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The light in a hospital room is an eternal, ghastly white, like a cloth drained of all its blood. The smell of disinfectant, kneaded over and over by the air conditioner, permeates the air, sharp and cold as it enters the nostrils. By the bedside, the heart monitor, like a tireless mechanical bird, pecks away at time with a steady, monotonous rhythm.
I sit in the chair, a cup of long-cold coffee still in my hand, the chill seeping from my palm into my bones. But my eyes are scorching, burning with a painful heat. Rudy lies quietly, the oxygen mask rising and falling in a steady rhythm against his gaunt cheeks. His eyelashes are long, and as they rest on his skin, they seem to hold back all the storms that have swept through his life.
The moment the tongues of fire fell from the roof, my mind went blank. My only instinct was to drag him from that sea of flames. The thick smoke was agony in my lungs, yet he was still shouting in a hoarse voice, "Colonel, go—!" He was always like that. Even in the direst peril, his first thought was always for someone else. I remember how his sharp shoulder blades dug into my chest as I carried him from the fire; I also remember his hand, right before he lost consciousness on the stretcher, suddenly grabbing my wrist—its grip was not one of survival, but rather one of a man at the edge of a cliff, desperately saving my life.
And then there was this place. The hospital. Three days, and no sign of him waking. I spend my days handling mountains of reports and my nights keeping watch here. Every morning, I stand by the window and watch the first wave of ambulances scream as they depart and return, and then I turn back to his side. When a man is pushed to the absolute limit of his endurance, he doesn't feel exhaustion, only a hollow emptiness. I feel like a dismantled shell, my armor and bones unloaded together onto this chair. I’d long since taken off his dog tags, placing them gently on the nightstand, afraid the cold metal might press against him. The small steel plate glints under the light, and more than once, I’ve reached out, only to stop halfway, needing only to confirm the fact that he is still here.
At some point, the white light before my eyes begins to stretch, to recede into the distance. My forehead slumps against the cool edge of the bed, and a wave of sleep, like a sudden black tide, completely submerges me.
The Dream
In the dream, I hear gunfire, but strangely, I feel no fear. There’s a warmth in my chest, and someone is holding me tight. I look down and see a spreading, wet patch of red. It is then I understand—I am dead.
The world instantly sinks into a vast silence. My consciousness, as if lifted by the wind, floats weightlessly into the air. I see a chaotic crowd fleeing in one direction, and I see my own body lying on a stretcher, blood soaking the white sheet into a shocking stain of dark crimson. Rudy is on his knees, his whole body collapsing over me as if his spine has been ripped out. He is screaming my name—"Alejandro! Alejandro!" His voice is shattered, torn apart in the smoke-filled air as if trying to rip the very atmosphere to shreds. He cradles my face, his hands trembling violently, his fingertips tracing my brow, the corners of my lips, over and over, as if committing them to memory, or as if bidding farewell.
The scene shifts, like a frame of old film blown astray by the wind. It is now deep in the night. The hospital corridor stretches on endlessly, and the glass of the window reflects his solitary figure. Rudy stands before a water cooler, a plastic cup crushed in his white-knuckled grip, but he doesn't drink a single drop. He just stares blankly at the clock on the wall, his gaze as empty as a stone that has been washed by a river for a thousand years. When he sits by my bed, his back is ramrod straight, like a flagpole that refuses to fall in a storm. I watch him gently place his own jacket over my chest, then carefully lift it away, as if afraid of pressing on my wounds—those impossibly light, slow movements, as if he were speaking silently to an injury that would never heal.
Another shift, and it is a funeral. The flag draped over the coffin is lowered heavily in the wind. Three gunshots shatter into distant white smoke against the sky. Through the solemn crowd, I see him standing at the very back of the formation, the brim of his cap pulled so low it hides all expression. He does not cry, but his face is ashen, as if leached of all color, leaving only a deathly grey. As he raises his hand in a salute, I see the cuff of his uniform trembling uncontrollably.
The crowd disperses. Night falls. He does not leave. All alone, he winds his way through the silent, black tombstones, finally crouching before the one engraved with my name. He presses his palm against the cold stone, as if trying to hold down a thorn that has been piercing his heart day and night. He finally speaks, his voice as hoarse as wind-dried sandpaper:
"I'm sorry, Alejandro." He lets out a sudden laugh, a laugh as short and sharp as the glint off a knife's edge. "I never told you. I was afraid… you were already carrying so much. Knowing this would only make your burden heavier. I was afraid if I said it, you would carry me and this love on your back and just keep walking. I thought I could go on being a quiet shadow, but—" He draws a sharp breath of the cold air, forcing each word out with immense effort. "But I have loved you for so many years. And with you gone, I've discovered I have no path of retreat. I should have told you. I should have said it on any of those nights we could have looked at the stars together. And now look, all I can do is talk to a cold stone, and it… it doesn't mind my rambling at all."
He keeps talking, his voice sinking lower and lower, every pause filled with gasps of breath that can't form words. He reaches into his collar and pulls out his own dog tag. On the back, etched with the tip of a knife, is my name—each stroke carved with deep, heavy force. Rudy presses the metal against the tombstone and then rests his own forehead against it, almost surrendering his entire weight and warmth to the unfeeling stone. "See, I carved your name… no, your initials. I didn't dare make them too big, afraid people would ask." "I have regrets, Ale. I regret acting so nonchalant every time I was with you. I even regret swallowing the words on the tip of my tongue when I woke from nightmares and you chased them away for me. You see, how could I have been so foolish?"
He talks for a long time. So long that the stars begin to fall one by one onto his shoulders, so long that his voice is completely raw, so long that he can no longer hold himself up, and he slides down along the tombstone. The wind blows, and he falls asleep just like that, with no pillow, no blanket; just the stone bearing my name, and his own heart, burning with a love that has nowhere to go.
As a "soul," I watch all of this, feeling no fear that I expected, only a sharp, lucid clarity that has come far too late. To think that for me, loving him was something so natural. Seeing Rudy as my love was like loading a bullet into a chamber, like taking off my boots the moment I walk through a door, like instinctively squinting at the desert sun—it should have been that simple. What, then, was it that blinded me? The endless missions, the responsibility on my shoulders, the "duty" that always came first on every list? Or was it because I stubbornly saw myself as the sun that had to illuminate everyone else, believing that the "sun" should never seek warmth or lean on another?
I begin to rewind through all the time we shared. He was always at the training grounds before me, wiping clean the target lane I used most often. On rainy days, he would quietly fall half a step behind me, the brim of his cap perfectly positioned to shield my shoulder from the slanting rain. Every time the old injury in my ankle flared up, he never asked a word, only silently handed me the ointment before turning to roar the platoon back into a straight line. And in the dead of night, when I thought everyone was asleep, he would walk over on light feet and tuck in the slipped corner of my blanket, a gesture so much like the ones my mother used to give me when I was a boy. My God, it was all there, laid out plainly before my eyes. So obvious, so tender, for so long. It wasn't that I hadn't seen—it was that I hadn't dared to admit it. I was afraid that if I admitted it, my world would have a new center of gravity. I was afraid that if I got too close, I would never be able to walk away.
My thoughts are a tsunami stirred by a hurricane, the tide pushing inch by inch over my feet. I reach out my hand, trying in vain to touch the tips of Rudy's hair, damp with the night's dew, to tell him: I heard you. But I am only the wind. I cannot touch him at all.
Awake
With a violent jolt, I spring up from the chair. The light is still a ghastly white, the sound of the monitor still monotonous. My arm is so numb it doesn't feel like my own. Rudy is still asleep, but his complexion seems a little better than yesterday. The tight line of his lips has relaxed slightly, as if he has managed to float up an inch from the deep sea where he was drowning.
I let out a long breath, fighting to peel the dream away from reality. My hand, with nowhere to go, lands on the nightstand—where the two dog tags lie side by side. I instinctively pick up Rudy's and turn it over. On the worn metal surface are two minuscule scratches. They are not a factory flaw, but the marks of a blade, etched one stroke at a time. I hold it up to the light, and in that instant, my heart feels as if it's been seized by an invisible hand.
A. V.
The two letters are carved infinitesimally small, as if afraid of disturbing the world's greatest secret, yet they are carved with a steady hand, as if practiced a thousand times in the dark of night. In a flash, the two scenes—the frigid night at the cemetery and the sterile hospital room—violently superimpose. There he was, pouring out his heart in the biting wind, struggling to keep his breathing even, as if the weight of the entire world rested on those two small letters. At this moment, the dream and reality are stitched into a single, seamless line. I suddenly understand so many things, and I have made my decision.
I take both dog tags and close them together in my palm, letting their cold metal surfaces press against each other, the chill creeping up the lines of my hand. Then, I lean down and gently rest my forehead against his, just as we did years ago, sleeping side by side in a stuffy tent at the training camp. I begin to speak, my voice steadier than I expected:
"Rudy, escúchame—listen to me." "You don't have to keep those words to yourself anymore. When you wake up, I'll be here. I will take all your years of silence, and one by one, I will bring them out of the darkness and into the light, and I will look at them with you. I don't know where to begin my apology—for my dullness, or for my stubborn belief that I had to always be the 'sun' and was never allowed to lean on anyone." "But now, I know what I have to do."
I clip my own dog tag to his, letting them interlock, like fastening a quiet and solemn button. Then I take his hand, my thumb slowly tracing the rough skin of his knuckles—calloused from years of training, the most familiar and reassuring touch I know.
"When you wake up, I will tell you: I love you, Rodolfo. This love didn't start today, nor did I only realize it upon waking from this dream. It has long been a part of me, simply waiting for me to acknowledge it." "I will guard you as you have guarded me. Just as you always put me before everything else, I will place your name on the very first line of all my future plans. When that time comes, you can curse at me, you can hit me, but I'm begging you, don't ever lock yourself away in those silent nights again." "Look—" I lift our joined hands, letting the interlocked tags glint with cold light between us. "You carved my name in the place closest to your heart. I will put your name in a place where everyone in my life can see it."
I lean closer and press a feather-light kiss to his temple. Beside my ear, the heart monitor maintains its steady rhythm, as if bearing witness to my vow. Outside, the headlights of a passing car flash by, tracing a pale scar across the wall before retreating swiftly back into the darkness.
"Rodolfo," I repeat his name, as if clutching a warm stone tightly in my fist. "Come back. No más silencio. When you come back, we'll start from the very first word, and we'll say everything that was left unsaid, one sentence at a time."
Once more, I rest my forehead against his and close my eyes. This is the first time I am not fighting against fire and smoke, but against my own past stupidity and cowardice. And this time, I know I will win. Because he is right here before me—his breath, his heartbeat, his name, his dog tags, all of it. All I have to do is wait. Wait for him to open his eyes, wait for him to say, "I'm here," and then I will spend the rest of my life walking the remainder of this road, side by side with him.