No, no dream. No castle walls, no flowing dresses, and no…no Banner…
She had taken, in her own mind at least, to calling her John Doe by the name
“Banner.” And in ballroom dreams would talk endlessly to Banner of all things great to trivial while whirling through dance after dance upon glass-smooth marble floors, under countless sparkling chandeliers, and dressed in clothing no person, no matter how rich, could ever afford.
Banner would listen as attentively as a man in love with the sound of her voice as well as her soul. It just seemed to fit.
Names had been assailing her mind for months as she fought to figure out what kind of person he might be under all the bandages and casts. “Connor,” “Connell” and “Colin” all had too much of the silly “bursting bodice” books her mother would read in secret, and “Thomas” was too everyday for a man who had dragged his own badly burned body from the largest explosion in the history of the British Isles.
Scientists are still arguing over the plausible causes of that mess.
Angus, while a fine name for any lad, would have his other classmates all calling him “Anus;” she couldn’t saddle him with that kind of scorn. Of all the possible names she came up with, Banner was the best. Even in her dreams she began to refer to him as simply “Banner.” Last names she had no clue about. There were far too many surnames from which to choose. Something good and Scottish would fit, but nothing “Mac.” Growing up she had been surrounded on all sides by an ocean of “Mac-this” and Mc-that.” It came to sound like a vocal hitch, some odd stutter with which everyone around Ellen had been afflicted. Even her own Mac-less name began to pall. Scottish pride be damned, sometimes if felt like she was living in a penal colony of people convicted of “Mac-ing.” An entire country of verbal epileptics.
Misty, moggy, groggy minded, Ellen stirred herself tiredly from bed, all the while listening to …something... that impinged upon her dreaming realms with the rudeness of a rhinoceros powered metronome. Rhythmic, insistent. Annoying.
As she shook the webs from her mind she tossed on her heavy robe, and hefted the heavy baseball bat her father had given her years ago when Ellen had moved out of her parents’ house in Sterling. She had at first been shocked at the gift of it from her father. A sporting item and an American one at that, from her dad who had never let such common pastimes ever be the topic of discussions in his house.
“Not everyone is as charming as me, darling.” Her father had explained, “And besides, a cricket bat is great for the pitch I’m sure, but Americans know how to make a real, usable cudgel.” A grin and an awkward kiss on the cheek followed, as he and mum reluctantly packed themselves off after helping Ellen move into what her father had considered “a bad neighborhood.”
Her father had even insisted upon putting a sports sock, possibly one of his own, over the top of the bat, telling her with a wink, "So you can always take a second swing."
Taking a cautiously sedate route down the stairs Ellen caught sight of the clock in her laughably small kitchen, 2:43. Christ, this is a silly hour to be knocking at someone’s door.
Loud, insistent knocking, the likes of which might have taken a lesser door from its hinges assaulted her ears. Nothing polite in that knock. It was all impatient, stressed, scared or angry knocking.
As she crept to the door and looked through the eyeglass, Ellen had to wonder who would bother her at this time of night. Almost morning now, really. What would possess a person to be so rude? What emergency could be that important. Then it hit her. She was a nurse, mayhap a neighbor knowing her vocation was in need; and on her street not many ambulance drivers would want to make the trip in the wee hours. Oh, I hope it’s just a diabetic in need of glucose. A common occurrence. The single most common emergency call was from family members of diabetics who had let their blood sugar drop too sharply, many were the times that ambulance crews stole extra sugar packets from the diners they frequented, as it was just as effective in the field as the official glucose packs most hospitals had to carry.
In all the years since cures for diabetes had been developed and perfected, so many people still hid it from loved ones and treated the symptoms rather than removing the need from their bodies with one of the many cures. Some cure were more invasive than others, admittedly, but a cure, to Ellen's mind, always outdid a treatment.
It was fear that did it; fear of others thinking they were weak; fear of admitting they might need help beating something, no matter how trivial. But that was fear for you; it made morons of otherwise normal folks. Another thought scurried by, please, don’t be Miss Fletcher’s young man! Her next door neighbor was pregnant, but it would have been much too soon. Only five months along, at best. She didn’t know the woman well enough even to be sure of her Christian name. Some Protestant virtue, though, she was sure. Charity? Hope? Grace?
Faith…?
But as she sought through the peep hole in her door, she saw her stoop was free of anxious knockers. As she began to relax from the heavy oak door, the knocking came again. Loud as ever, and startling from her a squawk of surprise.
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Another quick peek and she saw, at the bottom of her field of view, the top of a distinctive cap. A green felt German cap, with a brown silk rim. People in old movies wore hats like that. Maybe in places like Bavaria they still did, but not here. She knew that cap, knew it all too well from work. Mister Trout.
Mister Trout, the hypochondriac. A Welsh annoyance, in miniature. Too many times he stood in the receiving room of the Hospital complaining of some imagined ill. Often he would get angry when demands to be admitted were ignored. “Oh, my spleen hurts,” “I’ve gone and swallowed something I shouldn’t have, better take me to have a biopsy.” or “But I’m not long for this world if you don’t put me in a bed and run tests!”
“No reaaaalllly! This time I’m sure to die without your help! I’ve flown last week, now I’ve got the umbrella virus that makes you go all squishy on the insides!” A healthcare worker’s worst nightmare was at her threshold at close to three in the morning. Mister Trout the annoying hypochondriac was at her door. Late at night, early in the morning, however you might want to look at it; he was HERE! Mister Bloody Trout!
Sock wrapped bat in hand she swung the door open with a vengeance. Anger brimming and bubbling on her lips as she turned her face down to the little agitated man standing before her, but the look of sheer terror on his face brought her up short. Bile laced scorn died aborning on her lips, her voice catching in her throat.
“Quickly girl! I need in, and that good solid door I’ve been punishing my knuckles on needs to be between us and the street!” His deep growling voice always threw her. Most little people she had heard had oddly high toned voices, as if a normal sized person’s voice was being pushed through their much smaller body from a greater distance away that the body might actually contain. She always thought badly of herself whenever this entered her mind. And she found his Welsh accent at odds with the German-on-vacation wardrobe he seemed to prefer. While she never saw him actually in lederhosen, it would not have been a surprise.
“Now! And I’ll not say it again, woman!” the little Welshman insisted. He bustled past her into the flat’s entry way, and spun on his heels, knocking the door closed with a great hollow booming sound all her neighbors must have heard.
“Now see here, Mister Trout!” she said, just controlling her anger. “I’ll..”
The start of what could have turned up to be a classic tirade was quashed as the diminutive man grabbed her bat effortlessly from her hand, and taking her other hand in his, rushed up the short run of stares from the front door to the hall, with her in tow. A rag doll could have held him back far better than did Ellen. The trip back up to the flat was fast to the point of scary, but mercifully short. Abruptly she found herself in her reading chair in the corner of her living room she called the library.
Ellen Lindsey spluttered in fury as Mister Trout, always shown to be very healthy despite his claims at the hospital, he dervished his way through the small set of rooms locking windows, and removing things from his pockets to set in each window frame and beside each door.
As she watched him work, finally she saw that each item was a bit of stone, all carved within a centimeter of their existences. Each one, fist sized to him, was a small example of Germanic horror-vacui; a term that came bobbing up from the bottom of her academic memory. Many cultures in the world’s history, when confronted with a blank space began carving, painting, etching, doodling, or stippling like mad men; no square centimeter of open space was allowed. The first obsessive compulsive disorder sufferers on the planet. And had these stones in her home been carved even one iota more, they would have ceased to be stones, as much as they would have become a collection of pebbles and sand.
Small faces sprouting from the rough stones, each one distinctly different. Small hands, some brandishing weapons thrust from each rock as if about to go to war with the very air surrounding them. Oddly seductive, nigh embarrassingly alluring stony women looked out at the world with half lidded sultry eyes. Small men of improbable proportions marched, ate, sat belligerently, stood calmly, or lounged languorously from any number of different kinds of lithic litter now lying about her flat.
“What are you DOING!?” She all but shouted. Pretty as some of the little rock bits were, they had no place in her home that she could see, especially the dirty ones. And, Ellen had to admit, the dust on some of them had nothing to do with this kind of dirt.
“Just a moment, deary,” as he raced by her on his way back to the front door, more stones rattling in his tiny hands, he placed a cup of warm tea in her palm. “I’m laying down a bit of confusion to those who are looking for your friend. They might see his spell work on you, and come calling to ask some hard questions. I’m putting out so many different signals; any magic you carry will be a whisper in a shouting filled room." He then pushed the tea cup at her again, saying "Now drink up, miss, we have only just a little time to wade through this mess. Then we'll be off.”
When did he have time to make tea?
“Had it with me when I came. Thermos. Don’t mind me using your china, do you?” Answer coming without questions actually voiced. “We have to talk for a few moments, and then I’ll be out of your pretty brown hair.”
“My hair is red, and I’ll thank you to leave before I call the police! What do you mean by coming into my house at this hour, dropping rocks about, and, and, …” She ran out of steam, sipped from her cup, and tried to bring her anger to bear on the petit man just now returning from the flat’s entrance way.
“Red, fine, if you say so, I’m color blind. Looks grayish black to my eyes, I just assumed brown. My mistake, freely admitted. But we’ll have that talk whether you call the constables or no.” his voice was neither hurried nor anxious now that he had tossed his last Knick knacks around.
He turned avid eyes on her, and almost vibrated as he asked her “How long has he been awake? And why is he still here?”
She just stared stunned at Mister Trout, knowing exactly about whom he spoke. Her John Doe; her special confidant, her favorite patient.
“Banner,” no more than a whisper, barely a sigh, she breathed the name audible only to herself often enough these last many months though no one but she, herself and the newly dubbed Banner had been in the room to hear the naming.