"Tell me," the boy whispered.
"Again?" The man drew down the covers and lifted the boy's gown. His thin chest was spotted with bruises and burns, some old, some recent. It was difficult to find a place to lay two of his fingers for tapping. The boy looked on with grave eyes and quiet lips, and didn't wince. The man moved his fingers over the boy's chest. He tapped, and tapped again. It was not good, the pneumonia. Malnutrition and abuse had seriously weakened the boy's immune system. He wouldn't make it. He'd be gone by dawn.
"Please tell me," the boy whispered again.
"About paradise?"
The man pulled over a chair to sit on, and reached into a pocket for his stethescope, to listen to the boy's heart and lungs. When he finished, he left one hand resting on the boy's sternum, where the biggest bruise had turned yellow and purple. It was as if the man strove by will-power alone to infuse life and health back into the small, battered body.
"Paradise is where you shall go. All souls, when they sever the connection with the body, must rise or fall. Yours shall surely rise."
"What if I fall?"
"Only weak souls fall," the man replied. "Your soul is very strong. You will rise, along with all the other strong souls who die that day."
"Soon," said the boy.
"Yes, soon," said the man.
"Rise where? Oh, tell me."
"To the top of the sky, where it turns from blue to black," the man continued, moving his hand to feel the boy's pulse, "where the stars shine night and day, millions and millions of them, bright as sparklers, and all the strong and mighty souls gather for their journey."
The boy coughed and choked up phlegm, then lay back panting, his forehead slick with sweat. The man helped him take a sip of water, and patted the boy's face dry with a cloth.
"Go on," the boy said, "their journey where?"
The man sat back in his chair. "To the sun," he said. "It's a very, very long way, but together, and only together, you can all make it."
"We'll burn up."
"No. Only bodies can burn. Souls can't. They're made of the same stuff. They love it, the warmth, and the light so thick you can feel it. When you arrive, the celestial beings ..."
"... the angels ... ?"
"...the angels will sing out a welcome, and the birds of paradise will careen through incandescent coruscations of light." The boy laughed at this, and so did the man. It was their favourite part. "Rainbows will dance for joy, and they will zoom up to say hello."
The boy shifted in the bed, and reached out a pale hand to the man, who took it in both of his warm, brown ones.
"What are the rainbows?"
"They are the souls of all the little ones, boys and girls, come to make friends with you."
"Will I be a rainbow, too?"
"Absolutely. You are one already." The man squeezed the boy's hand, harder than he intended.
"I'll go soon?"
"Yes. Very soon."
The man leaned over and kissed the boy on the forehead. Then he got up to leave. There were other patients to see. But none of them would die, at least not that night. So he would come back, as soon as he could.
The man had a strong heart. He thought of it as "well-tempered", like steel. But on his way out of the ward it broke, and he ran into the men's room, so the boy wouldn't hear him weeping.
The man was a doctor. He thought paradise was only a fantasy, a tale from his own childhood, long forgotten. He thought he had told the boy a lie. These were the anvil and the hammer, that had broken his heart. This was the shame that had made him weep.