Blue

Darren scared me last night. I was sound asleep when I heard the pounding on my door. The sound echoed in the fog of sleep, and it took me a moment before my head cleared enough to orient myself to the hotel room. Off to my right I could hear Darren pleading to let him in. I opened the door unsure of what I find waiting. Unsure of what role I was about to play.

Darren looked terrible. His blond hair was matted down and his eyes swollen. “Jay” he said slowly, “Is all right if I come in? I…” He stopped and choked on a few words that seemed to have wandered off on their own. It was awkward. I didn’t want him in my room, but I couldn’t turn him away after what had happened.

He came into the room carrying a large blue towel of unknown origin in his left hand. This hotel only had cream colored linens, and wouldn’t have made sense to have brought a towel from home all this way. Sweat was beading on his forehead and he erratically used to this towel wipe it away.

“So Darren… what is going on?” I asked with honest concern. He looked at me and winced as if I had pulled off a bandage too quickly.“I told her what happened and she hates me now. Doesn’t want me around, says she’ll shoot me if she sees me with him,” he said with pained look.

I hardly knew Darren, we had worked on a few projects together but our conversations were generally work related. I never considered him a friend or someone I would confide in; much less seek at 4 in the morning. I resented his presence and could feel him trying to pull me into his dark corner. I wanted to resist, but I also wanted to free myself and go back to sleep.

“Darren… who are you talking about?” He stared back at me and exhaled hard. He pulled out a photograph from his pocket as if he had been waiting for the right moment to show me. It was a snapshot of what looked to be a family standing in front of bungalow styled house. The man and woman in the photograph had blank smiles, while the boy and the girl had the unsure expression of concern. The photograph had been taken in the seventies by the look of the clothing, but I had no idea who these people were. Then he pulled out a second snapshot and handed it to me. This was of a man wearing a blue shirt and strange shadowy expression. Upon close inspection, it appeared that the boy had grown up from the first photograph into the man in the second. Yet something was wrong, in the transition from boy to manhood some aspect of character had changed. I turned to Darren’s searching eyes sure he could tell I was confused by these strange revelations. Gradually I began to understand that the accident today wasn’t just “an accident”.