The Old Story - Part 6b

[Continuation of Part 6]


[When he's talking about hunting in the mountains, think of Rayman 1... Mooshie would remember.]


[Also, I have no explanation for why LJ takes parts of the SAME DOCUMENT and does one part fine then screws up the spacing in the next part.  I just do not have the hours and hours available to fix it right now!  If it's even possible to fix.  Sorry. ]

***

           He opened his eyes slowly. Ly had her hand on his back as he lay on his side in the bed.

           “Rayman?”

           An indefinable smile around his half closed, tired eyes. “Ly.” His voice, too, was faint, tired, rather hoarse.

           She knelt by his bed, to look him in the face. He smiled a little more; then closed his eyes, sighed with pain.

           The room was rather dark, there was a clamminess in the air. Ly moved to close the shutters over the big window.

           “Hey,” came the soft, roughened voice from the bed, “what you doing?”

           “It’s cold outside,” she said. “There’s no sun. Look how dark it is.”

           He was gingerly, effortfully, very slowly twisting his body in the bed, working to get onto his back. “Don’t—” coughing, “don’t close.”

           She came back to him, touched his head gently. He was struggling to get a hand out from under the covers. She moved the heavy blankets, he reached out and took her hand.

           “Ly,” he whispered, “Take me outside.” His hand was trembling slightly.

           She held his hand. “Rayman,” she said, “You know, it’s awfully cold today—”

           Lying in the bed, he clung to her hand. His eyes were steady, soft, still slightly smiling. “Ly,” he said quietly. “Ly. Take me outside.”

           She pressed his hand; after a moment, he pulled her hand closer and nuzzled it. He looked up at her with those eyes that were so soft, so gentle, so nakedly expressive.

           She remembered the hard brightness, the mischief, the undertow of quietly humorous anger and aggression that had been in those eyes, once. But all that was gone now. There were only the rarest flashes now of ferocity or even irony.

           For all that, there was not the slightest hint of yielding.

           He kissed her hand lightly. “Ly,” he said again. “Take me outside.”

           She sighed. “All right,” she said.

           They got him, with much pain, into his rolling chair. It was some minutes before the flare of agony abated enough that Ly was willing to move him. He lay quiet at last, still breathing hard, eyes closed, but entirely calm and apparently undisturbed. He was enfolded in blankets, only his head showing. Then Ly began to push the heavy chair that short little distance through the door at the back of his room leading out onto the wooden deck that ran around the rear of the house.

           Moosh perched on the chair arm, watching Rayman closely. There was a sharp gasp as the chair bumped over the foot of the door.

           Rayman opened his eyes to look at Moosh, who was subduedly glaring at Ly. A little grin crept across his face.

           “Hey,” he whispered, very low. Moosh came close to his face. “Moosh. Don’t you start with Ly. Bad enough that she starts with you. Don’t.”

           Moosh smiled at him. “Nothing much gets by you, does it?”

           Rayman closed his eyes. “Don’t know. I hope not.”

           Ly pushed the chair out as far onto the deck as she could without leaving the protection of the wide overhang of the roof. There was a wet, chilly wind battering a huge flock of low grey clouds across the sky. The mountains, close as they were across the bay, were indistinct in the fog.

           Rayman lay quietly panting, surveying it all. Ly pulled up a deck chair beside him. His slow, gentle gaze was radiant as he turned to her.

           “See,” he whispered, gesturing with his head, “see, it’s raining up on the cliffs.” He looked some more at the sky. “It’s almost 10 o’clock. I didn’t realize how late the morning was.” He took a deep breath. “It will start raining here in about... about ten minutes.”

           He lay quietly, eyes often shut, occasionally opening them to follow the cloud-race. “It’s amazing,” he whispered, so low Ly had to move close to hear him, “amazing how different air outside is from air inside... even in my wide-open house.” He smiled at Ly.

           She smiled back at him. But she had a lot of attention on the evident degree of pain he was in, although he was ignoring it.

           His eyes were on the murky slopes of the hills, rising up and losing their peaks in the grey-brown clouds.

           “It’s so cold up there when it rains,” he said. “Higher up, of course, there’s always snow... A while back, I spent half a year up there... it snowed almost every day. So cold, even in summer...” He lay, eyes closed, taking several slow breaths. Then glanced at Ly, with a trace of the old brightness and even mischief in those eyes. “It kept me on the move...”

           Almost to the minute that Rayman had predicted, it began to rain. The sky darkened nearly to dusk, and a light patter began on the overhanging roof. Ly pulled Rayman’s chair back so his feet wouldn’t get wet. He was quiet, listening to the rain as it increased in intensity.

           Ly went into the house, brought out another blanket, tucked it around Rayman’s shivering body. He gave her a direct look so tender that Ly had to pull away for a moment. It was hard to face up to the amount of emotion she perceived in him; it frightened her that he had become so completely unguarded. It looked like an early goodbye.

           Rayman reclined in his chair, eyes closed, very quiet, resting, listening.

           “We should go in, Rayman,” Ly was saying. “It’s raining hard.” His eyes half opened.

           “Yeah...” he murmured. “It’s raining... I like the rain.”

           His glance lit again on Moosh, still seated beside him on the chair arm. Their eyes met.

           Rayman laughed, half a cough. “Moosh! You’re worried about me?” He coughed again, shaking his head. Another cough; now suddenly there was some tension. All three of them quieted for a time, until Rayman was breathing more easily.

           A long silence while the rain continued, waxing and waning. Then Rayman said, softly, absently – almost drowned out by the pelting raindrops on the wooden roof, “Yeah... half a year up in the mountains. Never for so long before. Before that, I thought I knew them... learned better.” A long pause. “Spent... so long... hunting...”

           Ly raised her head, surprised. “You, hunting, Rayman?”

           He smiled, shook his head. “Not... for food... well, that too... but—”

           Moosh moved a little closer to Rayman. Rayman gazed at him fondly.

           Rayman went on, dreamily, “Inside the range... the grey, purple peaks, naked, so powerful... a wild land... cold, harsh, hungry. But beautiful. So beautiful. Terror, horror... creeps under your skin and becomes awe...”

           He sighed, took a long breath. “And... on the other side... you can look down from some peaks and see the village... farmland, neat squares of crops, pretty toy houses, paths, boats and carts... all interspersed with the forest, but a tidy... cozy... domestic world...” He sighed again. “With its own beauty... its own tender, delicate, fragile beauty. Perched on a thin illusion... as though sorrow could never touch it.” Another long sigh, almost a groan.

           Ly came closer to him, touched his face. He turned his head a little, looked at her. “Ly...”

           He was panting harder. “Oh... Ly...” He reached for her. “I love this place, Ly... I love my ... my people...” Tears in his eyes now. “But I never... never knew... how lonely I was... never knew... until you.”

           She stroked him, while he fought back a dizzying surge of pain. Moosh jumped up onto the chair back, and some of the little guys began to pop into sight, clustering on the windowsills, the doorway, out in the rain.

           Rayman was not aware of them. He lay limp in his chair. His eyes cracked open, focused dimly on Ly, as she murmured, “Okay, Rayman. We’re going in now.”

           Very slightly, with no distress at all, he smiled.

           But like something quite apart from him, an attacking beast, the pain took hold of his body and contorted, twisted, wrung it like a rag.

           As Ly was pushing the chair back into the house, wincing at the way every turn of the wheel was reflected in Rayman’s body, she murmured to Moosh, “Is it – do you think it’s because we – had him outside – overdid it?”

           Moosh jumped onto her hand, stopping her instantly.

           “No,” he said to her, with unusual kindness. “No, Ly. I doubt that had anything to do with it.”

           They got him back into his room. As they began to lift him out of his chair, his body went into a violent convulsion. Those were not easy to deal with.

           After they bring him back inside – he is nearly erased by pain, completely limp and motionless, only able to open his eyes for the briefest moments; Ly is more frightened than she has been in a long time, he is so weak, so passive.

           He is in a momentary still point between seizures – the seizures which recently have been becoming more frequent – lying in a sprawl on the bed, body so flaccid she fears he’s died. She comes close, lightly touches his face. His eyes half-open. They focus on her.

           He is trying to whisper. She comes close, listening for the faint exhaled breath.

           “Th–thanks... for... taking me outside...”

           His heavy eyes try to hold hers, he is smiling so faintly, so sweetly...