Lost

The following story is fiction. It never happened, and - in all likelihood - never will. This story is copyright by me, the author, and if given to nifty under the terms of their submission agreement.

A quick warning: I'm a first time writer, although one can rest assured that I gave this my all. Questions, comments, criticisms, or even general gossip (seriously, e-mail me about your pet dog for all I care) can be sent to lannersj@bellsouth.net . And with that, on with the show!

Lost

Part 1

Someone was supposed to be here.

Sevine could feel him - right next to him, his arm underneath his side, holding him tight. There was the pressure against his back; the heat of the stranger's body; the warmth of breath on his neck.

He was alone. But ever since he could remember, Sevine had felt someone else missing. And sometimes, only sometimes, when the world was very quiet and he lay very still - so still that he could feel the beat of his own heart - he could feel another presence with him.

It wasn't a ghost, an angel, a demon, or anything supernatural. It was simply the half of him that was missing, a piece of blank, empty space pushing the air around it away while it reserved its place at Sevine's side until it's owner could come and claim it. He always felt ill at ease when life became so busy that the frail, thin connection was gone - ill at ease for the moment, but only a moment because as soon as he could escape it would be back and his world would be back to normal.

He always knew it was there. He had always accepted its' existence the way that others accept the existence of atoms or molecules or millions of other things that are not seen or felt but are instinctively believed as a requirement for acceptance into the daily world. He could not physically feel it, but he also could not feel the particles of air was he cut through them whenever he moved. He could not smell it, but he could not also detect a scent which belonged to pure spring water. He could not hear it, but he also could not also hear his neighbors cat make its' way down the street. And so on.

He found comfort knowing that somewhere out there was another person (a man, for he had made peace with that part of his make up long ago) out there who he belonged to, and who belonged to him; and that faith, that belief, was enough to last him through the day.

But then night comes, as it must. Night, when the world around one comes to rest and lovers embrace in sleep and children are nestled in the arms of a bear and lonely strangers grasp to another for comfort. Night was the time Sevine dreaded. For it was night when he was forced to lie there alone and have it made painfully explicit to him that - presence or no - he was still all by himself. And the only thing he had to comfort himself was the belief that somehow, someday, the presences' owner would find him an he would be happy.

Soon the darkness turned to grey and Sevine fell asleep... alone. Alone and waiting on a ghost.

At twenty-one years Sevine was in perfect physical health: six-foot-two, light brown hair and brown eyes that had been referred to as soulful before, not that he would ever admit to such a thing. People had always told him that he was handsome, smart, funny, kind, good, and a million other things yet he had always found it hard to accept such compliments. He had always chalked it down to the fact that, to be blunt, he wasn't his own type.

(It's a interesting problem gays have: it's a major blow to one's self-esteem when they wouldn't date the person they see looking in the mirror back at them.)

All things considered, he had some major problems with his sense of self worth. Which would perhaps explain why, when all of his co-workers at the coffee shop were out enjoying their youth he was here, at his doctors' office.

He did a cursory scan of the room he was in only to find it completely uninteresting: he was the only one in it (the last patient of the day, presumably) and the identikit waiting room was a nap in beige.

To his surprise, another man suddenly came in the door; he was roughly six-six, early to mid thirties, brown hair in a buzz cut, oh, and green eyes.

Sevine had always had a fascination with eyes. Of all the men he had ever been seriously interested in (all three of them), the only physical characteristic they had shared in common was a certain something that hid behind their eyes. For lack of a better descriptor there was a kindness in each of them. It was odd that it would take him months before he would realize that someone's face was handsome yet mere seconds to register if that peculiar kindness was there. Odd thing, that.

Sevine watched as the stranger made the same room inspection he himself had done not so long ago before making his way to the chair directly opposite him.

"Have you been waiting long?"

The question snapped Sevine back to reality.

"I'm sorry?"

"Have you been here long?" the stranger repeated.

"About twenty minutes."

Sevine had made it his business to be able to tell accents apart ever since the day a lovely and sweet Hispanic lady mistook him for an Irishman and promptly spent an hour lecturing him on the evils of the IRA. It was because of this talent he instantly pegged his stranger as Scottish (his stranger... where did that come from ). It was an interesting voice: high without being feminine, and with a smooth, vermouth-like intonation to it rather than the harsh brogue of some highlanders Sevine had met before. It didn't seem like it was used enough, however.

A strong nose and chin, deep set eyes - yes, the kindness was definitely there- and a somewhat small mouth. He should smile more. He wasn't handsome, or cute really. Sevine was conscious however that there were probably quite a few people who thought otherwise. He just wasn't one for looks, never was.

"I wonder what's keeping him."

Sevine couldn't help but laugh at that.

"What's so funny?"

"Well, did you ever hear the old riddle where - how's it go - one night this teenage boy sneaks out with his father's car because his father's out of town, right?"

"Alright."

"So he's out driving, and then gets into this really bad accident. And later, as he's in the operating room, the ER doctor takes one look at him and says `I can't operate on this patient, he's my son'. So how's that possible?"

"I've no idea."

"Well, because the doctor was his mother."

The stranger laughed at this; a nice laugh, deep and throaty.

"And I suppose that this is your way of saying Dr. Pat Hildebrand is a woman?"

"Yep, Patricia Hildebrand."

With that the stranger leaned forward, extending his hand.

"I'm Ewan."

"Sevine."

Ewan had obviously taken a business course at college, his handshake was the classic "grip strongly, shake twice, and release" type.

"So, there aren't many Patricia's that are doctors over there in the highlands?"

There was that laugh again.

"I'm impressed. Most people just think I'm English and are done with it."

"Well, I'm not most people..."

"Obviously."

Is he flirting with me? Sevine thought to himself, cursing his inexperience for what must have been the millionth time in his life. The sad truth was that he had had only one (aborted) relationship in his entire life and hadn't the slightest idea of what flirting even was, much less if the Scot across the room was attempting it with him.

"So why are you here in Chicago?"

"Business. Boring."

"Oh."

That was succinct. There was a moment of silence as Sevine's doubts about Ewan's intentions seemed confirmed.

People like him don't flirt with people like me.

"So why are you here in Chicago?"

"Well, I live here..."

Way to state the obvious, Sev.

"I mean, I've always lived here."

"It's a great place. I like it a lot."

"Well, we try."

"I was surprised at how liberal it is here, actually. A lot of my mates back home had these horror stories about people being hostile toward foreigners, and intolerance and that Mike Shepard kid a few years back..."

"Matthew. Matthew Sheppard."

"Sorry..."

"Well I won't deny that there is a lot of that, but it's mainly outside of the cities. A friend of mine took a statistics course a while ago in high school, and it found that the bigger of a community you live in, the more left-leaning you tend to be.

"He wrote a paper on it actually. He theorized that if you lived someplace flat you would only see the two people on either side of you, but if you lived in a big city you see the people on both sides of you as well as the floors above and below you; and the more people around you, the more lives you witness. And the more diverse the lives you witness, the more differences you have to accept, and the more differences you have to accept, the more tolerant you are"

"Isn't that a little inappropriate for a Statistics paper?"

"I never said he did well on it; just that he wrote it."

"You have me there.

"You know, I'm actually kind of relieved you're not one of those neocon Americans who think all Europeans are limpwristed pansies and are all for bombing the shit out of the middle east and the like."

"I can say with total honesty that I'm not like that. Although I guess it's understandable why others are -"

"How the hell can you say that?"

"Well, they're scared. We've been raised to think of the US as some sort of impenetrable fortress for our entire lives and then September 11th changed all that. And some things scare people so bad that they hurt themselves."

"And that justifies electing Dubya back for a second term?"

"No."

"And the war with Iraq-"

"What you need to realize about us as a nation is that we really have no idea what war's really like. Even our veterans. To us, war is something you travel to, fight, win, and then come back home where everything's as you left it.

"We don't have a blitzkrieg or a Hiroshima or an Auschwitz in our backyard to remind us of war's toll. Take Cologne, for example. There's still buildings with holes left in them from the Allied firebombing - which means that every day of their lives, the people who live there have a visual reminder of what war really is to the people left behind.

"I'm sure that you grew up listening to stories of burning towns from your grandparents who survived the German raids - we didn't. We just heard about how this pretty vacation spot got trashed. It wasn't our homes. So of course most Americans are more militarily inclined. We don't know any better"

There was a silence then, but it was a comfortable one. And that terrified Sevine. All his life he had dreamt of comfortable silences shared with others, yet had never actually had one that he could remember. He was probably too busy searching desperately for something, anything to add to a conversation to ever enjoy the pauses beneath and between the words and thoughts; stones that keep the sheet of conversation from flowing away in the wind.

"Where are you?" Ewan asked in a soft, almost reverential tone.

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't know where your head was at just now, but it wasn't with me."

Sevine could feel himself redden.

"I was just thinking that it was strange that neither one of us was talking..."

"Well that does tend to happen from time to time."

"I know. But what got to me was that I was okay with it; I wasn't trying to think of something else to say to cover it up."

"Aye, I'm comfortable around you, too. If you ask me, you're not really mates with someone until you can just sit with him - neither one of you saying nothing, mind - and be content."

"I know."

"It's a rare thing, special even."

Sevine felt a sudden need to change the subject.

"So how come you speak such good American English?"

Ewan seemed thrown off for a moment, but his eyes suddenly sparkled and a look of understanding came over his face. This only added to Sevine's unease - he simply couldn't get a handle on Ewan.

"Well, I've lived here for about ten months now. It's strange, but I've always been able to sort of absorb the ways of speaking of those around me."

"Oh, I'm the same way. Last year I visited my aunt in North Carolina for two weeks and by the end of it I sounded like a total hick."

Another silence, possibly even more comfortable, followed. Sevine was beginning to panic. He felt to at ease, something was going to go wrong; it always did.

He had a theory: every good thing in his life was cancelled out by something bad. Sort of a yin-yang thing, really. And this - right here, with Ewan - was so good that something disastrous was bound to come to screw it up.

HE found himself desperate to say something; anything to get the conversation going again. So he went for most obvious, asinine thing he could think of.

"So how do you like it here in the states?"

A strange pallor came over Ewan's face just then almost as if...

Is he disappointed in me?

"It's interesting... it's a really big change, you know? It was kind of hard to adjust at first, but I guess that's to be expected, given my age..."

"Why, how old are you?"

"Forty."

"Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing. I just thought you were younger, is all."

"Thanks." Ewan replied, all the while flashing the biggest shit-eating grin that Sevine had ever seen.

"So what did you have to get used to?"

"Just the whole general attitude that people have. Like, how everyone asks how you're doing all the time. It took a while before I realized that people don't really care. You're just supposed to say `fine' and then move on. It's like everyone's more cheery and caring here, but it's only out of politeness."

"Well, that's better than not asking at all..."

"See, I disagree. Back home, if someone asks how you are, you know it's because they like you and actually care, whereas here, you're never sure."

"So basically you Scots are a bunch of depressed, rude little buggers who only speak to each other to wallow in self-pity. I see how you work now..."

"At least we didn't elect a far-right-minded neocon nut president."

His words were severe, but Ewan's eyes made clear that this was all in jest. Sevine played along.

"This coming from a man who hails from a country who unleashed Margaret Thatcher upon an unsuspecting world for how many years?"

"Alright, you got me there you Yankee bastard."

"Blow it out your bagpipes, haggis breath."

Just then the sliding window at the head of the office opened to reveal a bulldog-faced woman in her early fifties.

"I'm sorry gentlemen, but the doctor has been called to Ressurection hospital for an emergency..."

"Oh, is everything alright?" Sevine asked.

"Oh, yes. A patient just went into labor is all."

(Apparently the face was not a good indicator of the woman's personality.)

"I'll call you sometime on Monday to reschedule your appointments. And I'm sorry for the inconvenience." She continued as the two men got up from their chairs.

"What inconvenience? I was just getting to know my good friend Sevine here." Ewan said while putting his arm around Sevine.

He called me his friend was Sevine's only thought as Ewan led the two of them out the door and unto the sidewalk outside.

"Alright so listen, this is what we should do," Ewan said in an almost conspiratorial whisper while holding Sevine in front of him (almost as is he were afraid he would run away) "I'm guessing that you have no plans for the next hour or so because they were all taken up with you appointment, right?"

Yes, but --"

"No buts. Look, I feel really comfortable talking to you, alright? I've got a lot of friends, but it normally takes weeks for me to get to the comfort level I'm at with you after - what? - fifteen minutes?

"So what I'm proposing is this: give me an hour or so of your time and lets figure out if this keeps up. Hey, I'm forty years old and lemme tell you - this, right here, between you and me..." he said, gesturing between the two of them, "doesn't happen often. I've had it five, six times, tops. So let's go, let's do this."

He's insane. Sevine thought to himself as Ewan looked into his eyes.

I don't do things like this. It's not gonna work out, and when it doesn't, I'll just be alone again...

Ewan looked at him, deeply. There was something joining the kindness then, too: it was something desperate, pleading, almost begging.

He wants me to understand, maybe needs me to. But---

Fuck it.

"Lead the way."

Ewan flashed that shit-eating grin again as he moved to the side, allowing Sevine to move on by.

"Where to?"

"Well, there's this great restaurant about two blocks away if you're hungry..." Ewan said as the two walked off into the night together.