Dark Silence

27 days (1)

Darnell gasped, waking up. Breathing heavily, he ran eyes over the room: he was in his bedroom covered with semi-darkness. On a bedside table, two alarms started to shriek at once and Darnell leaned for them clumsily to turn them off. The man lied back on the bed noticing in surprise that there was no pillow on it. He muddled around, feeling too sleepy, and found it on the floor. He had probably been thrashing about in his sleep. A part of the dream surfaced from his memory, and this made Darnell squirm. The nightmares were more and more devious, and his own subconsciousness was striking him. Couldn't it have sent him at least something harmless? Or not to show up at all.

Darnell hardly made himself get up from the bed. Most of all in the whole world he hated getting up early in the morning. He turned on the upper light and, yawning, got into the depths of his wardrobe. Darnell ran an eye over the shelves stuffed with basically black blank clothes. Should he put on something more appropriate? As he was going to go to the orphanage where he hadn’t been for over 15 years. While wandering around the clothes with sleepy eyes, Darnell noticed one t-shirt that he loved to wear when he was younger.

“That’s just the thing,” Darnell smiled in a silly manner and pulled the clothes out. From the t-shirt, a skull with burning eyes and a sharp-teeth grin was looking at him. From another shelf, he took out black jeans and found the shoes in the bottom drawer.

Darnell dressed up with pure pleasure and tucked the pant legs into the high boots. A childish desire to piss off the habitants of the orphanage that were respecting the rules and proprieties so much played in him. Darnell looked at himself in the mirror and remained more or less satisfied with what he saw. He grabbed his coat and left the room, going through his pockets for the pack of cigarettes.

He slammed the door behind but gave a start of surprise when he turned to the room. Madeleine was looking at him from the sofa with her chin resting on its back. She was obviously sleep-deprived and disgruntled. Her flowing golden hair was hanging lifelessly from the edge like a pack of wet straw. Madeleine yawned slowly and soundlessly, and then showed a piece of paper with three big words on it: “You shout loudly.” Darnell read this and felt awkward confused.

“Was I shouting in my sleep?”

Madeleine turned the paper over. On its backside was scribbled in advance: “Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” murmured Darnell. “I didn’t want to disturb your sleeping.”

“She’s fooling you,” Cole made a comment from the shelf. “She was watching cartoons till 3 AM. And you gave a cry just once a few minutes before the alarm.”

Madeleine instantly woke up. She opened her mouth in anger, crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it into Cole’s dome, but missed. The spirit laughed loudly and stuck out the tongue.

“It’s her right,” Darnell shrugged his shoulders indifferently and went to the balcony just to get away from the beginning of the battle.

The chilly autumn wind blew into his face. Darnell gave a little shiver and pulled on his favorite coat. The man grabbed his lighter from the pocket and stroke it, covering it from the wind with the palm. The tiny flame swang gently, lighting up the cigarette and gave its warmth to the skin. Darnell drew down with relief and puffed the harsh smoke, looking at the grey sky. It may start raining in the evening. The man leaned against the balcony railing and stared at the road stretching near the building. Down there, scaring the morning gauze away, the cars were passing by, people were hurrying up somewhere, as well as demons hidden in the humane disguise. Darnell looked to the right, at the balcony near his that belonged to Agnes. It was carefully glassed-in and packed with various houseplants on the racks inside. Among the plants, Darnell noticed a waving grey tail and smirked: that odious beast can growl at him from behind the glass as much as it wants. The man thrust the hand in his bosom looking for the flask but made himself stop. It would be better if he didn’t smell like alcohol. For this, he might be banned from entering the orphanage. He heard a thump behind his back as if something fell down. Darnell sighed, thunked the cigarette from the balcony, and went back to the room. 

“Destroying, huh?” he asked Madeleine in a strict manner. She was standing near the fallen chair and blinking innocently at him. “What’s your problem with the chair?” Darnell sighed and lifted it.

“Probably, she wanted to throw it at me,” answered Cole.

“By the way, is the chain OK?” asked Darnell.

“Yes, this night everything was fine,” the spirit reassured him.

“Get ready,” dropped the man to Madeleine. “The orphanage is far away, I don’t wanna spend the whole day on this trip.”

He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the girl didn’t move from her place, still standing near his table. She stared at her feet and shook her head stubbornly. Darnell gave a sigh.

“We’ll just go to have a look at the room, come on, don’t be capricious.”

Madeleine defiantly turned away and fell noisily on the sofa, folding her arms. She shook her head again. Darnell felt regret arising in his chest, and he sat down near the girl.

“I can imagine that you don’t want to go there and that you hate being there. And I know that it is unfair for you to live there…” he stopped speaking, and Madeleine lifted her sky-blue eyes in surprise. Darnell smiled at her. “I understand you very well. But you should understand me too, understand that I’m trying to help you. And if I don’t have enough information, I won’t manage to move things forward. Maybe, there is a chance that you could give in, and we go there together?”

Madeleine frowned and nodded slowly.

“That’s the spirit,” answered Darnell. “I’ll try to look around as quickly as possible, and then we’ll drop in somewhere.” He stood up from the sofa and started to gather his stuff into the small shoulder bag. “Do you like sweets?” Madeleine nodded again and unwillingly started to dig for something in her trunk. After finding her clothes, she went to the bathroom. “You usually don't order anything sweet for the dessert as far as I remember. In this case, I know a nice place, we can get there after…” Darnell was interrupted by a loud slam of the bathroom door. The man stared after the girl in surprise.

“I did say that she’s a little b***h,” laughed Cole.

“You just can’t imagine what it means to live in an orphanage,” answered Darnell gloomily.

***

Volvo was heading down the road to the suburbs where the orphanage was located. Madeleine was on the back seat, looking sadly at the window at the trees and low houses passing by. She was dressed in a simple grey dress with a white shirt: the obligatory uniform for all pupils. The girl was unthinkingly crumpling the edge of the skirt sighing deeply from time to time. 

The less distance to the orphanage remained, the more worried Darnell felt. Despite the fact that he had left its walls a long time ago, hard memories overflowed him causing the feeling of unreasonable anxiety. When the car reached the high white stone fence, Darnell couldn’t handle this and stopped. Clenching fists on the wheel, he tried to calm down the shivering with no success. His subconsciousness still didn’t want to return to the territory of that institution. Panic overwhelmed Darnell. The man swore silently and started to jerkily rummage in his glovebox. He found another pack of cigarettes there, took one into teeth, and lighted it up.

“I’ll smoke into the window,” he said to Madeleine, sticking the hand with the cigarette outside. The girl didn’t react, still crumpling the skirt of her grey dress.

Darnell stared at the road. Even though the day was moving to noon, dense rain clouds covered the sky so securely that it seemed like evening. The man drew down and waved his hand, dispersing the smoke. He wasn’t feeling even a bit calmer no matter how long he was trying to persuade himself that this trip didn’t concern him at all. Eventually, he could leave that place at any moment, and if he was lucky enough, not to meet the superior. The fact of the possibility of this meeting was knocking Darnell off-balance most of all.

“I think that won’t take long,” he said aloud more to himself. He threw the stub into the window and started the car.

Darnell drove into the open green gates. The man chuckled: they were never closed, under the pretense to not let the pupils feel locked up. Actually, it was quite hard to leave this place: watchful tutors somehow managed to look after everyone at once, as if they were following dangerous special criminals.

The car was driving down the nice asphalt road surrounded by high trees that were already touched by the autumn yellowness. The complex of the orphanage owned a large piece of territory that also included a park and several buildings where the pupils of all ages lived. Growing up, children were moving into the dorms of their age groups not hindering small children and not bothering the seniors.

The trees stepped aside opening Darnell the view on the main building with the big round flowerbed in front of it. In autumn, it was blackening cheerlessly without a single flower. Darnell came round it and stopped near the marble stairs.

“Well, here we are,” he turned to Madeleine, and she nodded him in a sad manner.

Darnell left his car and leaned on it, folding his arms and waiting for the girl to join him. He stared at the four-story building in front of him. The wide marble stairs, worn out by hundreds of children's feet, lead to the heavy folding wooden door painted into deep brown color and decorated with the colorful geometric stained-glass window. Here was the school which was connected by the passages with the dormitory blocks. According to time, the lessons were still underway. The building stared back at Darnell indifferently with the glasses of its windows reflecting the heavy grey sky that was threatening to pour the endless streams of the autumn rain on the city. Madeleine pulled the man’s sleeve bringing him back to reality, and he winced. Darnell sighed and went up the stairs. Pushing the heavy door, he let the girl enter the semi-darkness of the spacious hall first.