Coronado Dreaming (The Silver Strand Series) (31 page)

I was out for three days. I don’t remember any of it. No Giddeon, no Boris, no golf or MangoMooManias. When I finally did open my eyes, she was there. She had never left my side. That was against all kind of hospital rules, but my physician was apparently a big-wig at the institution and allowed it.

Outside of my hospital room was a small circus, of sorts. Reporters and media waited in the hallway when they could get away with it, or, if not, in the lobby, for news. My brother apparently was accosted with questions each time he came and went; everyone wanted to know more about the guy that had come out of a coma to stop a wedding.

__________

We were a national story, and, a smash on YouTube. The Videographer for the wedding pretty much caught everything on camera. I have to give it to him, he was cool under pressure. From the high definition close up of ‘…
let them speak now or forever hold their peace
.’, to my butt-cheeks crashing through the door and rolling down the aisle, he never shook. Steady as a rock. It was some mighty fine camera work. Father McCreely going pale and falling backwards into the congregation’s arms… Melody leaning in close with tears streaming down her face. It was awesome.

The number of hits far exceeded anything ever posted.

__________

Her wonderful aroma invaded my world, once again. I swam through the darkness around me, struggled to consciousness and opened my eyes.

“Hi,” I said, again.

“Hi,” she replied. She was sitting beside my bed, holding my hand. Her eyes were glistening with tears as she gazed down at me. “I… dreamed of you.” Her voice was almost a whisper. A beautiful, melodious whisper.

“I know.”

Melody seemed like she could hardly believe the reality in the room around her… as if it was all still only part of a dream.
 
Then, she said, “You were really in a coma… for all of that time?”

“I’ve been trying so hard to get back to you,” I replied, softly.

She looked at me with those smoke grey eyes… all of creation was distilled down into two beautiful orbs.

“How did you get to the church? They almost arrested your brother… they thought he brought you there.”

“You won’t believe it right now, if I told you. We have… a lot to talk about.”

I tried to sit up a bit, but couldn’t do it. She hit a button on the side of my bed and tilted the back forward. “Could you get me a pencil and paper?” I asked. My voice was ragged, already going out.

There must have been something in the way I made the request that relayed urgency to her. Melody got quickly up, went through the door and then down to the lobby. I could hear a commotion along with shouted questions. After a few moments, she came back to my room with a notebook and a pen, evidently requisitioned from one of the reporters. She sat down and handed them to me. I tried to form my fingers around the instrument and write ‘Turmeric’ on the pad, but my muscles wouldn’t cooperate… that spice was the first ingredient on the list I had memorized. Melody took the writing utensil and notebook from me, and I dictated the list in my faltering voice. Then, I relayed the instructions. When I was done, I was exhausted. She leaned me back, questions in her eyes.

“You have cancer,” I said. “That will cure you. You have to drink it every day for a year.”

She nodded, as if humoring me.

“I feel fine. I’m just a little run down… that’s all.”

At that point, a male doctor and a female nurse came rushing into the room. I was surprised it had taken them so long to arrive; most likely the monitors and devices I was connected to had relayed my activity to the nurse’s station. I was just thankful for the few minutes that Melody and I had been able to share up until that point… it had at least given me the time to recite the formula to her before I forgot it.
 

The physician started examining me, shining a light in my eyes and probing here and there. Eventually, Jeremy and his wife also arrived; they were allowed brief access to me.

My brother hugged me gently, as if he was afraid I would break. Janice did the same.

The doctor, a nurse, and then another doctor… a specialist, I presume… all went over my reflexes, responses and chart for the better part of two hours. Melody, my brother and his wife all huddled out of the way, in the corner near a table, while they did.

When the experts were finally done, they pronounced that I needed to rest. I disagreed, since I had been asleep for 1472 days, counting the recent three. However, they won out, and everyone was ushered from the room. I wasn’t sure I should close my eyes because I wanted to make sure that I stayed on this side of reality. Eventually, however, I fell into a deep, sound slumber.

__________

When I awoke, she was there, again. Right by my side. I noticed a bandage was over her cubital
fossa
… the area from where blood is usually drawn. She reached out and took my hand.

“Hi, again.” This time, she said it with only a smile. No tears.

“Could I have some water?” Melody reached over and got a cup from the bedside table and positioned the straw, that was there in the liquid, near my lips. God, it tasted good. She tilted my bed up and gave me some more.

“Thanks.” I looked into those mesmerizing eyes, again, and asked, “Do you remember the dream? The night before you were supposed to get married?” A terrible thought then occurred to me. “You didn’t still get married, did you?”

I glanced down at her left hand. There was no ring there.

She shook her head gently back and forth. “No… I didn’t. And, I do remember the dream. It was beautiful… the city, the people flying through the air… the music.”

“Don’t forget the chocolate.” My voice was a little stronger.

“Oh, my God… the chocolate.”

I smiled and nodded. “It was real. The show, I mean. It was on a planet far away… thousands of years in the future.”

I saw a little crinkle between her eyebrows. I’m sure she was confused, and maybe wondering if she should call the doctor.

“I don’t understand…”

I nodded, again. “I was there. When I was in my coma. I saw it all. I saw so many things… so many places,” I half whispered.

She looked perplexed, and rubbed the back of my hand with her thumb as if trying to comfort me. “It was a beautiful dream… they all were…”

“I saw you. At your condo. With your cat, Samantha. You painted a picture of us at the table where we met. It’s perfect… almost like we never left.”

Melody held her other hand to her mouth; I could see her eyes glisten, once more, as they began to well up.

“It’s okay… I know it’s hard to take in. But, I was there… with you… when you were painting. I also saw you at the golf course, taking pictures of the water and the dolphin.” I asked for another sip of water to soothe my throat; once again, it tasted wonderfully. “You went there after a dream, to see for yourself. Boris came up to you, and…”

“Boris?”

“My cat. You petted him. He was in the dream… with me, and you, and Samantha… on the boat. I really like that painting, too, by the way.”

She removed her hand from mine and reached for some tissues beside the bed. She wiped her eyes, and looked at me with a mix of apprehension and wonder.

“How… is this possible? How do you know all of this?”

Another doctor barged into the room. Then, a nurse. Another examination ensued, and blood was drawn. Finally, after about twenty-five minutes, we were alone, again.

“I hardly know where to start.” I looked away for a few moments, and then back. “Let me start with this. I’ve been waiting to tell you this for four years.” My voice was leaving me, again.

She reached out to my hand. It felt so good to have it there, once more. I squeezed it with what little strength I had at my disposal.

That morning, I went through what had occurred on the other side. It took me the better part of the day because my vocal chords were so weak. She sat quietly, as in bits and pieces I relayed my experiences to her.

I told her of Giddeon, and how we could sample realities without being a part of those realities. How he was the subconscious component of my brain that I had somehow had access to due to my injury.

I explained that, as time went on, I mastered many different things with him mentoring me. I related how I had learned to play several musical instruments with skills I had never possessed, before; how I learned languages that I had had no prior exposure to; how my golf score went to scratch, and I had even learned to sail, and, to surf.

Those things didn’t totally seem out of the realm of possibility to her, I could tell. It was the rest of it that she had trouble with…

How Giddeon and I had traveled into the past and into the future… not once or twice, but, many, many times. How it was in one of those futures where we met four distant humans viewing my life… and, that they were the ones who had given us the cure she had written down.

Finally, I told her how Gid and I had struggled, and had made my blood and tissue a perfect match for hers.

I’m sure she went to sleep that night thinking that I was brain damaged from the trauma. The nurses had wheeled a trundle bed into the room for her, and I lay awake for a long time, just listening to her breathe.

__________

I could sense that she wanted to believe me, but it was all so ridiculously impossible that she found it hard to make the leap. I spoke to her in Italian… telling her how she meant everything to me. Then, in German. And then, again, in French. I knew that didn’t really prove anything… I could have just listened to language tapes as a hobby. However, she had no reason to believe that I would lie to her.

Jeremy assured her that I had never been able to speak anything but English, and that that was often questionable. She was so confused and conflicted. I was too weak to play any instruments for them at the time.

I made her photocopy the recipe from the other side, and give copies to my brother.

__________

Only when her blood report came back and confirmed what I had said, CML… Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia… did she begin to accept what I had been telling her. I tried to comfort her, and explained that we had three options:

Plan ‘A’, plan ‘B’, and, plan ‘C’.

Plan ‘A’, in my mind, was the formula. I felt certain that it would work; but, in case it didn’t, there was Plan ‘B’, which was conventional chemotherapy. If those two were to fail, then Plan ‘C’ was a bone marrow transplant using my tissue for a match.

I had the doctors take a blood sample from me and run it against hers. Two days later, my main physician came in with a thunderstruck expression upon his face and informed us of the results. He said the odds against it were millions to one.

Of course, the doctors wanted to aggressively treat her from the get-go. It was normally a slow growing type of cancer, but several markers gave them concern. She listened to their rationales and assured them she would think it over.

__________

Three days had passed when she came into my room with a copy of
Time Magazine
in her hands. Our photo was on the cover… it was eerily familiar. Melody was visibly shaken, and took out her I-Phone. She turned the lights down low in my room so that I could get the full effect, and then, showed me a picture. It was of a painting sitting on the easel in her condo. She had painted it following the dream she had had of us… the one where we had danced the ballet at The Greek.

The painting was identical to the Time Magazine photo, except for the slight impressionistic flavor around the edges.

The same angles, the same colors and tones.

She was looking down, with a veil thrown back over her head. I was turned away, and you could only partially see my face. A tear traced its way down her cheek. I looked at her and nodded.

“That’s the one. That’s the one from the ship.”