“Are you alright?”
My eyes snapped open. My legs were suddenly weak and shaking as I struggled to keep my balance. There were someone’s hands on the sides of my arms, helping me to stay up. They were so warm.
I slowly raised my head and my eyes met a pair of familiar blue ones. It was him again. That man. His eyes were still a vivid scene of the ocean. But, they held a certain warmth as concern laid itself bare in them.
“You should’ve stayed in bed for longer,” he said as he gently guided me towards the bed and sat me down carefully.
His hands remained on my arm as he knelt before me. His eyes studied my face, seeing the evident stress on my face. He raised a finger to my face, but I quickly caught his wrist in my hand. My breathing was still heavy and laboured as I glared at him.
He stared at me for a moment before he gently pulled my hand away from his wrist. My fingers were weak and barely kept up a fight. He kept moving his finger closer to my face and carefully brushed a wild strand of hair covering my eyes.
“Do you need me to get you anything?”
I silently shook my head, but my breathing was still strained and the beating in my heart refused to calm.
“You’re safe here,” he said, trying to reassure me. His thumb began to caress the side of my cheek, his skin only just brushing against my own, before he quickly pulled it back. “I’ll get you some water.”
He stood, about to turn away from me and leave. But, I quickly grabbed onto the edge of his sleeves. My fingers gripped it tightly.
“Don’t go,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
What was I saying? Why did I want so desperately for him to stay?
He stopped, staring down at my hand as I refused to let him go. The warmth from the nearby fireplace burned a reflection in his eyes, shadows dancing against his dark hair. His other hand touched mine, carefully pulling my fingers off his sleeve. But he didn’t let go. His hands wrapped around mine, holding them in his own.
“I won’t.”
—
There was this feeling of emptiness in my chest when I woke up.
The thumping against my ribcage and every heavy breath echoed the same hollow feeling. Those blue eyes were fading from my vision, but they’d already imprinted themselves in my mind. I didn’t expect to dream of that man again.
It was strange. The dream was just as vivid as the last, from every smell to the lingering heat of his finger on my cheek. What few dreams I did have before were always a blur, an echo of the noise and chaos of the war. But the two I had of that man so far resembled nothing close to that.
Just who the hell was he? The idea that it wasn’t just a dream felt foolish and beyond naive, but that inclination towards it being more than just fantasy irked me.
I took a deep and steady breath, trying to calm my heart rate as I’d often done in the past. I focused on my surroundings, remembering the room I was currently in as I sat up. I was exhausted, but I wasn’t quite sure if it was from the six-month coma I’d just woken up from or the people I met that day. One in particular stood out.
Edwin Davis. He seemed earnest in his claim to help me. He was kinder than the soldiers I’d been assigned to in the past. That alone made him untrustworthy. Not to mention his poor attempts at making conversation. It was almost pitiful how hard he tried.
As for the rest of the staff, I thought their mannerisms with one another felt too casual for what was considered a professional business environment, except perhaps for Hendrik.
I sighed loudly as my head fell back down onto the pillow. It was too soft, uncomfortably so. The mattress was too. I contemplated sleeping on the floor since it was what I was more used to. But, I couldn’t bring myself to crawl out of the covers. I pulled the sheets over me and closed my eyes.
Morning would come soon.
—
“Alright, so have you worked in a funeral home before?” Alfred asked, his tone lax as he looked at me.
“No.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”
He sighed as he glanced around the room. We were standing in what appeared to be an office space. The room itself was relatively large, but the bookcases and filing cabinets lining the walls made it feel more cramped.
“Basically, as a general hand, we do a lot of the setting up and cleaning after funeral services. We also do pick-ups, deliveries, and some admin work here and there,” he explained, pausing for a moment after he finished. “You got all that?”
“I did, sir.”
“Good. And quit it with the whole ‘sir’ thing,” he said, seeming visibly annoyed by it. But he moved on. “You see that over there?” He pointed to a box that sat beside many others stored on one of the nearby shelves. “The old director left behind a bunch of records, but they’re all out of order with documents separate from their files. So we need to sort that out.”
I turned back to him and nodded. “I understand, sir.”
“Hey, didn't I just say- You know what, forget it.”
He sighed loudly, feeling defeated but quickly moved on. I watched as he walked towards the box, picking it from the shelf before placing it on the table.
It was filled to the brim with papers, almost overflowing. He brushed off the excess dust that laid on the surface. The dust particles filled the air, some invading my nose as I let out a small sneeze.
“Bless you.”
That was inconvenient.
He watched as I reached for one of the documents at the very top. My eyes skimmed the words on the page. The task Alfred had assigned me was straightforward, almost insultingly so if not for one problem.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, noticing something off with how my eyes kept moving across the same line of words.
“I can’t read.”
“Wait, what?”
“I don’t know how to read.” I was never taught.
He stared at me for a few seconds as if trying to determine if I was being serious or not.
“You’re kidding.”
I was not. I looked up at him, his eyes wide with shock. “Will that be a problem?”
“Well, yeah. That’s going to make it harder to do the sorting,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. A few thoughts seemed to run through his mind as he looked down at the document in my hand.
I’d assumed whatever I’d be made to do at the funeral home wouldn’t be difficult. And yet, I was already proving to be an inconvenience to him because of my inability to read. This man already showed to lack patience. I expected him to just give up on this task and either assign me a new one or hand me back to Davis to deal with.
Instead, he pointed to one of the words near the top of the page. “You see this word here?” he said as I nodded. “That says ‘name’ so you can assume the words following it would be their name.”
He turned to the box, rummaging through the contents before taking out a file. He showed it to me and pointed towards the top right where another set of words was. “There should also be a matching file with their name on it.”
He handed it to me and as I looked between the names of the document and file, I found that the words and letters were the same.
“You can match the documents to the names on the files, and I’ll go about sorting them by date. How does that sound?”
With how reluctantly he accepted the role as my mentor, I had thought he would’ve been eager to leave me to my own devices. And yet, here he stood, looking expectantly at me after offering to work on this menial task together.
“That’s fine with me.”
Without saying another word to each other, we started sorting. I moved towards the box, emptying it on the table as I began to scan for matching names. Meanwhile, Alfred sat down by one of the filing cabinets and began to insert the individual files according to their dates as I handed them to him.
After some time, we eased into a steady rhythm. There was no chatter between us, no small talk, just a mutual agreement to keep working.
“Mister Alfred, I’ve finished,” I said, breaking that silence between us once I’d cleared the desk and placed the final file next to him.
“What? Already?” he asked, raising his eyebrows as he looked down at the pile of files stacked beside him. “That was fast.”
I glanced over at the boxes that remained on the shelf. “Would you like me to start on the next box?”
“No, it’s alright. I don’t think I’d be able to keep up with you anyway,” he said with a sigh. He then patted the spot on the ground next to him. “Come here.”
I hesitated for a moment, unsure of was it he wanted. But, I eventually took a seat beside him and crossed my legs just as he did.
“I’ll show you how to read the dates and then you can start helping me sort them into here.”
He began to show me one of the dates on a file, teaching me the different numbers, how to read them as a date, and where to put them into the cabinet. Similar to the names, I found this to be a matter of character recognition. Admittedly, I was slower at this than the previous task. It took me more time to read the dates. But I found myself able to eventually match Alfred’s pace after the first dozen or so.
About twenty minutes later, Alfred was the one to break the silence between us. “You should learn how to read and write. I don’t think you’d have any trouble since you seem to pick up things pretty fast already.”
I glanced over at him, narrowing my eyes at him curiously. “Are you offering to teach me?”
“Who me? I do have other things I need to get done, you know.”
“I see. I’ll ask Davis then-”
“Wait, don’t go asking that old man,” he said, quickly raising his hands as he cut me off. “Screw it. You know what, I’ve already taught you this much so might as well teach you the whole alphabet.”
“I didn’t expect you to be this patient,” I said as I picked up another file and began to read the date.
He shrugged as he inserted another file into the cabinet. “You have to be when you work in this industry.”
I didn’t quite understand the meaning of his words, but I didn’t have a chance to ask. We’d finally reached the end of the pile and he loudly pushed the cabinet drawer close.
“Alright, now that's all done, how do you feel about getting some food?”
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