This story came to me when I heard the song 'I cant take my eyes off you' by Avrutin and Charlie James a couple of weeks ago. It's a song that has more or less been associated with death and destruction where I come from because growing up it was the song used on all the old DOE road safety adverts (I'm talking the stuff of nightmares here! Their adverts were more graphic than those helicopter blades slicing people up on Casualty during the anniversary! AND THEY AIRED DURING THE DAY! Ahem… totally wasn't traumatised as a kid or anything)

Where was I…? OH YEAH! I was supposed to upload this ages ago as its set during 'Life in the Freezer' and I needed to get it up before the BMAM returned but my luck being my luck, the storm knocked out our electricity and well... here you are.

Enjoy... and please don't kill me.

Beating

Isn't it funny? This life. You spend your days doing the same boring thing. You get up, you make yourself presentable to the world, you eat and then you leave your sanctuary and go to work. You meet people, some new, some you already know, you do your best to get through yet another shift and then you come home, go to bed and await the next morning when you can get up and do it all over again. The same staccato beat never wavering from its steady monogamous rhythm.

Isn't it funny? You don't see it do you? Truth be told I didn't either… until she came along. I never noticed how dull my life had become as I danced to the same tune everyday, never noticing the time pass by… can you believe its been over a year since my mother died? Over a year since I drunkenly buried her ashes right outside this very hospital.

I may not have been in the army like she had… but I do understand the mind numbing nature of an endless routine.

For a while my world was grey… no colour penetrated my existence, had I noticed I may have done something about it but… I didn't. I simply didn't.

That's not to say my life hasn't been peppered with intermittent surprises, Jason being a prime example. For a moment, life felt exciting again when I met him. He was so new and yet familiar, breaking the endless cycle of steady beats to form a new rhythm. Even now the thought of us finding each other after not even knowing I had a sister brings a smile to my face. But that new feeling, that excitement quickly turned grey once more as he was absorbed into my routine and the rhythm slowed down and once again became a slow continuous beat.

Sounds boring doesn't it? Not at all funny I suppose… but then I never really meant that it was particularly humorous. Its funny… as in weird.

Back then I didn't realise it was boring or weird, so busy was I with simply living. But then something spectacular happened… or rather someone spectacular happened.

She came into my life with a crash and suddenly an explosion of colour erupted from every corner of my vision. It was overwhelming but also exhilarating and beautiful and I didn't want it to end! The boring staccato beat had been smashed and suddenly the rhythm became erratic and exciting like it had never been before.

The woman made me feel alive again! Breaking my routine and turning my world on its head in a glorious shower of colours I didn't even know I'd been missing... and then she kissed me… and then I kissed her back… and then my life lost all balance and the erratic beating completely stopped. And I was left in deafening silence.

I'd taken too long to come around; I knew I'd taken too long. Just as I'd caught my breath and steadied myself for this new adventure in my life, an adventure I'd be taking with the one person who broke my damaging routine, she shut it down. I'd taken too long to settle my thoughts and she'd lost patience.

'I think we should toast our undeniable sexual chemistry… and say no more about it'. I was so sure those words would be written on my grave… and then Tuesday happened.

Remember I said life was funny? Well strange how one day can make or break your life… one day.

It had started out so innocently, an offer that led to a kiss… and then things seemed to break down so suddenly. That was the day I realised that steady beating, that rhythm that was taking over my life, was in fact the beating of my own heart in my ears telling me I was safe. Her presence was a danger and I'd become too emotionally involved to notice. When the rhythm stopped, it wasn't that my heart had stopped beating; I was simply so far out of safety that it was screaming too loud for me to hear.

I don't know if the beating staccato has returned. I can't tell because suddenly there's another monogamous steady beat in my ear, one that echoes louder than mine ever did. Ironically, the steady beat means she's safe… but as she lies there in that hospital bed, hooked up to all manner of wires with bandages and dressings covering what little of her skin I can see, I cant help but feel like this is the most unsafe place I've ever been. I'm not an idiot, I realise saying that is a little heaving handed given where we were yesterday but… none the less, back there still felt safer than here.

Back there, I had the heavy thudding of my own heartbeat in my ear… I don't think my nerves can cope much longer with the fear that the beating of hers might disappear.