The Encounter (Part II)

One of them? She smiled. Everyone joked about her daring statements, that, yes- she would become a pirate one day and sail away on a red-painted ship with flags from foreign countries, and signs embedded everywhere, all in mystic languages that have vanished from this earth. She would eventually marry the One, the Captain himself and they would venture through high seas lost in their love for the unknown.

Well, she thought, that was years and years ago…And now…Who was the stranger in her bed? She looked around, confused, unbelieving and there it was, a quite stunning “discovery”. It was not a dream. It was not simply an image from the past. She was in her room, her childhood room, teddy bears on the wall shelves seeming to smile at her, dolls gathered in a circle on the floor…They were all still there, just as she had left them the last time she visited her parents. Ten years ago…Before the fatal car accident and before she lost everything she ever loved.

And then she noticed the hospital bracelet on her hand. It had her name on it, a patient’s number and yesterday’s date-June 25 and time of 10:32 a.m. with a handwritten note “admit”.

“You are awake!” His voice pierced the darkness in the room, pierced the silence and the stream of hurdling thoughts in her mind. Once again she felt her heart race and once again she was smothered by the cold clinch of panic.

“I am so sorry…I could not leave you alone…and because they said you might wake up not remembering, I just had do…had to stay here with you tonight.”

They? Who were they? Did he mean-the doctors?

She could not speak. It was as if she had been struck with the magic wand of a wizard from a fairy tale, however, a twisted one. It felt more like a puzzle, a labyrinth of sensations, images and memories and she was Alice in Wonderland, an odd and scary Wonderland.

“Are you all right?” His voice had changed. She could sense the worry in it and for some unexplainable reason, she liked that.

Suddenly it all started becoming clear.  The beach, the surf board…the storm…the rain, her struggle to emerge from the water, her body getting stiff and completely paralyzed by the strong pushes of the waves and wind,  the sharp pain in her chest…unable to breathe…Then-the warm embrace, wet lips on hers, air…grasping for air! Fuzzy feeling of thousands of lights exploding all around her, splendid colors of blue, green and grey…rainbow of colors, vivid colors, soft colors in her mind.

“I took you home”, he continued as if he had understood she was battling her own memory and needed some more clarity in all this haze of mixed in, lost puzzle pieces.

She finally knew. It was not until she dared to look in his eyes and the journey she had taken years ago…returned to its ever forgotten start point.

“James….?”

The Encounter (Part 1)

At 3:13 a.m. her eyes were suddenly wide open…A blue silhouette next to her…Soft, wavy moonlit hair spread on the pillow…Not her pillow. His pillow?!

Where did he come from?

Why could she not remember?

Her mind started floating and she could feel her heart’s rhythm change, second by second…faster and faster. She gazed at the ceiling. Star reflections all over, some had a teal-blue tint and others were hazy yellow…If that crazed heart of hers could beat any faster it would probably escape out of its cage of flesh and travel in a wild frenzy to another planet. Fly away…no, not now…she had to discover, experience and grasp the image, the contours, the fibres of …whatever and whoever he was.

His fingers tangled up in his hair. So he had long hair…Interesting…She could not quite figure out the color, it seemed like sand…beach sand…soft sand. He was lying peacefully, breathing slowly and quietly. It was almost like he was not really there, but she dared to touch a strand of hair falling down his face and gently place it behind his ear. Dark skin, natural or tanned, she was not good at guessing anything at all…but could sense the smell of…yes, it was beach sand. So…she was not dreaming or she could have not possibly almost tasted it…It was like an escape to her family house which was settled in a tiny beach village. She remembered eating the sand on the beach when she was a little girl as she was convinced it was going to turn her into a mermaid. And being a mermaid was her childhood dream. But she is not five-years-old anymore, and this is not the beach where she used to play for hours and hours, enjoying the sunlight and the crashing waves, looking for pirate ships every time a fisherman’s boat floated nearby. After all, the pirates were never that far away, she used to think…they were just hiding…

 

Could it be that he was one of them?