thanks,” he smiled. “Thank you so much.”
Tears were rolling down his cheeks, mixing with the water for the cloth on his forehead. He cried and cried and cried so much that he didn’t even know where all the tears came from. He cried so long that he sat down next to him, pulled him into his arms and cried with him.
The snow filling all the windows, pilling up on the outside world, went unnoticed. It could be as silent, as cold as it wanted to be. Now, everything that mattered was warm, all warm.
Maybe, after the sleep when a sun had melted the snow there was spring, no matter how long it would take to melt all the snow to water that would open up all floodgates.
