The return of the doodle

“Read me to sleep.”

Her voice was barely a whisper, draped low by the heavy curtains of drowsiness. Yet the strength behind it was commendable; it was not a question, though not quite a demand.

He chuckled. That was his girl.

“Yes, ma’am. What story do you happen to fancy tonight?”

She knitted her eyebrows in mock annoyance and pursed her lips, which currently resembled a closed rose in the early hours of the day, before the golden beams of sunlight pried the pale-pink petals open.

A slim arm lifted and waved about shakily. “Whatever. Something I can relate to. Sleeping Beauty.”

“Oh?”

“I took forever to wake up too.”

“Your coma is not her beauty sleep.”

Her pause was negligible. “Well, I’m awake now –“

“ – barely.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sorry, I’m just –“

The words were swept away by the brush of the lips and in a faint whiff of mango, apple cider and the underlying cloying scent of medicinal products. He wondered vaguely if her lips had always tasted this sweet, or their cold absence had made them so. Those long, gray weeks of waiting, praying for the first flush of color in her skin…

The impatient tug on his hair pulled him back from his brooding, and he felt himself arched a brow at the ferocity; it seems like Aurora was not the only who can be revived with a kiss.

“Sometimes I still dream about it. I would wake up from the nightmare of not being able to wake up – screaming, sweating – then squeezing my arms or legs so tightly till it the nails cut into the skin and it bled and the pain would assure me I’m alive…” Her breaths were shallow, and she sounded hollow, dispassionate, like someone being forced to recite lines in an audition she did not want to be in. “…but there are times where I actually welcome the endless sleep, never needing to wake and deal with all the shit life throws at me, free of the pain, so peaceful…”

“Baby, please don’t.”

But already his mind was flipping through the slow days in the whitewashed hospital room, doing everything he could to keep insanity and hopelessness at bay. He had read to her the stories she loved, sang to her the songs of their own soundtrack, recounted to her the moments they had together made now and forever. Then she had stirred; a twitch of the finger after three months and twelve days of dead stillness.

Now, to be able to feel of her heart beating against his chest and the warmth of her cheeks in the cup of his hands is his definition of blessing.

His lips found hers again, but this time with a sense of urgency spurred by the sad memories. Then, slowly, they drew apart. He grabbed the book from the shelves facing the foot of the bed, huddled close beside her and began to read.

The melody of his voice floated around them, and as she drifted off, it softened to a murmur, just like how the music of a musical box fades when being left unwound for a time. Her personal musical box. Every song I sing is for you. He leaned in and kissed her twice; one on her forehead, one on the jagged scar that marred a side of her face. As long as I get to keep your smile.

The room darkened still as the bedside lamp was flicked off; the stream of moonlight impatiently directing him out the door.  

And he left, knowing that she would wake up in the morning.

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I wonder why I'm not dissuaded by the amount of crap I write.