Guardians of the Galaxy fanfiction - This Is Tomorrow
1: Heart Of Glass
Nobody at the time would have cared where it all began. A tiny, derelict flat, rented out by the city council for those 'hopeless cases that would do anything to avoid contributing to society.' An outer-Plymouth accommodation. The quality of the building matched the longstanding reputation of its occupant. Run down, ageing and feeling like he may crumble to pieces at any given moment with the lightest push.
Matthew felt far too young to feel this old. 35 years of age, 6 ft 2, half blind even with glasses, consistently gaining weight and feeling like every time he fell asleep may be his last time for 12 years now. He suffered from a cardiac complaint that would lead to his chest feeling heavy, cause shortness of breath simply by turning over in his bed, and resulting in arrhythmias that in turn made sudden unconsciousness their bedfellow. Which certainly meant Matthew's metaphors had more company than he himself did. Stuck bed bound for more than a decade, his plain jeans and grey shirt covered in holes from the springs, the only time he ever left the home was for a daily visit to local hospitals, in the vague and vain hope that someone would figure him out, or at least ensure he wouldn't die today.
He was certainly a hypochondriac, but then who wouldn't be in his circumstances? A basic fact his local healthcare consistently failed to understand, as they routinely blamed everything on his mind. 9 medications didn't work, maybe the 10th will? 10th time's the charm. Our scans on the heart didn't reveal anything, never mind that we didn't actually scan the right area. Those ECG traces of the heart look perfectly fine. What; those 6 or so anomalies detected? They're normal for you.
Normal for you.
A phrase he had come to hate almost as much as his condition itself. It was a cheap excuse for doctors to send him on his way. He knew he wasn't doing himself any favours being at the hospital each and every day, he felt the embarrassment of being its most frequent attended every time. But what more could he do, keel over and die? The funny thing was, after 12 years of trying, 12 years of hoping that tomorrow would be the day things change, or that at least the symptoms eased up for once...
...Maybe keeling over and dying wouldn't be so bad? At this stage, Matthew's fevered mind equally hoped for a cure or for someone idly passing by to put a bullet through his brain. By chance maybe the postman carried a pistol? Now that would be a fast track delivery. Matthew snorted to himself, recognising the kind of morbid humour that was the only thing keeping him sane besides a smartphone addiction. Without it he would have to face some hard thoughts, very hard indeed. He didn't want to die. He had long since established that ever since being confined to a mental hospital for initial refusal to accept medications (they had all made his heart worse but nobody seemed to notice that either, as well as for wrongfully diagnosed ideations to harm himself. When this had all started, he would continue to dream of the things others took for granted. Joining a local card game hobby shop event. Swimming competitively - the one talent he ever had in life. Seeing his nephews grow up. Maybe even finding a man for himself. He had been lucky once to find an online date, but it quickly fell apart due to, what else, pressures surrounding his health.
Each New Year's Eve he would go into the next turn of the sun, thinking surely this was the one? This was the year he would finally have a semblance of luck and someone would finally diagnose him. Then he would be free to live life as he used to, when merely walking wasn't a risk of its own.
As time passed and he lost more and more, his wish became more compromised too. The loss of his lover. Maybe they can just diagnose it but keep it under control? The loss of what few friends he had left. They could... just let him visit the hospital again, instead of blocking him under threat of security? The loss of his family who were convinced he was mad. Maybe they... could just offer... pain relief? And finally the loss of his disability benefits keeping the roof over his head. They had claimed that because he was well enough to go to hospital, he was making his health up for attention. Somatoform disorder.
At least... just... some tap water? He couldn't remember the last time he could afford the South West Water bill.
A twinge in his chest and he instinctively took a deep breath from the discomfort, impossible to ignore. This was it. This was one too many times. Years of trying. Years of getting nowhere. His life was half over and here he was acting half his age and feeling double it. The escapism of a screen and willpower alone couldn't carry him any further. He had finally hit his limit.
Life
Wasn't
Going
To
Get
Better.
He was about ready to throw his phone through the bedside window, what was one more breakage? But he stopped. And felt a glimmer of something hopeful in a very different kind of way. A dark and cruel way. He still had a little of his overdraft left after all. With the last of what he had to his meaningless name, he could summon a taxi, appreciate the view out the window, despite his symptoms, head to the nearby Tamar Bridge for a good, relaxing view of the setting sun, the sky, heaven itself.
And leap towards it.
And that, if he had broken any sooner, would already be the end of the story. A sad tale of a man who had accomplished nothing while waiting for a prince that was never to come. He would have left the world the same way he had existed in it. Alone, forgotten, and just wishing to stop the suffering. Those who ever knew him would either celebrate his passing or forget him the following day. Maybe two if he still had some optimism left somewhere behind those palpitations.
But here is the funny thing about both life and willpower. It spent millennia trying to keep us frail humans alive despite our sheer stupidity, just so that we can appreciate a little beauty of the fellow life around us. Willpower that is enough to keep us going for even this long is entirely meaningful. You couldn't have convinced Matthew of that fact at the time, but despite his breakdown, the fact he lasted this long was definitive proof that his faith had held. If he had reached that bridge side, a flutter in him would have tried to make him not jump. Just a flutter but it would be there regardless. The universe has a way of trying to change things, even just a little, when someone is at their lowest point, be they man or beast.
Or, as the occupant of the escape pod spacecraft that suddenly burst down the roof of Matthew's flat would testify, both.
