16. Olly
SIXTEEN
OLLY
I decided to stop at a small bed and breakfast, and hit the beach in the morning, when perhaps my thoughts would be less scattered, and I would be in less danger than going swimming alone at night.
The owner of the house ushered me inside and waved away my apologies for arriving so late in the evening.
She put me in an adorable room upstairs with sloped ceilings and a window that I opened to let in the scents of the salt air, turning leaves, and the last of the wild roses, before settling into a much-needed rest.
I dreamed of the sea.
Well, not exactly...more like the whole beach as it sloped down, grasses blowing in a breeze that felt like a gentle breath tickling at my calves.
The occasional purple and pink flowers in the dunes made the whole sense of unreality I had slowly disappear, as I’d seen those types of blooms my whole life.
The ocean looked inviting instead of the bracing cold North Atlantic that I knew would be there if I let loose and ran into it like I rather wanted to.
Well, this was my dream, wasn’t it? There was no one on the beach waiting for me, so why not look for warmer waters further afield?
Reality seemed to warp as it so often can in dreams, as I walked a path through the dunes, and I continued until I was on a different beach entirely.
The sun was just rising over Pauanui on the Coromandel Peninsula of New Zealand, with the sparkling, pristine waters of the South Pacific calling to me, even though I knew it would still be somewhat cold.
Joy filled me as I remembered so clearly that I had been here before, in the waking world, and I guess that was why everything felt so true to that era of my life.
I mean, I even felt like I weighed less.
I put my hand on my belly, and there was no baby bump here, on this side of the looking glass.
The only thing that bothered me was that there were no other people.
Not even early-morning beach joggers, or dog walkers, on a day when in tourist season at its peak by noon there could be two thousand people packed on that sand and in the water enjoying the sway of the sea.
Well, I knew how most of this memory went, only I wasn’t alone in the original, just this slightly bizarre re-imagining.
Still, I broke into a wide grin and clumsily ran down the beach to the sea, unclothing myself while I went, tipping over while I took off my leggings, and laughing as I spit out a healthy amount of sand.
I was in my bra and favourite Steven Universe boxers by the time I jumped into the first wave, screeching as the cool water hit my nipples.
I ducked under, and essentially just frolicked in the perfect waves as they crashed into my chest and lifted me off the sandy bottom for a moment at a time.
I decided not to swim far out, considering this didn’t exactly feel like a dream, and I had no clue where the rips might be, if any.
It was too early in the day for the surf lifeguards to be on duty.
I floated on my back, the waves carrying me to shore, and I sat up when I felt myself hit sand.
I stayed there while the waves lapped over my feet and up to my waist, and I sat up and stared out at the open sea.
At that moment, I was perfectly and utterly content.
I lay back on the sand, staring at the clearest blue sky imaginable, and with water lapping up to my belly button, I fell asleep.
I was just tired after playing in the push and pull of the waves, and the strangeness of falling asleep and dreaming within a dream didn’t occur to me.
My last thoughts were, Please, whoever is in charge out there, make this real. Goddess, let me stay.
I awoke with a start in what had to be a hospital, the tube down my throat invasive and making it impossible to scream.
I panicked as I tore at my burning throat with all the force of a weak child, trying to dislodge it.
I couldn’t move it, and I needed it out, now.
It felt impossible to breathe even though that was what the tube was for, and hands, familiar competent hands, firmly held my body back onto the bed while unfamiliar hands extracted the tube.
I lay there coughing, trying to catch air down my sore-as-hell throat.
The familiar hand clasped my own, and it was a nurse I knew was called Fatima who spoke to me in a calm but authoritative manner.
“Just relax, love. You need to breathe now on your own, okay? This will give you a little help.” She inserted a cannula with oxygen into my nose, a smaller one to replace the large prongs that had just been removed.
“Keep breathing, nice and deep... Olive, breathe for me. Your stats are dropping. We don’t want to put you back on the ventilator.
Now, stop taking those little sips of air and breathe! ”
I was too tired to argue and on too many drugs to physically fight, so I did what she asked and took in as much air as I possibly could, over and again.
The whole world felt fuzzy, but a machine somewhere nearby stopped beeping, so I figured I was doing a bang-up job.
As Fatima was now conversing with another nurse, I decided to take stock of the situation.
I was on a sort of hard, crinkly mattress, not to be outdone by the scratchy, crinkly pillow.
I looked up and twisted my head around as much as I could—my neck really did feel sore because of that damn tube, and I had no idea how long it had been there—and I saw two monitors, but it was the top one with the oxygen saturation on it that I focussed on.
I knew, as Father Park had been a doctor, that under 92 was considered hypoxia—oxygen deficiency.
I was somewhere in the 80s. I couldn’t make out the second number because my glasses had vanished.
However, anything that started with 8 was too low, so I started breathing as hard as I could, and when Fatima came back, she was smiling.
The room I was in was spacious, with a cot for a visitor, and I was guessing that, with all the equipment in this room and its utter spotlessness, I was in the ICU.
That made sense, right? It wasn’t like I could just ask, not yet.
I had no less than five intravenous lines running from my left arm over to a packed IV pole.
Bags of liquid which I presumed promised everything from hydration to the relief of pain dripped steadily through their plastic tubing and into my poor arm.
I spared a thought for why they had chosen to run all the lines to one arm when I had two, but realized the futility of asking such questions when I couldn’t speak due to the soreness of my throat, and especially when my brain came online enough to notice that my right arm was completely immobilized by a too-tight sling cradling it against my body.
I felt myself begin to fall back into that fuzzy, fragmented world, and my eyes flickered closed as the machine began to bleat again.
Before I could even gather up another coherent thought, I was far and away, back on East River Beach.
Only this time, there wasn't a teenage brother waiting to speak with me, and it wasn’t one of the balmy days of late summer.
The sand was cold under my bare feet, and wind blew in off the ocean with such strength that the thin hospital gown I wore was not enough to protect me from the elements or preserve my modesty.
It was only then that I really registered the most important change even though I would swear he hadn’t been there moments ago.
A man was sitting down the beach on the sand with a huge red towel wrapped around him to, I assumed, stave off some of the freezing wind.
He was sitting with his knees bent and tucked up, his arms around them, his dark hair down.
I had seen that position before, that colour of hair, that aura of longing projecting off him.
It couldn’t be. But it was. Wasn’t it? I started down the beach as fast as I could go, my body feeling weak for some reason, and my weight and baby bump back to their usual size.
But I was determined, because here, in this place of spirits, souls, and other restless things, was Clark.
As I approached, he looked up at me with beautiful green eyes that were brimming with tears, and of course I knew.
It wasn’t my Clark Evans. It had to be, but I looked closer, and no, it simply wasn’t.
I felt like someone had reached in and tore my heart out and dropped it on the cold, damp sand.
I hated how shifting realities and hope could really fuck with your mind in this place.
I walked straight up to the man and rested my hand on his head of hair.
I indulged that for all of ten seconds, but with his green eyes staring into mine, and my confused heart getting some relief, it was worth it.
I stepped backward, then, and he stood, speaking as he did so.
“There’s no time, Olly, or I would explain more.
I’m not...myself...right now. I’m not exactly your Clark Evans.
But I was able to come here and warn you.
Listen, as soon as they can swing it, The Organization is going to take you from the ICU.
You’re headed for a Mental Health Inpatient Unit, which they infiltrated months ago in preparation for this.
You’re not their only Asset with foresight.
They are going to make you fight for every inch.
You’ve got a battle coming, and the gates are barred, and I don’t know if they will let your Earth’s Clark through.
You may be alone in these next steps, but we will be doing everything on our end to help you. ”
“We? Who’s we? Clark, I don’t under—”