II

Her eyes flutter open at the sound of her name, and she finds herself being cradled gently, protectively, in somebody’s arms.

“Where am I?” she asks, almost reflexively, and immediately finds a pair of concerned eyes inches away from her own.

“Please tell me the spill wasn’t as bad as it seemed.” Her companion’s eyes dart anxiously around, apparently checking her for any signs of obvious head traumas.

“Spill?” She feels disorientated, and seems unable to remember what happened before she was unconscious.

Her erstwhile human pillow brushes errant strands of hair away from her eyes and gently slides a hand to the back of her head. “Yes, the spill you took that caused this bump here.”

“Ow!” She winces. The bump she does not remember having hurts like hell. “Now I know I am not dreaming.”

“No shit, Dorothy, and you ain’t in Kansas either.” She feels the gentle reverberations of her companion low chuckles. “That’ll teach you to try roller-blading with an over-grown Husky puppy on a leash.”

She groans. “No, that’ll teach me not to try roller-blading with an over-grown Husky puppy on a leash.”

Her companion snorts. “Uh-huh … just imagine, under one-millionth of a percent of Mr. and Mrs. Ant’s ten billion relatives and progeny were fatally or otherwise injured as a result of your spill, assorted dust bunnies not included in count. Authorities have not ruled out foul play.”

She snickers, “Foul? Nah-ah, it’s canine,” then lets out an involuntary chuckle. “Sometimes, darling, I wonder if your sense of humor stems from your mother having dropped you on the head as a child.”

She feels herself gathered up in a strong yet gentle embrace and her companion’s warmth as a kiss is dropped on her nose. “Oh-ho, five minutes into consciousness she’s already mouthing off at me. Come on Ms. Smart-mouth, I think you’re well enough for a lesson or two today, provided you are swaddled to the teeth in protective gear, of course.”

Sara sits up and gently feels out the bump on her head. “Lessons?” she asks in puzzlement.

“Yeah, roller-blading lessons. I’m not going to have you take such a nasty spill again. You scared the crap outta me when I found you unconscious in the kitchen last night.” Dar gets out of the bed and pulls Sara to her feet.

“I did?” murmurs Sara, frowning in her murky recollection.

Dar envelops her in another hug and rubs noses with her. “You darn well did, Miss ‘I don’t ice skate with a helmet, so why should I roller-blade with one’,” Dar kisses her again. “Although we recited the ‘in sickness and in health, till death to us part’ bit, I really prefer that we put off death for a long time.”

Sara feels a firework of warm and gooey feelings bubble and erupt within her. Impulsively, she pulls her tall companion to her and half-kisses, half-whispers into the crevice where Dar’s long neck and strong shoulders meet, “I love you too.”

“But I love you more.”

Sara feels the vibrations as the words are whispered in her ears, and savors the intensity and genuine sentiment of the words.

:::

“How is she doing, Doctor?” the anxious mother asks.

The elderly doctor pats her shoulder reassuringly and gives her a compassionate smile. “Don’t worry, she will wake. It’s only a matter of time. You have to have faith, and patience.”

The worried woman gently strokes the cheek of the comatose young woman on the bed.

:::

“Okay, Princess, try to skate on the outside of your ankles. Don’t let ’em collapse,” Dar instructs Sara who looks adorably like a sausage, all padded in protective gear, topped off with a bright pink safety helmet.

Sara starts to move wobbly towards Dar, one foot at a time, looking frustrated. “Damn it to hell Dar, I feel like a toddler learning to walk!”

“And you look twice as adorable,” Dar teases her affectionately.

At that moment, Sara loses her balance and stumbles in to Dar’s waiting arms. But the force of the sudden movement causes both of them to topple over, with Dar as a cushion for Sara.

“Oomph!” Sara tries to scramble up and worriedly feels about Dar’s head. “Did I hurt you?”

Dar’s lips curve into a lazy grin. “Well,” Dar drawls slowly, “nothing that a kiss won’t make better.”

Sara laughs and plants a loud smacker on Dar’s lips. “Better?” she winks down at companion.

Dar lifts an eyebrow questioningly and thinks for a moment. “No.”

Sara pretends to consider the reply seriously. “Okay, here’s all I can do,” she murmurs as she moves down again to Dar’s waiting lips for a kiss that seems to fuse their physical beings and souls into one eternally …

:::

“Look at that! Look! She moved her fingers. I saw her move her fingers!”

The doctor gently eases the excited woman aside and peers with a penlight into each of the eyes of his patient, then shakes his head. “You must be patient. She will wake,” he tells the mother.

:::

“Dar?” Sara eventually decides to confess one morning when they are snuggling in bed in their big white bedroom. “I think I’m overly dependent on you. I don’t know what’s going on with me. Every time I wake up and find myself alone in bed, I’m thrown into such a panic. I – I think I’m …”

But Dar only smiles and silences her with a kiss. “I feel the same way too.”

“No, you don’t understand,” protests Sara, twisting her head up and gazing into her companion’s eyes. “I’m always worried that I’ll wake up one day and find you gone. Every morning that I wake up without you beside me, I wake with the feeling that my worst fears have come true. I love you, but I don’t think I want to be so dependent on you. This isn’t healthy, is it?”

Dar strokes Sara’s hair gently. “Then I’ll make sure I won’t leave the bed till you wake.”

Sara shakes her head. “Somehow, I get this feeling I’ll wake up one day, and you’ll be gone.” Sara bites down on her lower lip and looks away. Then she mumbles, “I don’t know why the hell I’m so insecure …”

Dar tugs at Sara’s chin so they are nose-to-nose again. “Sara, if you ever find me gone, then it means I’m already searching for you; and I know you’ll be looking for me too. Until you find me in person, you’ll always find me in your heart.”

Sara’s eyes begin to tear. “You’re not in my heart,” she whispers. “You’re in every part of me, so much so that I don’t know where you end and where I begin. I see only you in my conscious and unconscious hours.”

Dar’s smile is so bright that it almost hurts for Sara to look. “And you’re as intrinsic to me as my soul is - Sara, you are my soul.”

It is then Sara starts to cry in earnest. “And you are my end and my beginning, my love and my life.”

:::

“It has been two weeks, doctor. When will she wake?” the worried mother wrings her hands and frets openly.

The doctor shakes his head at her. “Now, now; I told you, you must have patience. Some patients regain consciousness as quickly as a day’s time, but more often than not, they take as long as a year to wake. It has only been two weeks-” the doctor stops abruptly. The mother who is sitting beside the bed with her head in her hands looks up in time to see her daughter’s eyes flicker open.

Sara opens her eyes and immediately realizes she is alone in bed in a white room. She tries to fight the panic she feels rising in her but she cannot control her rapidly escalating panic.

The mother bursts into relieved tears and reaches out for her daughter’s hand. “I’m here, I’m here; mummy’s here.”

The doctor immediately orders a couple of nurses into the room and begins to give his patient a thorough checkup, but is bewildered when his patient starts to weep in earnest.

After another week in the hospital for further examinations, the doctor finally declares his patient fit enough to go home. He is pleased with how quickly she has healed despite having been through a horrendous car crash. The mother, only too happy to have her daughter back, refuses to talk about the accident or even sue the cab driver whose cab her daughter had been traveling in when it crashed into a bus moving out of the bus lane at a busy bus stop. The police confirmed that the cab driver had been speeding and did not have ample time to stop for the bus. The people in the bus and at the bus stop escaped with only minor injuries.

Sara now spends her waking hours in a depression, wondering. Is she dreaming now or was she dreaming before? Did she dream of Dar, or was she dreaming when she lay in the hospital? Had she dreamt about Dar teaching her to roller blade, or was the series of medical tests done on her just a dream? Her family put her dazed state to trauma; her doctor had been concerned initially but found nothing wrong with her neurologically and physically. He recommends consultations with a psychiatrist.

Sara finds herself wandering in a maze of bright lights and strong scents one evening when someone steps on her toes.

“Sorry, I wasn’t watching my step.”

As Sara turns to the person who has just apologized to her, a sudden realization hits her hard. She pushes past the bewildered man and hurries out of the store. She feels a tear slides down her cheek as she urgently makes her way to the exit.

“I’m not dreaming; I’m awake now,” she whispers painfully to herself and closes her eyes. She sees Dar behind her closed lids and remembers Dar’s promise, but still feels so lost and so alone. Where am I to start searching for you when I’m not even sure if you’re only in my head?

Sara makes her way blindly through the throngs of people milling about on the busy streets. With every step that she takes, she finds herself growing more desperate and more hysterical.

Suddenly, she stops in the middle of the pavement and people have to veer in their courses to avoid walking into her. They are all staring openly and curiously at Sara now, but she does not see them. She looks up at the darkening evening sky and stares hard. She imagines that she is flying towards and about the wide expanse of deep blue with the wisps of pink weaving through it.

close my eyes so I can see

She closes her eyes and sends a heartfelt wish to the sky above: “Find me, and let me find you, Dar.”

When the police later interrogate the driver in question and several eyewitnesses in the vicinity, every single one of them is as clueless as the next as to why the young lady had walked resolutely onto the main road near the blind corner just as the traffic light changed.

make my make-believe believe
in me

:::

“I was just wondering where you were, Sara.”

Sara turns instantly towards Dar’s voice and answers with a smile so wide that it almost hurts. “Finding you, my love; finding you.”