Happily ever after

"Who is he talking to." said the nurse.



"He's talking to me," said the pale faced woman, who was still sitting there in her coat as though she was unsure whether she should stay or go. There was a gentle rhythm of noise around them that pulsed steadily to the bip, bip, bip of the ECG. As though keeping time, the young man lying in the bed between the two breathed, slowly. One breath for every seven heart beats. Apart from the steady rise and fall of his chest the only other movement he made was to shape inaudible words with his lips and tongue. He never stopped.


"Visiting time's nearly over," said the nurse.


"Just a few minutes more," said the woman. The young man's lips shaped another silent word and blew it out with the softest puff of breath. The nurse left, and the woman took the young man's hand.


"I know what you are trying to say," she said. She leaned closer so that her ear was a fraction of an inch above his mouth, but she could only make out the whisper of his breathing.


"Goodbye," she said, "I will see you soon." then she kissed him. And all the time his pulse stayed steady, but his lips worked and worked.


The following night, the woman was back, but this time she took off her coat and hung it on the rack at the end of the ward. They had turned off the ECG during the day, but the young man's breathing kept on to the same rhythm just as regular as the tides. The woman talked to him and talked and all the time, as though in reply, his lips tumbled out those unheard words.


"I know what you are trying to say," she said and then continued telling him about mutual friends and dreams and work and on and on in an endless rhythm.


At closing time, she kissed him goodbye. "Goodbye," she said, "I'll see you soon."


All through the night and all the next day he went on whispering away.


The woman visited him every night for six months and at the weekends she stayed all day till she was gently shooed out by the nurse. And all the time while she talked, or read to him, or played the music she thought he would like, his lips moved silently. She would dress him as far as the doctors would allow, dab perfume on his wrists and neck and cut and comb his hair and each day she seemed a little happier.


And each day, she would say, so only he could hear "I know what you are trying to say," or sometimes "I know exactly what you mean," and sit back looking pleased.


And every night she would kiss those ever moving lips and say "Goodbye, I'll see you soon." and sometimes say what they had one time said "I love you more and more every day."