Heads or Tails?
One: Peter
by elfin
"I had a dream." They were the first words he'd spoken in days
and his dry throat reminded him painfully of it.
He had. A long dream he'd started to believe he would never wake
from.
It had started suddenly in a violent explosion of horror and
pain. No dream had ever before felt so real. No nightmare
had ever been as terrifying.
He could still recall the terrible shriek of metal crushing under
tremendous pressure.
But the rest of the dream was a blur with brightly coloured moments of
lucidity.
A warm cocoon turning suddenly into a cold, torturous cage inside which
he was trapped.
A scream dying in his head, silent and unheard, broken body refusing to
respond. Voices - some raised in alarm, some loud in anger, some
gentle and reassuring.
The remnants of the dream that had stayed with him were cold,
painful. He could remember movement but not moving, sounds but no
meaning.
Nothing from the dream made sense. Intense agony interlaced with
periods of awful numbness. Aware of hands on his unresponsive
body, aware of things he didn't like being done to him. Painful
things. Invasive things. Yet there had been a singular
gentle touch too, a touch just to his hand, a touch that seemed to
belong to that one, reassuring voice.
He could remember listening for that voice. As he'd lain
paralysed in the dark - a dark pierced regularly by an intense bright
light - he'd clung to the voice, a lifeline when he'd been sure he
would never wake up.
And then, suddenly, the dream had changed.
He could remember a death but instead of getting colder he'd been
warm. Fear and pain were replaced by strange, coloured cartoon
characters and although for a time there were no voices, he was more
comforted than he could remember being since the dream had started.
But after a while the cartoons and the warmth had faded. The
sounds and the voices had slowly returned. But not the voice, not
the one voice he searched for in the cacophony assaulting him.
Louder and louder, the light getting brighter and brighter.
And in search of the voice that had soothed him through the long dream,
he'd woken up.
Reality, it turned out, was far more terrifying and more painful than
any nightmare.
But at least he could listen and see. At least he knew when to
expect the light in his eyes, the pain in his arm. His head hurt
and leg ached but he could tell those looking after him and they could
make the pain go away for a while.
But best of all was the smile on Andy Dalziel's face when he saw him
for the first time since the accident. A shining smile, tears of
joy in his eyes.
"I had a dream," he tried to explain, and Andy laughed and sobbed at
the same time.
The doctor stepped away, letting Andy take Peter’s hand.
Peter recognised the touch, the warmth, the comfort and reassurance
he'd felt with that same touch throughout his dream.
And a couple of tears blossomed in his own eyes. "Not a dream?"
he whispered, and Andy shook his head.
"No, Sunbeam. But you'll be all right now.”
He wishes he could remember, until he sees his leg and hears Andy tell
him about the blood clot in his brain. And then he's glad he
doesn't.
.....
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