The night hung to the Man in Black like a blanket of solitude and emptiness. No matter how fast he rode there was no way he could throw it off. The road, like those he traveled before, was black and solemn and giving of the illusion that it was the same patch of road ever one hundred yards or so that was added to the road ahead seamlessly by some mad design. Even the trees echoed this hypothesis, repeating in size and shape like part of some Atari game.
The Man in Black’s features were obscured by the darkness and the shadows that hung to his face. He had eyes that always seemed in shadow and hair that blended into the night like a magical imp. In light or dark his features never changed. His eyes bore no laugh lines nor did his mouth bare effect of even one frown. It was like he was not real, not flesh and bone but rather a false thing, a creature of myth. His muscles were defined, rough. His skin dark and chiseled. More than one person who saw him thought of Michelangelo or some other sculptor.
He shut off the light and drove by whatever light diffused through the clouds. He drove this way for some time, enjoyed it and welcomed the sensation of heightened senses that animals feel who hunt at night. It was not during this time that he fell off the bike. That was later when he turned the light back on. When he did, the loop of trees, road, trees road was finally broken by a deer that stood broadside on the road. His last thought was a curse to the light that froze the deer to the road. When you are the only source of light besides the moon, he thought, nothing good can come from it. Nothing that mesmerizes a creature like this can be good.
What was given to him now was a sensation of motion without any sense of where or when. This confused him because, if nothing else, he always knew motion. Knew it at birth. Knew it like a breath because that was the only other constant beside the organ that pumped blood under his skin. He had realized the sensation of motion at birth and mastered it. It was how he was able to operate his bike without light. It was how he knew there was no way to pass the deer at his current velocity and was able to ascertain the exact tree that would stop his flight. But now the sensation of motion stayed with him after he stopped, after his helmet cracked in two, after his mind told him he had stopped. It was not his motion that confused him, or not all him motion. Now it seemed night itself moved.
The night that once covered now hung over his body which was now by the side of the road. Like a lover the blackness, the night, mounted him, and like any decent man he acquiesced to her demands. He was adaptable that way. He adapted to the road, to the solitude of darkness and would adapt to the night as a lover. After all what little was known to him, he could take what was given with little complaint.
Debra Henning was a nurse for St. Mary’s Hospital, in Lubbeux, Texas. She was a nurse now for a few months, straight out of Texas State U, out of the arms of the predictable yet loving pitcher for the Texas State WildCats Aaron Busings, into the arms of the Second Floor. It was the floor for the people who were for the most part a little stiff as she said to her friends. Coma patients or those who just didn’t want to move much were those she watched over.
She was not there when the Man in Black moved into room 312. She did hear of him though. His name was unknown. No id, no one yet to come calling for him and for the past two days in ER his fingerprints came up without a match. This was why he was now known throughout the hospital. That, and all the nurses wanted to see him, see the man who came in all in black: black leather, black jeans, black hat. All of that was off now (he now wore a white hospital gown), but everyone still called him the Man in Black. At least the women did. The men called him John Doe. Those who felt threatened called him by other names. He was unable to tell anyone his real name because he was on the third floor, now under Debra’s care, which meant he was in a coma. It was not a bad coma, as comas go. Not that he could tell anyone that. In fact, if you were to wake him up and ask him how the coma was going, he would say “fine”. But then it was a blow to his head that put him there and it was up to him to figure out when it was time to wake up, pull up his boots, and get back on the bike. Till then, it was up to Deb to make sure he was fine during the graveyard shift.
Deborah was very willing to do whatever it took to make him happy during his stay. Told him so the first night she met him as she checked his vitals. Everything’s ok here she told him as if he was intent on his recovery. What she didn’t tell him that night or the next couple of nights as she went in and out of his room was how often she found an excuse, any excuse, to visit him. His face was ok, the helmet took a lot of the damage, and the only real damage was superficial. The doctors told the nurses who asked (her included) that he suffered no real damage and should wake up from the coma anytime now. John Doe was lucky enough not to brake anything but was unlucky enough to hit his head the right way to put him to sleep for the better part of a week.
It was the sixth day he was in the hospital. Deborah came in to check the equipment and talk to him as usual. It was a few months since the breakup, and since then she was like a desert, high and dry. And this man with no name, no history, looked like he was made of granite. She looked him over again as she did everyday, and felt the usual ache below her stomach that resulted from the Man in Black. His sleep was deep, deeper than any other. Yet she knew it was not painful, at least not for him. A dull ache, long and low, almost feral in its camouflage made its existence known to her. It crept toward her unknown until it made her wet between her thighs. It was months since a man touched her, and now this need was directed toward the Man in Black. She heard that he was well endowed from the nurses that fought to wash him during the afternoon shift. His skin, they say, is tightly drawn over his muscles. And his penis…
