LECHAIM WAS WALKING along a rugged mountain road, its surface strewn with small stones and boulders. The road wound through a valley set in a lunar-like landscape, bare of vegetation, austere and forbidding. Ahead, where the road forked, his friend astride his horse was waiting for him. The men were constant companions and Lechaim was eager to join him. He raised his hand to acknowledge his friend and the rider waved back. A jewelled coronet adorned the man's long, flaxen, shoulder-length hair, and he was clad in a white tunic and cape. His upper body was protected by a golden breastplate that glistened in the sun. A sword sheathed in its scabbard hung at his side. The pure white stallion beneath him snorted and moved impatiently but its rider stilled it with legs that were well practiced in the art. Both horse and master then waited passively until he could join them.
Intent on the man ahead, Lechaim stumbled and sprawled on his knees. When he had regained his feet again, both man and horse were gone. Arriving at the spot where they had been only moments before, Lechaim searched for proof of their existence. The hoof prints that the animal should have left were nowhere to be seen. Puzzled, he searched the landscape for a sign of them, and then a cold chill settled over him as he realized the significance of where he stood. He was at a junction in the road - a choice between life and death. With absolute certainty, he knew that if he made the wrong choice, he would perish. His decision made he started down one of the roads. Presently, the stillness was broken by the sound of hoof beats and he saw a rider approach.
The rider reined his horse before him, and Lechaim looked into a face of horror. The horseman had no face, just a skull full of worms.”
“Captain Lewis! Captain Lewis! Wake up!” she softly entreated shaking him gently.
He awoke with a start, the perspiration evident on his face.
“Same dream again?” she inquired in a whisper.
“Yes, the same dream!”
Lying back on the pillow, he watched her straighten the sheets. The dream was his constant consort. Night after night, in his sleeping hours, his courage and resolve were being tested on that road – the road of life or death. Somehow, although it was only a dream, it seemed very real, very relevant, and very significant, but he couldn’t explain for the life of him why it should be so.
As she pulled his head forward to rearrange his pillows, she noted that his face was almost healed. The scar on his cheek would soon fade and he had been too good-looking anyway. Besides, the blemish added a rakish touch, she thought. Sister Flynn was just one of his many admirers within the hospital. He was a patient that never complained, which made a change, and he was naturally good-humored. Although she, herself, had 'racked up' more than a half-century in years, he made her feel like a young girl again, and those eyes!
“Stay a while, Sister,” he quietly pleaded as she turned off the bed light.
“All right, but not long mind you!”
She knew he would ask her to stay - he always did. It was almost as though he were afraid to be alone in the dark but his army record belied such a notion. Anyway, she didn't mind. Age had not curtailed her physical desires, and she enjoyed their intimate conversations in the dark. He was on his own in a private room, so they had no audience for their nocturnal whisperings. Looking down at him now, she was reminded that tomorrow he would be discharged and their nightly assignations would come to an end. She would certainly miss him but, alas, she knew, he would soon forget her.
In that she was correct. Sister Flynn held no physical attraction for him, rather a motherly one. Not being able to remember his real mother, he wondered whether she and Sister Flynn had been alike. His aunt Joan had taken on the responsibilities of being a mother to him when he was very young and, in truth, he now regarded her as his real mother. There were chunks of his life before he had been injured that were either vague or forgotten. What had the doctors in this Belfast hospital called it, partial amnesia?
Sitting patiently by his side, she waited for him to speak. She could see that he seemed to be making up his mind about something.
Finally, he spoke, “Can you tell me where Carrickcross is, Sister?”
“Yes, it's some fifteen or twenty miles from here. Why do you ask?”
“I would like to pay a visit to the people that helped me that night.”
“The daughter had been in to see you on a number of occasions!”
“Daughter! I don't remember her being here!”
“Of course, you don't. You were recovering from a very serious head wound, remember!”
As she ribbed him, she recalled the young, red-headed beauty that had inquired after him. Sister Flynn had watched the girl as she had sat by his bed and had noted the concern in her eyes. She suspected that something besides compassion lurked within the bosom of that young girl. Sister Flynn had been young once, herself, and remembered how it was to be in love. The look in the girl's eyes brought it all back. Sister Flynn too had that look once when she was a student nurse thirty years before. The sweet ambivalence of it all - that wild roller coaster ride between ecstasy and despair. For her, it had ended badly but she did not regret such love, only the loss of it.
Despite the pain of her own experience, she envied people that were in love. Being a true romantic, she believed that one only came alive when one was in love. It was the substance of life, the very essence of one's being. A world without love or lovers was a sad place indeed, she had long ago decided.
She added reprovingly, “She's a young Irish colleen so you be nice to her.”
“You know I've only got eyes for you” he teased giving her a little squeeze on the thigh.
“Get away with you, you cheeky thing” she chuckled. “And who's to say I'd be interested in you anyway!” They engaged for a while in pleasant conversation sprinkled with more light banter until she eventually decided that he had taxed himself enough. “Now, you get some sleep, or we won't be letting you out tomorrow!”
He echoed her “goodnight” as she softly departed leaving him alone again with his thoughts. Lying there in the dark, he knew that he wouldn't go back to sleep now that a new day was already dawning. A few more hours and he would be leaving this room that had served as his home for the past six weeks. What lay ahead then, he wondered. Convalescence and then what? Would he be allowed to return to the army? How much brain damage had occurred? How would he be affected? Would his physical injuries heal completely? These and a multitude of other thoughts bombarded his mind as the light of day crept slowly and inexorably into the room.