Can You Hear Me? Read online

  CAN YOU HEAR ME?

  by Craig Burrows

  “Hey. Can you hear me in there?”

  “I can hear you,” I said, my voice quiet even to myself.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I'm okay.”

  “Okay. Okay. Good. I'm going to get you out,” he told me.

  He'd told me that before. Many times. Too many times to count. And I am still here.

  I could hear the beating of his heart, and I heard the thrumming of his breath. He was always walking. Climbing. Going somewhere. I don't know where he was taking me. If I knew, it wouldn't have meant much of anything to me. He is all there is now. All there is in my world.

  I remember something. Something happened to me. A long time ago. He was there. He saved me, but he couldn't save me. Not really. He tried though. I'm grateful, but it's hard to be. He doesn't understand.

  I think a long time passed before he talked to me again.

  “Hey Sara. You still there?”

  I thought about not responding.

  “I'm still here.”

  “I just finished setting up camp and I'm going to sleep soon. I'm very tired. But first, do you want me to sing you a song?”

  “Yes. Yes please.”

  There were few things I found enjoyment in any more. His singing was one. He didn't start right away. I think he always made the songs up on the spot. But I never asked. There was a magic to it, and I was afraid that if I asked it would dispel it. When he started to sing I felt the tension leave my body – well, if I had had one, it would've left. Somehow I could still feel tense...

  Night's ahead and home's behind

  The rising moon and stars portend

  But here is now and ripe for bed

  To sleep through dark and the stars' decline

  To move toward home with 'morrow's sunrise

  When the sky once more bathes in light

  And though by day the miles pass by

  Camp will be made when one thousand stars rise

  And we will sing 'night's ahead and home's behind'

  His song was done and for a moment he said nothing, his breathing slowing down.

  “Did you like it, Sara?” he asked.

  I could sense the hopefulness in his tone. His heightened heartbeat. The delayed breath. I had only disliked one song he had sung. Men stopped him on the road. They said they would either take his things or his life. That he'd get to decide. He begged them not to take me but to take everything else. He was on his knees, supplicant. He was terrified. They laughed at him and they beat him. They kicked him and slapped him. But they didn't take me. And they did not kill him.

  The song he sang for me that night was born of anger and the lust for blood. I did not like that song. That song was not him. It took him a long time to get better. He still limps with his right leg.

  “I liked it. It was beautiful,” I told him.

  He let the breath go. His heart slowed down. Very slow. He always got so nervous when he asked that question, but my answer was always the same. He need not have worried. Everything he did was beautiful to me. Everything he did was everything to me.

  “Good. I'm going to sleep now. Good night Sara. See you tomorrow. I love you.”

  “Good night.”

  “Hey. Can you hear me in there?”

  “I can hear you.”

  My voice was still small.

  “Good morning Sara.” I could hear his smile. “ Did you sleep well?”

  I didn't sleep any more. It was something I didn't need to do. Couldn't do. I'd tried. I don't like thinking all the time. I have no choice.

  “Yes.”

  “I'm glad to hear it. I'm making breakfast.”

  “Did you have any dreams?” I asked.

  “Only the nightmare.”

  He often dreamed of the day I died. He relived it in the dark hours. I could always tell when he was having that dream. He would toss and turn in his sleep, all the while subvocalizing. His perspiration would increase with his heart rate. That had all happened last night. He didn't seem to have good dreams about me any more. Not like he used to. I think he knew something was wrong. I was afraid to tell him.

  “I'm sorry.” I said. “Are you tired?”

  “No I'm alright. I woke up and went back to sleep.”

  “That's good.”

  “Did you have any dreams?”

  “I... I can't dream any more,” I told him. It was the twenty-third time I'd told him that.

  “I figured as much. But I hoped it might have been different last night.”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe tonight,” he offered, trying to be cheerful.

  I wasn't getting better. Only worse.

  “Maybe.”

  He ate his breakfast then. He packed up camp and started walking. He used to walk a lot faster. A long time ago.

  As he walked, he described what he saw.

  We were in a forest. There were tall, tall trees, with drooping sleeves of moss from the lower branches. The bark of the trunks was green with moss. The floor of the forest was full of crawling vines and fallen logs with fiery red and yellow shelf fungus growing on them. Foxgloves rose between the creepers, blue and pale violet. We passed a stream once. He saw fish and tried to catch some. He wasn't able. He described it all to me as if he was thinking about it like a song. He was good at songs.

  He made camp early that night. I could tell something was wrong.

  There was an old house near the road, its driveway half cracked and washed away, overgrown with the vines. The roof too was half caved in, ruined by rot and a falling branch. But the rest was good shelter.

  He made dinner and he laid us down on his sleeping bag. He told me he was looking at the stars. They were brighter than they used to be, even to his weakening eyes. He once told me that when it was really quiet, he sometimes imagined he could hear the burning of the stars and the growing of trees.

  He started to nod off, but I stopped him.

  “Hey, hey. Wake up,” I said.

  His breathing and heart sped up a little as he returned to consciousness. Then they went too fast.

  “Sara?”

  “Yes?”

  “How come you never say my name any more?”

  I didn't answer. How could I answer? How could I tell him that I'd forgotten his name, along with so many other things. I knew I shouldn't have forgotten. My memory was becoming corrupt. He was so careful with me. He had protected me for so very long, always telling me he'd get me out of here one day. He never did. I couldn't say nothing at all. I had to tell him... Something.

  “I. I'm sorry. I don't remember your name.”

  His silence hurt.

  “I see,” he said.

  The truth had hurt him as much as his silence me. I could tell that much.

  He didn't say anything for a time. I was left to my thoughts as I was most of the time. At length he spoke again.

  “Sara?”

  “What?”

  “I still love you, Sara.”

  “I-- I love you too.” I replied.

  “Good night, Sara.”

  He let go of me and turned away, leaving me laying aside his sleeping bag. He normally held me close to himself. During the day. During the night. Always. Now I couldn't feel his heartbeat. I could barely hear his breathing. I was... alone.

  I think morning came at some point. I waited for his words, but they never came.

  I waited long, until I could bear it no more.

  “Hey. Can you hear me? Can you hear me out there?” I asked in my tiny voice.

  Nothing.

  “Can you hear me? Are you there? Please. Don't leave me. You can't be gone. Can you hear me? Are you there? Please!”

  I begged. I pleaded. But he said nothing.

  His breathing was gone.

  So was he.

  I was left alone and in silence. And while by night I heard the slow burning of the stars, and by day the slow growing of the trees, I slowly began to forget who I was, with he no longer there to remind me.

  Author’s Note:

  If you have enjoyed reading this story, please take a moment and leave a rating/review, or take a look at the other stories I have on Amazon. To that end, reviews and ratings are the only way authors on Amazon are able to be seen, so we are entirely dependent on the generosity of our readers with a moment of their time.

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  The cover art for this story is a meticulously drawn pen and ink piece which I intentionally damaged with water to finish the tie-in with the story.

  Thank you,

  Craig Burrows

 

 

  Craig Burrows, Can You Hear Me?

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