When I Woke

WHEN I WOKE

Alex Lynn

How extreme could the growth of fungi become?  After drawing another pattern into the most recent plantation on the wall, I peeped out from behind the mildew-stained net curtain and considered the view du jour.  The grey cloth was still decorating the sky.  From it seeped more and more of the tiny bullets of water, some waltzing down like merry party-goers, others taking the free-fall of serious sportsmen.

The golden ginger hair and luminous skin of the stranger standing beside the gate created a stark contrast with the Turner-inspired background.  His eyes had assumed the colour of the sky; somehow, I felt that these eyes could be bright blue during his Spanish and Majorcan holidays.  Would they be black at night?

Our eyes met.  Upon tearing my attention from his seriously enticing hair colour I suddenly noticed, how torn and weary he looked.  His eyes were dull with shock.  I went to the door, opened it, and offered him a greeting.

‘I climbed the Maumturk mountains this morning with my friend Paul…  He slid on the wet slope and fell off…  I couldn’t get to him, the rope was too short.  Would you help us?’

I ushered him in, slapped on the kettle, and rang the McKeeffes who ran a car rescue service and owned a pick-up truck and plenty of rope.  Upon further thought, I also contacted the Order of Malta. I filled two flasks with hot tea, slathered in plenty of honey, and sloshed a shot of poteen into each. While pressing one of the flasks into the hands of the handsome Ginger, I murmured: ‘I’ll get the car, your friend needs a hot drink and company while the rest will be arriving,’ and raced into the backyard where the old Polo was squatting in the mud.

As the car started, the drops of water on the windscreen became tears, then streams, then rivers. The gray cloth began to look heavier.  I couldn’t think of anything else but Paul who was lying alone down the tougher side of the slope, probably barely breathing, perhaps…  Suddenly my own eyes filled with tears. I did not know Paul, nor could I even imagine what he looked like. It was the thought of a human being having to experience what this Paul must be going through at this moment if he were still able to see or feel anything. 

I felt Ginger’s eyes on me and realised that I need to be courteous. Paul was his friend and he was in need of my support, not vice versa. 

‘What is your name?’ I asked politely, while unexpectedly perceiving a blush on my face upon realising that Ginger was holding his now empty flask against his heart as if it were the hand of a beloved.  He startled and quickly turned his head away; then he turned back.  ‘Luke,’ he muttered and very much withdrew into himself.  His eyes had been as wet with tears as mine and the car windscreen…  We fell into silence again.

Paul’s crumpled body was lying further down than I had hoped, but at least I could not see any blood.  His position was awkward.  I squeezed the remaining flask into my rucksack, and Jamie and I lowered ourselves as close to him as the rope allowed us.  Paul was now about 2 meters below us, lying motionlessly, eyes closed in his tired, pale face.  Suddenly I felt overwhelmed and distraught.  He was probably dead, and the thought of having to face his family and experience their grief on top of mine robbed me of reason. 

‘If I tied the rope around my feet and held onto yours securely, do you think you could crawl down to Paul and see how he is?’

The peace in Luke’s voice sounded astonishing.  I had heard of people whose brilliance would come to its full force when in extreme distress; Luke now came across as one of them.  I nodded silently and, after Luke had securely harnessed his feet, laid face down on the wet rock in front of him.  Upon feeling his firm grip around my ankles I started to slide myself forward, trying not to feel afraid.  A couple of moments later I reached Paul and asked Luke to let go of my feet.

Paul’s hair was black.  It easily blended in with the thickening shadows of the approaching winter night.  There was a faint pulse, he was alive.  ‘Paul,’ I whispered into his ear as if he were my lover. ‘Paul, all is well, we are here…’  I covered him with a blanket I had secured to my belt before the descent, and moistened his lips with the warm tea.  What else could I do?  Help to keep him warm with my own body heat?  I laid down beside him and gently took him into my arms. 

Everything disappeared.  Baffled, I realised that I was now standing in a dark space seemingly leading nowhere.  It was quiet, so quiet; only the midst of many tonnes of rock can be so soundless.  This was so surreal that I couldn’t even feel fear.  In fact, I felt nothing at all. 

After an eternity I decided to move forward.  There was no sign of Paul, or Luke.  Amazingly, I wasn’t even worried about them, or about myself.  A strange calm had descended over me.  I started walking on the smooth floor, holding my hands out in front of me.  After a while I began to notice a patch of faint blue light far ahead in the distance.  As I walked it became bigger, until I realised it to be something I could only remember from a very distant past – a patch of blue sky as viewed from the inside of a cave.  It could not have been real, because as I continued walking towards it, I began to hear the sound of rain again.  Yet, it wasn’t rain... It was a clear stream trickling down at the side of the cave, near its entrance. 

The lush, soft, and dry green grass in front of the cave looked irresistible; suddenly I felt tired.  My eyes closed almost before my body touched the ground and the dreams began pouring in.  I saw two handsome young men rushing towards me, with one of them moistening my lips with a healing drink, and the other gently caressing me and whispering into my ear as if he were my lover: ‘Aenea, all is well, were are here…’  Deep, deep down somewhere I suddenly understood the truth of everything and continued falling deeper and deeper asleep while the voices of the two men beside me grew more mature and began to mix with the voices of children.  I knew that perhaps I needed to choose, but even this was of no concern…  I slept, now in a flowering meadow; millions of flower seeds in the green grass had grown into flowers, and among the flowers more seeds grew into trees. 

I woke from a tickle in my nose.  My face was burrowed into the black hair of a man whom my hands had been caressing in my sleep.  Sitting up with a jolt, I looked up towards the sky and sighed with relief: it was still blue.  We had been resting under a tree.  ‘What a dream,’ I thought while watching our children playing beside the nearby stream.  How could I even think that there could ever have been anything different from this beautiful blue sky and the golden, life-giving sun? 

‘I had such a nightmare,’ I told Paul, my soulmate and beloved, as he woke.  ‘A terrible nightmare.’ 

Luke approached, carrying the breakfast tray.  His hair was still making that fascinating contrast with the sky, but his eyes were now as bright blue as I had visualised them to be in that weird nightmare.  In reality, we were not in Spain or Majorca.  In fact, I did not know where we were at all.  Somehow, it did not matter.  We were happy here: I, my two lovers, and all our children; and our time had become an eternity. 

‘Nightmare,’ Luke said and gave me an affectionate kiss as he was putting down the breakfast tray.  There was something in these blue eyes, something I could not give a name to… 

‘Don’t think of it,’ said Paul.  ‘It’s over.  I love you.  We love you.’ 

When the helicopter of the Order of Malta arrived at the mountainside, all they could find were Argus and Liam McKeeffe who were searching for the missing two men and the young woman who had gone to help them.  Aenea Henderson’s old Polo was still parked at the foot of the mountain, and there was a hanging rope on the slope with a loop at the end of it as if it had been tied around something.  An empty flask was lying on the ground.  The tracks of the missing three led up the mountain and onto the slope, and disappeared.