4 An Unexpected Ambush #2
You were in the trickiest position, with your back to the beach and forced to turn around to retrace your steps.
While you were still figuring out how to move your legs, I moved toward you, and we found ourselves curiously sprawled out on the trunk: I was on top of you, trying to climb over you to reach the shore.
The rather awkward situation made me burst out laughing, and without a second thought, I started kissing your neck to tickle you, making an already precarious situation even worse.
Somehow managing to stop myself, you sought my lips with yours, sending shivers down my spine; when you sought me out with such desire, I couldn’t even move and lost all my strength, surrendering to you.
That magic was destined to vanish in an instant—or rather, with a splash into the water—but that wasn’t enough to stop us from continuing to seek each other out, and it definitively marked the failure of our photo safari.
Water was my element, and you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever had.
I was discovering that we could even fly through the water as we chased each other, light and floating.
I wanted to escape into the depths of the sea, but you managed to catch me with just a few strokes, and at your touch I lost the strength to fight, surrendering to the current of passion, warmed by the sun’s rays and the scent of your skin.
Even though the sun was now setting, it still had the power to set our bodies and minds ablaze.
Finally, we decided to get out of the water as the last ray of sunlight pierced the sky, and we wrapped ourselves in our towels, continuing to exchange the sweetest kisses that tasted of salt.
On the way back to the bungalow, I asked you, “Do you love me?”
The question, asked out of the blue, made you stop and look at me with tears in your eyes.
In a faint voice, you managed to say, “I understand what you felt inside when you were asked that same question earlier: it’s the need to renew the feeling of being loved at every moment, like a river that flows slowly and never stops. I have to thank you,
because you were able to turn this vacation into a dream, and I beg you never to wake me up.”
It was my turn to be moved; taking your hand, I said, “No, my love, wake up… because I don’t want these moments to become bittersweet memories; live them knowing that they can never end.”
We walked the distance separating us from the bungalow in silence. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, and I expected you to bring me back to your reality at any moment, even though I still couldn’t quite grasp what that reality was.
When we arrived at our destination, feeling completely down, we found a pleasant surprise that broke the somber mood: the coconut vendor had brought us two freshly opened coconuts.
I had an irresistible urge and asked the friendly vendor to take a picture of us, and without waiting for his reply, I handed him my phone and posed next to you, kissing you with all the love I could muster.
I took the phone from the man’s hands to see what miracle he’d managed to perform: I stared at the photo for a long minute while you kept asking me why I’d wanted to take it.
Your question brought out an uncontrollable rage that drove me to scream in your face, crying, “My love, memories must remain locked away only in photos, not in the heart!”
I started running away from you because I didn’t want to hear your answer and I needed my dream; I didn’t want the reality that terrified me. I ran at breakneck speed to the very tip of the island under the illusion of chasing the sun that had already set.
Night had fallen quickly on the island, and I decided to stop to calm my mind with the gentle lapping of the water that filled the silence. Once I’d caught my breath, I began walking along the shoreline, my gaze fixed on the ground and my mind clear of thoughts.
Lost as I was in self-pity, I hadn’t realized I was walking in the water in the dark, unaware of the dangers lurking nearby.
A strange noise snapped me back to my senses, but I didn’t have time to get back onto the shore: a scorpionfish had strangely swum all the way to the shore and, surprised to see me, was so frightened that it instinctively extended its poisonous spines toward me.
I knew what was about to happen to me, and I looked around in terror, overcome by panic.
My first thought was of you and the reckless decision I’d made just moments before.
I was bitterly regretting it, and I didn’t want to die—not before I could tell you one last time that I loved you madly and that I needed you to live.
My strength was failing me, and venturing into the wildest part of the island was condemning me to an inescapable death.
I leaned against a rock and began to think back on all those moments when I’d been overcome by the fear of loving you.
I could barely keep my eyes open, and I felt an irresistible need deep inside me to love you, to hold you in my arms, and to make love to you.
It was a short step from reality to a dream, and darkness fell inexorably around me.
“My love, wake up, please! I need you. Don’t give up right now—you can’t leave me just because I love you to death, and I’ll stay here telling you this until you decide to come back to me.”
I don’t know where your voice was coming from; I could feel it deep under my skin, but I didn’t understand how that was possible.
The thought crossed my mind that you might be dead and that I was in a place with no points of reference, where I couldn’t understand how I’d ended up.
I tried to open my eyes, but it seemed as though my brain couldn’t send any commands to my body.
I felt powerless in a body I didn’t recognize; not even my muscles could respond to my mental signals.
Suddenly, the darkness around me seemed to lift a little, and I distinctly heard some unfamiliar voices saying that I might not make it, because the poison had been in my bloodstream for too long and had weakened my heart.
A moan made me turn, as it were, toward my right side; I recognized your crying and tried to move my lips to tell you I was alive, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t feel any movement in my entire body, and I realized I was in a coma.
My spirit had saved me so many times that it simply had to succeed in this dramatic situation, and I tried to move my hands in an attempt to let you know that I could feel you as you squeezed them so tightly they hurt, even though I couldn’t feel any pain.
I don’t know how long I spent struggling between life and death, but at the first light of dawn I heard you exclaim, “She’s alive and she’s opening her eyes!”
I felt as if I were enveloped in fog, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much: I wanted to convince myself that I was in the famous tunnel leading to the other world.
Your voice reached me like a gentle wave, and your hands felt so close and warm that I grabbed them and squeezed them tightly, almost as if I didn’t want to lose you one more time.
“My love, welcome back to life!” you said, hugging me so fiercely that the IV needle slipped out.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
I didn’t give up, writing “I love you” on the sheet with the tip of my finger.
Seeing you cry, my heart ached: I ran a finger under one of your tears and placed it on my cheek to let you know I was sorry.
Finally, I could look around, even though I found it quite difficult to take my eyes off you.
Later, they would explain to me that I was in the hospital in the Maldivian capital, where I’d been rushed by glider after I was found. Fortunately, before losing consciousness, I’d managed to drag myself with great effort onto the shore, and this action had saved me from certain drowning.
The transport was supposed to take place at night, in violation of local regulations, which prohibited all forms of transportation from sunset to the first light of dawn.
A curious thought occurred to me as I reflected that I had never been on a glider before, and that the one time I had, I’d missed the show.
Only now was I beginning to realize how lucky I’d been not to lose my life, and I regretted all the times I’d hated it.
I was starting to notice details I’d previously taken for granted, beginning with the colors of the room I was in, which echoed the hues of the sunsets that had always fascinated me.
The Maldivian sunsets lasted only a few minutes, but the glow in my eyes lingered long afterward, until the starlit sky covered all the daytime images, preserving them until the next dawn.