Old Friend

‘Beep. Beep. Beep.’ At night the hospital turns into a choir filled with forlorn, rancid singers. ‘Drip. Drip. Drip.’ Each sound added to the dreadful symphony. No matter how many instruments joined into the myriad it was never beautiful. Being alone, old and awake is always bitter. ‘I should have visited Prague,’ Reflected Edwin as the light shuffling of nurses continued ‘or Vienna. Vienna would have been romantic.’
Edwin looked at his hand; a needle was embedded into his wrist. The fan was on low. ‘When did I go so grey?’ ‘Beep. Beep. Beep.’ Edwin closed his eyes and tried to dream of Anne, a long gone woman who still owned younger pieces of him. He imagined her as she was when she was most beautiful, somewhere on a beach in England. ‘Or was it Denmark?’ The sky was shielded by clouds and the waves were coloured like mop water. Anne sat with him, fire red hair and eyes the colour that oceans should be. He dwelled on the family he created with her. ‘Drip. Drip. Drip.’ Sarah teaches English and John was a retired salesman. They were both old now too. ‘Ninety-four is too old. I miss my wife.’ Edwin remembered even further back, when he was just a blue eyed student with all his brothers and sisters. He was born the youngest of six but would die the eldest. ‘Beep. Drip. Beep. Drip.’ The next youngest was five years older than him. Edwin was barely present to them. He grinned when he remembered Cookie the imaginary boy. It would have been seventy years since he had thought of him. ‘My old friend.’ The sound of his name made him feel youthful. “Cookie.” Edwin whispered and smiled aimlessly.
Memories flooded back to him as if he was telling himself the rules of a game he had never heard of. ‘We would always play Cowboy and Indian back then. When we would go to the beach we would ally to fight the waves, pretending each one was a French invader. The French never rested. When we left, we imagined we were rendezvousing to prepare for our next assault. At home we were sworn adversaries again so the games never ended.’
He heard the scratching of pens against clip boards - the chicken scratch writing of doctors in the hall. An imaginary friend is exactly who you want them to be and they rarely ever fight with you. The best part is when everyone else is gone they would still follow you like a shadow. Edwin opened his eyes. ‘Cookie.’ He almost spoke. All the colour in the room focused in front of him where Cookie sat. He looks ten years old still, the same after all these years. The tumult of the hospital started to die.
“You look old.” Laughed the boy.
‘I am old.’ Edwin thought.
“Let’s go play now.” He said.
‘Beep’ the machine whispered slow and faint then it was quiet.

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