Feeling skins

Feeling skins Annahump Annahump!- Anne stay with me, please, don’t go- his tremulous voice was a knife in the stomach. I couldn’t stand to see him in that hospital. He was stand in the stretcher with a dim face which showed how much he was suffering, but, altrought the pain his light-brown eyes maintained a veneer of beauty. I was stand behind keeping his head with an hand and holding his with the other one. I could feel the humid surface of his skin, he was sweltering cold. While I was there without any idea of what to do or say, two nurses in front of me were working on his body. -“Are you a relative? His sister? His girlfriend?”- the taller one of the two nurses looked at me with an inquisitive air. They were wearing light blue uniforms just like in the old series I was used to watch with my mother and my sister and for a moment I began to suggest myself that was all a movie. But it wasn’t. It was real, Jer with his wonderful sportive body was on that stretcher, he was suffering, the nurses, the ambulance, the noises, the police, everything was real and I couldn’t believe it was happening. -“So? Who are you? A cousin?”- the nurse woke me up by my thoughts. She was still barraging me of questions. -”No..ehm”- I was hesitant, I was afraid they would have sent me away. -“Hump” Jer’s agonizing scream interrupted our conversation. -“What does he say?” the nurse asked. -“Ehm..hump”- I answered in a silent voice. Once I would have become red because of the shame, but in that moment it sounded like the sweetest nickname of my life. All the time he called me like that because of “my big sizes” I pretended to be angry, I ignored him for a while and then he come to me with his magnetic smile and said: “Are you offended? I joke, you know it!”. He tried to hug me, I refused and finally I went again in his arms. And now the only possibility of not hearing anymore his voice pronouncing that word terrified me. -“Well you can stay until the doctor arrives, maybe you can help us…What is his name?”-the nurse said, indifferent of the nickname. -“Jer” – I answered without specifying what was my role in his life. -“Jer, she will stay here, but now you have to be calm because what we’re going to do it’s hard, be strong and bold Jer and stay awake”-said confidently the nurse. “Idiot! She talks like he’s not suffering enough” I thought but then I realized they were trying to do their best and I wasn’t only angry and worried, but also tired, it was about three o’clock in the night so I kept my thoughts for me. The nurse who talked with me had got long brown hair and green eyes, the other one was slimmer and shorter with wavy short dark-red hair and brown eyes. The second one seemed to be more concentrate on the medicine case than the human case and this made me feel safer , I have always liked people who don’t talk much, but do well their job. The nurses first took away the broken jeans, then the slip to put him a clyster. I would have said something because he was totally bare, but it would have been stupid saying or doing something so I hid my embarrass and I began to look deeply his eyes, my face was trying to communicate him that was all fine, that he will have been better, that he didn’t have to be in shame, that I was looking his eyes and not his beautiful damaged bare body. But he didn’t seem to understand anything of what I was trying to say with my eyes, he had the head turned to me, but he wasn’t looking at me, he had the eyes in an empty, painful expression. I wondered what was turning in his mind. What does someone think while other people are trying to save your life? Was he praying? No, he wasn’t. He has never been religious, but maybe he was nearer God in that moment just like me, I was praying a God who I haven’t called since years to listen to me. Maybe he found refuge in his ateism or in an epicureism’s philosophy: if the pain is hard you’re going to die, but death is feeling’s absence so it’s better than pain, instead whatever is the pain if it doesn’t bring you to the death, you can stand it. I’ve never studied philosophy, he taught me everything during our discussions about the sense of life. Where did our discussions end up now? Did they have sense? Were they useful? Where were our future’s project? I hoped he was praying God. Suddenly a man in whitecoat arrived. He should have been the doctor. -“What do we have here?”- he asked the nurse. -“Male, seventeen years old. He presents an head-trauma, there’s no blood, but probably he has got an internal hemorrhage. Pelvis and thighbone broken”-answered punctiliously the nurse. -“Well, proceed. Take him to the surgery hall. “-he said-“Who are you?” he added looking me. -“A friend” – I said and the doctor looked the nurse with a reproaching air. -“The patient wanted her to stay here” she said before he could say something. -“Well now you can’t come with us” he said. I kissed Jer’s hand, before they took him away. Before the doctor has followed Jer and the nurses, he said pointing me: “You have to call his parents” -“What? How can I? This should be part of your work”- I said furiously. I also found a way to throw out some stress, worry and anger and the doctor understood it. -“We have to work to save your friend’s life, that’s all. Trust me, I will do my best, but you have to call his parents because they have to be here after the surgery when he will wake up.” –the doctor said so confidently and firmly that I couldn’t replay, I could just say: “Ok, that’s right.” They vanished in an hallway of the hospital, leaving me so astonished, confused and worried. Jer-draft “I had a wonderful night, it wasn’t only funny, it was also relaxed. Annaclaire is a nice type so confident, a complicated, interesting personality. I don’t know what I want from her, but what the feelings we can create each other. I love being touched by the cold wind, no women can be compared with the shivers of my motorbike, it’s my greatest passion. Ty-Tall is running too much tonight, I have to change gear if I want to follow them. I can feel the roar of the engine on my skin, I turn the right hand and one, second, third..here we go. But what is he doing? It’s crazy overtaking that bus… I can’t feel anything, just a deep pain, I can’t recognize where it come from, it goes through all my body and doesn’t permit me to breath. My sight is blurred, I can hear the voices around me, I know I fell down, but the jump out of the motorbike was so quick, everything run so fast, I didn’t feel anything and I can’t feel now too. The ambulance is here, I heard the horn. I looked the fear in Ty-Tall’s eyes, my best friend, dear friend I need you now like I’ve never done before, but he’s leaving as soon he could. Why? I don’t want to look for an answer now. I want to live, I have to live, this is the only thing I can focus on right now. I can hear a voice, her voice, Annaclaire’s. She shouldn’t stay here, I left her at home. Why is she here? She came for me, for Johnny. How is Johnny? I’m tired to think, I can see just colors’ scrubs: green, blue, red, brown, how many colors are there in the world? I want to discover the other colors in my life, I want to survive and see colors. Annaclaire gets down on her knees, I can see her full lips, they are brown, not bordeaux, she’s so beautiful, I would tell her that she seems an angel to me right now, but the only words I could pronounce were: “I want to live”-“And you will, Jer, I promise you will live, we still have many nights to spend together, don’t worry, now don’t stress yourself and stay calm, I’m here Jer, I won’t leave you”. Her words were a sweet music for my ears. I clung with all my strength to the life, it’s so strange, we spend every day so nonchalantly, careless of what is the importance of life, we walk, work, argue, fall in love, suffer, get upset and we do everything without considering life, like it’s a right that nobody can bring you away. Now I’ m here, standing on the street, agonizing and fighting against the death. I’m tired, I would sleep, I can’t. Annaboob stay here, stay with me, don’t go away, I need you. -“And you? What is your name?”- he asked Johnny with his imperturbable face. -”Johnny Ramirez”- -“Are you Hispanic?” – he said. Here we go, another stupid question asked by a stupid man. What the hell do they have against Hispanic people. Why he didn’t ask me if I was American, isn’t the same thing? That’s another reason to add to the list “why I hate cocks”. -“I guess you would like to, but no, my dad is Brazilian”- Johnny said in a female way showing all his homosexuality. He was great, although he was blooding and was clearly scared, infact his dark skin was strangely brown, he found the right way of answering at that stupid policeman. The policeman gave a dirty look to Johnny and moved to his car. -“I texted Annaclaire, she’s coming. Should I text my sister? I’m afraid of her reaction? Maybe she may get hungry..” Johnny kept talking, but I wasn’t listening to him anymore, my mind was somewhere, was at home, where that woman who declare to be my mom would have sent me away if she had known what happened. I already could hear her screams “I damn the day you were born, you and your criminals friends, what have I done in other life to deny a son like you?” I could already see her taking things and get them away, then turn up her cigarette and looking me so scornful. The policeman was coming back, I looked him and I thought the denounce to the insurance, then I figured out myself at home, my hell. I looked Jer’s eyes for the last time and a terrible sense of death touched my stomach and went up to my chuck and then to my mouth. I could feel his pain on my lips. “I’ve to go, I can’t have problem with the insurance” –I told Johnny so fast and quickly that I couldn’t realize what I was really saying. “What?! You can’t..I mean…Jer” splattered Johnny astonished. “I have to” were the only words I could articulate. I got on the scooter and I left as soon as possible. I had the temptation of looking Jer again, but I couldn’t find the courage. A voice inside me kept silently telling me to come back, to stay with my friends, to go to the hospital, but on the other side there was there was the mum’s phrases, the feeling of being on this earth just for a mistake, this is how she made me feel. The voices inside my head were getting always stronger, they played to the war and my soul was ground of the battle. Although I had just an accident I couldn’t go slowly, the speed was my safety, I had to go home and refugee from myself, the monster who had just left his best friend lying on the road. I arrived at homw in twenty minutes, everybody was sleeping, I smoked a cigarette, entered in my bedroom. My eyes were opened, my body was punishing me refusing of sleeping. I went in the bathroom and I took one of my dad’s pills. “I will surely sleep with this” I spread on the bed and I turned off my brain and my soul. Johnny-Draft While Jer and Annaclaire were at the trauma ward, in the other room, at the first aid, Johnny was sitting on a wheelchair, waiting for the doctor. “Wow I could do a race with this chair..what the hell do I think about? I just had an accident! I wonder how is Jer”. The blood got out of his knee faster. “Where is the doctor? How long do I have to wait? It hurts, damn. There were many people in the hall. I was the third one. An old man, clearly drunk, was stand on the chairs. He was wearing an open blue and white checked shirt and a white undershirt with old ruined deep blue trousers. He had a fat stomach and he is probably homeless. A small Hispanic girl with a black eye was near a tall black woman who might be the mother. I wonder who had the courage of make that small girl like that, she would be seven years old, she is so nice with her pink dress. I would kill him, although I am against the capital pain. Finally there was a guy with a swollen arm, he is about twenty years old with short black hair and green eyes, I could see he was suffering, he hold the right knee with the healthy hand. He was wearing broken jeans and a black singlet with a long necklace. I like looking the people around me. It’s so strange we meet everyday a lot of people who we don’t know and we enter casually in their life. I remember when I was with Jenna and we tried to imagine life’s people just looking how were they wearing. Suddenly a man with a bloody face entered in the hall. Looking him I felt something turning in my stomach, I got down the head and I saw my blood on my leg, I couldn’t stop me of throwing out all the things I ate at Annaclaire’s house because of my chemical hunger. My barf was all on the floor. “Ahahaha” a loudly laugh broke the silent in the hall. “You are too sensitive, guy” said the old man, giving me a napkin. “Thank you” I said, cleaning up my face. “Why are you here?” he said and now he nearer to me I could realize how much he was smelling bad. “I have had an accident, I ‘m waiting also for an another friend, he is worse than me. What about you?” The man become strangely serious. “Oh I’m sorry. I’m here because fucking cocks don’t even let an old man getting warmer with some vodka.” I had a strained smile and I did everything was in my power to not looking at my barf again. Two financial guards arrived and moved to the man with the bloody face. I was curious and I couldn’t stop myself by listening to their conversation. It was also a way to not thinking Jer, it would have pained me too much. “What happened?” one of the two guards asked the man. “ Three known bad faces stopped me before I went in my house. I’m a financial commander’s nephew.” The two guards looked each other like they already understood everything. “Do you know their names?” the other guard asked in a deep voice. I understood the man was getting dim. “Mmh..understand me..I can’t” he said in a silent voice like he was in shame and he shouldn’t in my opinion. “Well so we will do a denounce against unknown” close quickly the policeman. It’s incredible, when they find someone who is smoking marijuana or some poor foreign men without a permission they will be hours talking about that kind of case and now that it’s clear that there a serious criminal organization behind it, they accept the man’s code of silent without saying or doing anything. It’s crazy, that’s why we are in a so bad situation in Ireland. While I was damned my country, Annaclaire entered in the with a worry expression. “What’s up?” I shouted as soon as I was her. “Nothing. He’s in the surgery hall and I have to call his parents. How are you?” “ I’m fine, don’t worry. What? Do you have to call his parents?!” –said Johnny shocked. “Yes”-answered tired Annaclaire, passed her hands on his face. “This hospital is a shit”- shouted Johnny hoping someone was listening to him. After Johnny’s scream the was a moment of silent and then first the old man, then Annaclaire started laughing loudly. The man with the bloody face added his laugh to ours. “What happened to you?” asked him the old man. “I’m a policeman’s nephew and probably some people in my street don’t like this. They stopped me in front of my house’s door. Last week I told my uncle about strange movements in the street and this is the result.” Everyone was silent, there was nothing to add to what the man had just said. Suddenly Annaclaire spoke: “This word is a shit” “Oh yes sister” I added. “Ok I go out and try to call Jer’s mum. Stay here” she said with a confident tone, but it was clear she was just trying to encourage herself to find the courage for that call. “I can’t go nowhere!” I shouted when she was already outside. This is the first part of my book, i hope you will like it. Answer me at napolitano.federica@gmail.com or contact me on facebook, Freds Napolitano. I’m Italian and I’m eighteen years old, I’ve been in South Dakota, Mitchell for four months as an exchange student. Bye Freds Sabers

Federica Napolitano - 16/09/2012 | report this review