Coastal City: The Dream Fish Part IX

I know the blog has been going down and up for a few days now and I’ve been thinking about moving to a new site. I’ve had trouble publishing and editing posts since it took me forever to load the pages. But hopefully the news I’ve been hearing from my friends that i.ph is going down isn’t true and they’re just having some difficulties. Anyway, here’s the penultimate part of the Dream Fish series. Please ignore the alternating tenses in the parts and report any errors.

Also, I’ve made a booklet for the Dream Fish and plan to put in some of my sketches of the scenes. Anyone interested?

—–

Halvar hangs up on Calais. Then he starts calling the same hospital he was confined in a few hours ago.

It was busy.

He retried calling around three times when his phone went flat. Damn useless phone, he says to himself.

“Lucie, where’s your phone?”

“Pocket,” she mutters.

He takes out her phone from the side pocket of her jeans and flips open her phone. It was also flat.

“Your phone is flat, dear.” He says, still trying to revive the phone. She responds to him by crying even louder.

It would take 15 minutes or more for him to limp his way back to the diner. But he was concerned something might happen to her in that short 15 minutes. Besides, Mrs. Park had already gone home by then. He cannot leave Lucie there alone, she was completely immobilised. It seemed that all he could do is miraculously get to carry her to her car and drive her to the hospital.

He sits beside her and mumbles, “I’m sorry, Lucie.”

“Do you think I broke your back or something? I don’t know what to do, Lucie…” he runs his hand through her golden brown locks and tucks it neatly on the other side of her shoulder while she lies prone. She could barely move with the antagonising throe, nor could she hardly speak with the tears and groaning.

“Halvar,” she takes a deep breath and says something yet unfathomable with the deluging rheum and snivelling.

“I can’t understand, Lucie.” This time, Halvar felt a deep paroxysm of grief at the sight of Lucie’s face down on the soil, yet he tried to muster enough strength and sanity to hold back as much emotions as he can.

“Lucie,” he says in a shaking voice. Lucie looks up at him; astonished by the new side Halvar was showing her. She peers sideward at the Halvar who was still brushing her hair with his hand; his eyes looked weary, and his lips dry and arched downward.

She inhales and tries to blink the tears out of her eyes. Then she tells him: “Do you think you can turn me over?” She must have cried her voice hoarse, because her voice was barely audible and cracking.

He thinks about it. He can easily roll her over supine but knew it would hurt her. “Do you think I should?”

“Yes, please. Quickly.”

He holds her left shoulder with one hand and her thigh with the other. He then pulls them upward and turns her over in a quick decisive move. Lucie screams out whatever is left of her voice and starts to cry again.

“I’m sorry, Lucie. This is all my fault.”

 Halvar lies beside her and starts to cry. “I’m sorry,” he says repetitively.

At one point while lying there, when their tears had subsided, they were just looking at the silhouette of the trees and the backdrop of the dark blue sky. Lucie only took in small and short breaths to lessen the pang on her back. She would hold her breath a few seconds then take a very brief one and hold it again.

“Are we going to die?” Lucie asks Halvar.

“No.”

“Are we going to get eaten by bears or wolves or something?”

“There are no bears or wolves here, dear.” Halvar sits up. He felt he had to do something; this was his entire fault, after all.

“I think I’ll go by the road and see if someone passes by. You stay here—“ he tries to stop himself from laughing about what he’d just said, but it just couldn’t be helped.

Lucie laughs dreadfully, the excruciating pain on her spine escalated. It was good that she could still laugh in that situation, but laughing was indeed too painful that it wasn’t near a best medicine anymore.

“Sorry about that. I have no choice, Lucie. I should at least make an effort to get us out of this mess I’ve put us in.” Halvar wipes off the dirt on Lucie’s face with his shirt. “I will be back every five minutes, okay?”

“Just come back.”

…

Calais decided she would go into Nathan’s house and maybe steal some of their food. She went straight to their kitchen and pressed her phone repeatedly for light. She opened the fridge and looked for something good to eat.

There was unexpectedly a big crash upstairs, she thought about going up to see what happened but she was afraid she might interrupt on something. After that loud sound, there was nothing. The hair on the back of Calais’ neck rose, as if something very creepy had just happened, or it could be just her imagination. Nonetheless, she sucked it up and chose to sneak up on the two upstairs.

She crept beside the door of Nathan’s room and looked through a thin crack into the room. It was too dark for her to see anything, but she heard not a sigh from the room. She stood against the wall for a minute and thought about what she would do. She was almost certain no one was in that room, but she could be wrong.

She thought about retreating and walking back to her house, but something was drawing her into that room.

Curiosity killed the cat.

“Nathan!” she said out loud. No one answered.

She took out her phone and pressed it. She then entered the room. She was right; no one was in the room. When she was about to approach the bathroom door, she stepped on something slippery and fell on her butt.

It was blood. There was blood all over the floor.

…

The road was just about thirty steps from where he and Lucie were.

He sits on the grass beside the road. Halvar could see the calm ocean from his spot, the moon made it glimmer. The ocean—it seems infinite. He imagined himself sailing on a small boat, endlessly.

He realises a good ten minutes had passed; he quickly struggles back on his feet and starts hobbling back to Lucie. He had spent so much time in those woods that he was never lost.

He wasn’t lost this time; he knew exactly where he had left Lucie.

“Lucie?” he yells. Just a soft moan would do for Halvar, for he had an excellent pair of ears. But he heard nothing, just the annoying sound of crickets. He calls for her over and over. But still, there was no answer.

Could he have forgotten where he had left her? Impossible, he passes by these trees every time he went to his secret place. He sits on the spot he remembered he left her, and looks up at the outline of the trees. Yes, he was pretty sure this was it.

He was panicking now. Lucie is gone.