"Wake up little dreamer."
I pretend not to hear, and turn over onto my right side. My eyes still closed I wait for unconsciousness to grasp me again.
A foot strikes my back, my side with force. Grunting with the effort, the others join in with that wonderful mob mentality.
Why won't they leave me alone? The gutter stones are cool against my fevered brow and the wind rushes down the hollow full into my face.
A cease in the hostilities. The dogs pant and swear. One set of footsteps move off. Glass crashes nearby and the two still here giggle like whores and call to their fellow.
Black drool stringing from my mouth's corner matts my beard and helps collect small, sharp pebbles and other detritus. I try to move my head to lessen the discomfort.
A crunching above me presages the impact as one of them jumps on my back from the raised curb. He fails to land well and falls off me with a curse. More talking, the other has returned.
Cold sharpness glances off my face. Blood drips across my lashes, my moustache, slowing as it mixes with the filth already present. Some touches my tounge and I gag at the metallic taste which pushes past even the sour patina of alcohol and vomit covering the inside of my mouth.
"Still alive. " Guttaral, foul breath in my face; immune now to my own stink. I do not bother to ask why. I cannot even lift myself the small distance to spit in his face.
The bottle end rips at me again. It is a more effective strike and I feel warmth spread down into my collar, soaking it thoroughly. Finally the cold washes over me, life's end fading even the power of drunkeness to comfort me.
Another kick from a coward's boot and they race away down the street as my world fades.
Then . . . a feeling of a presence. Unshaven whiskers against my cheek, my neck. The intensity of the sensation as all warmth leaves me. Smell of horse excrement in the early morning air. Blindness. Peace.
Blessed stone. Cold beneath me still. Water trickling close by. Strangely quiet. I savour the peace none-the-less, aware of nothing for the moment but a growing hunger.
Opening my eyes I find that I am still blind. All encompassing darkness surrounds me. Still, I am alive, with no right to be so. The cuts on my brow have closed despite the filth that obscured them; the jagged slash on my neck similarly so. Otherwise, my person seems much as I remember.
I can no longer find the curb with my arms, and, after a frantic moment where I believe myself in the centre of the road, realise that the stonework under me is unlike that of the street, gutter or, indeed, the footpath.
Actively taking a breath, the reek of the sewers floods my nostrils. Clamping my teeth together, I force back the urge to gag. Why is it I smelt nothing before?
Fevered lassitude intrudes and overcomes me. Once more I curl around the dull throb in my gut and enter sleep.
First comes light, then the realisation of sight. I can see again! God be praised.
Trying to rise I fall back. There is a blinding pain in my head, although my fever has subsided. Something pushes at the edges of my perception.
"Good, you are awake." The voice is surprisingly loud and close by. I turn slowly to see a tatty coat back, the occupant hunched over and facing away from me.
"Have you seen the darkness on the far side of light?" His hands are still busy about some work I cannot see, but the voice seems to be that of an older man, perhaps as much as forty.
"Once a week I raise myself with Helios, that he may show me the way through. I am never courageous enough to walk the entirety of the path. Perhaps you will." Reverberating, I feel each word, syllable, letter, the smallest enunciation like a great bell in my head. I would scream with the pain, but am dumb as a stone; my tounge bonded to the cavernous floor of my mouth.
"He takes my eyes, you know. For seeing his glory. They return, as did the liver when the great bird pecked it away."
Slowly he turns. I see the wreck of a face, the blasted eyes, two gaping caverns where the nose should be. Perfect teeth shine brightly in the candle light. I fall from the pain. Can't seem to recall . . . pieces of my life twist in the wind and turn to dust.
"Get up boy." Struggling I rise against the pain. "Dreamer you were, truth you shall see."
My mind shatters. The pain is gone. Along with so much more. But I have gained as well. Gained so much . . .
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