What happned to him?

The table was clean and neat, but the candle was lit and there was a newspaper placed in front of his cup of coffee where he’d just left it. His table stood close to the window looking out to the street, but in the darkness of the night outside the small coffee shop there weren’t any signs of who might have left this paper here. Nor where there any people beside him in the coffee shop. The lady at the register had left to, probably for a back room since there where so few customers this evening. He pulled out the chair to sit down at the table and lifted the cup of coffee to his thin lips while he let himself take in the text again, the bold headline seemed like it was meant for him alone. A screaming accusation with a finger pointing towards him. “Local Doctor investigated for negligence related to another mysterious death.”

His lip curled slightly, who ever left this here was clearly looking to taunt him. And he hated to admit it, but they where succeeding. He placed his cup of coffee delicately on the saucer and then he lifted the paper to look closer at it, before he tore it up, one strip at the time, and stood up. Slightly bending to pass below the beams in the sealing in the old place, he walked over to the fire place to open the grate and threw the papers in the flames. It was foolish, he new that, even as he was looking at the fire eating away at the remnants of paper and text, the word doctor burning in front of him. This paper was already out, the words would be what the nurses and his co-workers would be discussing across the staff tables. They didn’t like him. The whispers would be quick to flourish, he knew that.
He returned to his table to sit down again, long fingers curling around his coffeecup lifting it. The hot liquid black when he pured it down. To hot, but somehow he just downed it.

The girl working at the registry had returned with a cloth to clean the surfaces since there weren’t much else to do tonight, but the tall, blond and handsome man sitting at the window did give her something to occupy her mind with as she was pretending to earn her pay, or what ever the hell she was doing here, with no customers. He looked sad, she was thinking as she watched him down that newly poured cup of coffee. But he didn’t even flinch as he did it. That was weird. But not that weird. She explained it to herself with only a few rational thoughts. He’s probably a heavy coffee drinker, perhaps working in a stressful environment that never gives him time to wait for his coffee to chill a bit before downing it?

Her imagination flew away with her… this man was obviously a man working in some important line of work. He looked intelligent, not just handsome. But perhaps also a bit arrogant? That disdain on his thin lips, something of a scowl on his face? Or was it pain in his eyes? She frowns as she tilts her head, really looking at him, as he is facing out the window looking down the street, and then, rests the towel on the counter and walks out from behind it to walk up to him, brushing of her hands on her apron as she approaches. He was so neat, so clean, it was almost like he was shining or untouchable by dust. That was not very natural either. But he probably had some important job he had to look really well dressed for, right?

“Sir? Are you alright?”

He turned his head up to look at the girl who had come up close to him, and stared at her. Probably not very nicely, he felt the snarl, the anger surge within him and his hand grab on to the table so hard it made the table creek and tiny impressions form from his surge of anger and strength as he held himself back. His eyes where probably cold, and the flash of anger sparked in his eyes before he could stop himself. Next he stood up, and the girl flinched and stepped backward, he fixed his eyes at the door, and snatched up his coat from the seat next to him to throw it over his shoulders as he passed her, the focus on the door, and he heard how hard it slammed behind him, and a surge of guilt started to mingle with the anger and grief. His hand tightly in a fist as he punched it down his coat pocket and his lips hard pressed against etch other with the jaw tight as he turned up his coat collar with the other hand and started down the street.

The damp book

The key in the lock turnes with a gentle motion, controlled and simple, and the door is then opened to admit the tall man in to the little house. Darkness meets him in the hall, and the cold. No one had bothered to turn on the heat in the house for the fall and it smelled cold, but at the same time attacked a sensitive nose with hundreds of familiar scents, scents that hurt a little and makes a high forehead crease under the silvery blond hairline. The dark eyes looking through the darkness where he stands on the mat inside the door. Welcome home it said on the mat.

The hand up to try to tame his hair with a couple of long fingers running trough the touseld strands, he had at best been able to sigh over the wild hairstyle on the men's restroom at the airport. He brings two large black roller bags over the threshhold and in to the hall and leave them there, without bothering to remove neither the black men's shoes, or the long black cotton coat that he wears over the usual whiteshirt and tie with suit pants and a vest. He does however unbutton a button in his collar with long elegant fingers to loosen the tie as he moved trough the hall and into the mainroom of the cottage.

His shirt bears the traces of wrinkles and there is lint on his coat. But there is urgency in the dark eyes, while he is looking around the room, this worry had made him forgett for a moment how he hated to look dishevled. It didn’t matter anymore. He steps into the house, the dark eyes search for signs of life? He had heard the rumors, and he had heard whispers about what had happened, but he had not been able to get away from his duties untill now. Something of a growl grows on his upper lip when his thoughts return to it, but something draws his gaze. Everything is strange and cold and nothing is familiar, except this.

He stops at a bookcase where the books are just as icy as everything else in the cottage, almost moist with the cold. But his gaze is fixed on it, he picks it up and cracks the spine to let the well worn pages flip trough his fingers while he looks through it. Does not care about lighting a lamp, he just lowers his head a bit so his hair falls down in his forhead again when he looks in the book and the smells start rising out of the mist from the pages, and the menories with them, the words that form a familiar ease in his mind, “There once was a land, far far away... “ and he falls into an icy armchair with it in his hand.

He turnes to the middle of it, he knew this story, he wanted to read the part about the prince again, the best part, his eyes move as they follow the words, when his long fingers pull at the fabric of his pants to get the room to hang one long leg over the other and in the darkness in his little cottage. The Doctor, The Surgon, allways burdend with the weight of responsability, forgetts for a moment, one single tired lonely moment that his husband is missing, that the anger he felt all the way home from India made him want to rip seats and eat stewardesses for lunch, and that his house is empty and cold. For a breif moment the book grabs him, captures him, wraps him up in a warm hug of welcome, a magic place, danger and adventure, everyone knows the hero will win and the bad guy gets it.

That’s how it works, in stories. That’s how the world should be. For a moment he forgetts again that this is a lie as his eyes glow skyblue with light in the darkness, only the moonlight shines through the windows a bit out beyond the cliffedge and above the sea. The rage subsides and the tall and slender man is a siluette in his old armchair. Just one moment.