Beeping heart monitors. Creaking wheel chairs. Echoing footsteps despite ultra-soft shoes. Dripping I.V.s. And the voices; sometimes they spoke, sometimes they screamed. If one spends enough time in a hospital, these things cease to be a random collection of sounds serving to do little but hinder sleep. Eventually, one found a harmony to it, and heard in it a kaleidoscopic music. Unfortunately for so many, it was the last piece of music they would ever hear; it was a Death Song.

Currently sharing the sound of the Death Song were two strangers left together in the same room of an overcrowded hospital. In beds covered with sterilized sheets, the strangers lay a few feet apart.

One might almost have said it was destiny.

She looked over at him, held together by casts and wires and metal structures. He was blinking very slowly with one eye, and that was almost all she could see of his face, as the other eye was patched with gauze and bandages spotted red covered more skin than not.

�Should I ask what happened to you?� she called, more than anything just to see if he was sleeping or not.

He wasn�t. He looked over at her, but could hardly see her. If the numbing pain wasn�t enough to affect his vision, the drugs they had pumped into him would finish the job. Through his tears, all he could see was a vague human form lying on the bed covered in sheets.

�You can ask me anything you want,� he told her. Every word was pronounced strangely, most likely having to do with missing teeth and swollen muscles and the wound on his cheek that was covered with gauze and medical tape. �But I can�t really promise to answer. You might start by telling me why you�re here.�

She sighed. �I didn�t aim very well. And I have a nosy neighbor.� It seemed an inadequate answer, and certainly didn�t explain why the sheets she was covered with were stained red from the waist down. After a few moments she added, �She called 911 when she heard the shot, and they brought me here about an hour ago. I don�t know why everyone is so upset. It doesn�t even hurt anymore.�

Her calmness seemed bizarre, but all he could think to say was, �the shot?�

She smiled. �I was riding a bullet right to God��

�Hmm�� he had an equally difficult time finding words to say and finding the strength to say them. �I guess I am too, that sounds about right.� Applying her words as symbolism allowed him to escape the fact that she clearly was speaking literally.

�How long have you been here?� she asked.

�Something like three days, I�m not sure,� he said.

The Death Song filled in the void of silence. Sometimes, the newscaster on the television hanging in the corner interrupted with something he seemed to think was important. Something about a cop beating a priest. The strangers didn�t really care.

�This world is fucked up beyond all recognition,� the muffled words barely escaped his mouth.

�Some might think so,� she said. She didn�t really care for such a pessimistic outlook.

�You don�t?� he asked her.

�No.�

�I suppose you�re one of those who likes to pretend that hell is heaven for the sake of a pretend happiness.� Most of this was unintelligible, his point entirely lost in spittle and chokes and mumbles, and so she proceeded as if he had said nothing.

�The world is as good or as bad as the people in it,� she was smiling just a little. She knew he didn�t understand why, but it didn�t matter. What surprised her though, was that he laughed. He actually laughed. She stared at him and demanded to know what was so funny.

�I could take that to mean that the world is as bad as the worst people in it. If that�s true, how can you say the world isn�t fucked up? Look at us.� The man whose body was being held together by stitches and plastic said to the woman who had, an hour ago, penetrated herself with a pistol and pulled the trigger.

�That�s not the way to see it. The world is as good as the best people in it. The two of us may not be the best examples of a human being, but not everyone in the world is like us.�

�That�s where you�re wrong,� he told her. �We�re just the ones who were noticed, the ones who let it show just how fucked up we really are. Everyone has something wrong with them. Everyone.�

�No,� she said, smiling wider now, knowing that he was wrong, almost laughing as if at some esoteric joke. Anyone must have been able to tell that she was thinking of someone very specific. �Not everyone.�

The Death Song filled in the void of silence. The newscaster was discussing the same story again. Something about a priest killing a cop. The strangers still didn�t pay much attention to it.

�What did they tell you, the doctors?� she asked him. �Are you going to die?�

�That�s an awfully personal question,� he retorted. �What did they tell you? Are you going to die?�

�When they worked on me, they didn�t talk to me, they only talked to each other. They tried not to let me hear what they were saying.� She smiled. �Yes, I am.�

�You seem strangely comfortable with that, if you don�t mind me saying so.�

�Well, I have someone waiting for me on the other side.�

�Husband? Boyfriend?�

He couldn�t see very well through the blur, but she seemed to be nodding and smiling.

�So that means you don�t mind dying?�

�Not at all. There�s really nothing for me here. But up there, someone loves me, someone is waiting for me. And I love him. I love him far more than I love life. So yes, I can die.�

This was the sort of talk that got on his nerves fast. He changed the subject as much as it seemed capable of changing.

�I don�t know whether I�ll live. The doctors told me that I had internal bleeding and a collapsed lung and a dozen other things, I stopped listening. They tell me that I need to stay in bed, that if I so much as get up to take a shit, it could kill me,� he laughed. �But I�ll probably die anyway.�

�You don�t sound like that bothers you either,� she said. �Do you have someone waiting for you too?�

He laughed. �No,� he said. �Even if anyone is waiting for anyone up there, no one is waiting for me. No one loves me here or there. But you�re right, dying doesn�t really bother me, because no one is going to notice.� He smiled, satisfied. �If anyone loved me, that would make things difficult, as it is, no one is going to notice.�

She paused a few moments. �I�m sorry,� she said. He smiled, thinking it funny that after she had explained that she was going to die, he had repressed the urge to offer that same perfunctory bit of sympathy, knowing that if he had, she would simply reply just as he replied now,

�Don�t be.�

After a long while, he spoke again.

�I guess I would have liked a little more time,� he said. She didn�t answer at first. He thought she might have passed, until she asked,

�Time for what?�

�I don�t know. It would probably just be more of the same.�

�I don�t believe you. No one like you wishes for more time on their deathbed for more of the same. What did you want to change?�

He couldn�t think of what to tell her. He was still just fleshing this out in his mind, trying to give substance to what was before only a vapor of emotion that he didn�t understand, that he had never tried to understand.

�It isn�t that I wanted to change anything, just that I wanted to do something. I�ve always said that I�ve never gotten anything from anyone and so I never owed anyone anything. But still� I feel like I want to give something to someone, to do something� I don�t know, kind.�

She had no response. He didn�t really expect one. Who would have anything to say to him? What could she tell him? There was nothing and she said nothing.

They lay for a long while, waiting for death or life, listening to the music, the rhythm of the Death Song seeping into them to beat in time with every thought and feeling as they thought and wondered about the world and how it was good and how it was wicked and all the people in it and how they were good and how they were wicked and whether there was a heaven or a hell or whether the world was all there was and whether that world was heaven or hell and where oh where two wicked souls knowing nothing but to love and to fight could ever possibly belong except for right there together with their bodies destroyed and their spirits waiting, just waiting, for whatever would come next, and both in their strange and distant and oblivious way hoping that whatever came, they would be together.

It was long and confusing, like a statement that never ended.

Never, until the doctor walked in to interrupt it.

The doctor went to her. She looked up at him, ignoring his first words and inquiries with a casual disinterest. Finally, though, he did catch her attention.

�Although you have internal bleeding and your lower spine has been destroyed where the bullet exited, it�s looking like you could pull through. You should be aware that even if everything we do works as we think it will, you�ll still be paralyzed from the waist down, but at least you�ll be alive. I�ll be back to prep you for surgery in about five minutes.�

The man in the white coat was walking away.

�What about me, Doc?� he called to the doctor. The man came back to the bed.

�How�s your eyesight?�

�It�s been pretty bad, but actually, it�s getting better fast now. I didn�t even realize you wore glasses before, but now I can even see that big mole on your cheek. You really ought to get that checked out, Doc.�

The doctor smiled. �Well, your condition hasn�t changed since this morning. Stay in bed, don�t move, use the call button if you need help, and-�

�Use the bedpan, going to the crapper will kill me, yeah, I got it.�

�That�s right,� the doctor said, then turned and left the room.

He lay and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about the woman lying a few feet away. She�ll live, well, good for her. And maybe she�ll learn to enjoy life. Learn some wheelchair tricks, be able to park in those great handicapped spaces, get a license plate that says �cripl4375� or something. He was sure that, despite all her talk, she must have been glad to hear that she was going to live. He tried to think of just the right bit of humor to give her before she was wheeled off to the operating room.

He thought of something, but as he turned to look at her, and saw the look on her face, he immediately forgot it again.

It was horror. Tears streaming from her eyes. Her mouth gaping as if to scream something, though not words, for words were beyond a mind that can no longer think, but only feel. No sound escaped her, though, except for a grating sort of whine, barely audible. Gasping, panicked breaths. Her face was frozen in a flawless mien of someone who has seen hell. Or, as he understood it more accurately, someone who was currently seeing hell. Someone who was currently seeing the world unveiled with all its injustice and cruelty. And he knew why. She was being kept from the one human being in existence who made the whole ugly mess into something beautiful and complete.

Damn� he must be quite a guy.

Watching her, watching her face, he couldn�t stand it anymore. He knew what he had to do without ever thinking about it. At times, thought only impedes action. He knew now why he was here, and why she was here, and why they were together. It was a last chance for both of them. Before he could form a single thought against it, he acted. He moved.

The various implements holding him came free easily, as they were not meant to restrain or confine, and only worked so long as they were not struggled against as he did. By the time any part of him was telling him that this was a very very bad idea, he was sitting up in his bed, looking over at her. Pain screamed through his body, and in answer, he stood up.

He felt bones stressing and breaking anew. He didn�t care, he moved. He put one foot in front of the other, bare and torn skin pressing against cold tile floor, focusing on her to pull him towards her. With labored breath, he felt a rib snap, and as he screamed at the pain, another. He forced himself to stop that exponential breeding of pain, and forced himself to take another step.

The distance of a few feet had never seemed so agonizingly long, but after what felt like no more than a few short months, he was close to her bed. He felt his legs breaking and threw himself on top of her. She cried out with shock, but as his arms and his hands moved over her warm body, passing her stomach, passing her breasts, finding her throat, she understood, and if she could have, she would have thanked him.

He didn�t need to be thanked. This was what they both wanted. He lay atop her and put the minute bit of strength left in his body all into his arms and his hands and he squeezed. She put her arms around him in a warm hug as he choked the life from her.

His eyelids sagged. He could hear her heartbeat slowing. She squeezed his back as he squeezed her neck. He felt the tenuous hold that life kept on his body slipping away, and he only hoped that hers was slipping away faster, that he would have enough time.

Time became a lost concept. There was only that it started, and that it ended, and when it did, two forms lay still together, a strange island of beauty in the sea of ugliness that was the world, and the lovers died in each other�s arms.