Free How You See Me by S.E. Craythorne

glasses.
    I don’t know what I’m meant to do.
    Daniel x
     
    5th December
    My sickbed
    Dear Mab –
    I am sitting on my bed, banked up by pillows, nursing a cold. There is no one to nurse me. I am full of self-pity.
    Maggie has arrived to look after Dad for the afternoon. I heard her voice through the floorboards and for a moment I thought it was Sarah come again to visit. It was enough to start me out of my bed and towards the door. I must be delusional. Then Maggie gave her shout up the stairs and I scurried back to my sheets.
    All for the best really: I couldn’t have Sarah seeing me like this. My head is full and heavy and I ooze. A ghoul met me in the shaving mirror this morning. Not that this is enough for Maggie. She’s convinced I’m faking. She even went so far as to accuse me of a night on the tiles. Some fucking chance.
    The tulips by my bed have blown and their petals crystallised into contortions. Their dry stalks rattle and whisper as I shift on my bed. I won’t throw them away; there is still a kind of beauty in them. More than can be said for me.
    Why doesn’t she come, Mab? I’ve been ready and waiting for days. I’ve even taken special care of Dad, had him up, clean and waiting with me. I’ve started watering down his whisky. In fact, I must warn Maggie to use the open bottle and leave the undoctored one. It’s been making things easier in the morning, but more difficult at night. It takes so much longer to get him to sleep. I wondered about asking the doctor for some pills to help him sleep through?I’m up at least once or twice every night herding him back into his cot. Thank God for Tatty, who starts yapping as soon as he starts to wander.
    I’m terrified I’ll pass on this cold.
    Is this letter anything but nonsense? I can’t tell. Maggie keeps heaving up the stairs with questions and interrupting me. She said if I’m well enough to be scribbling I should be well enough to do without her. She must have had some other plan for today. How strange it is that we know so little about what goes on in her life away from here. Is that father of hers still alive behind the boards covering the front of the butcher’s shop? Why did she never marry?
     
    (Later)
    All is forgiven. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to Maggie bringing me a tray with a bowl of tinned soup and a plate of buttered toast cut into triangles. She even pushed back my hair to feel my temperature with the back of her hand. Then she sighed and headed back downstairs. No words. Still, it is definite progress.
    Daniel x
     
    12th December
    The Studio
    Dear Alice –
    I’m sorry this letter is late. I’ve been ill. What I thought was a cold turned out to be flu and had me laid up in bed for days. I had a fever. How I longed for your cool hands.Maggie told me I spoke in my sleep; the first thing she said that I could make sense of was, ‘Who’s this Alice, then?’
    I’ve been so distracted recently. Even before my illness this place infected me. I was seeing things not as the man I am, but as the boy I was when I escaped. You came to me in my fever and rescued me. I can still taste you on my lips. Milk and honey. I dread to think what I whispered to Maggie in the night.
    I feel so weak and light, despite Maggie constantly calling me a ‘great lump’ as she helped me heave about the bed. She’s had to give me sponge baths, I’m ashamed to say. Though at least now I’m strong enough to take care of the delicate areas myself.
    My mind is so clear, it’s as though I’m sitting with you. Like that day when we were first alone together. Darling, I’m so weak. I keep having to stop and put down the pen. But your face is so clear to me, so much better than the poor doppelgänger that’s been haunting me lately. I have the transcript of that special day. Did you know I rushed home and made one? Oh, how my fingers trembled over the keys. But I had to have a record. Here, let me see what I can do with it:
     
    I’m