Come Alive Ch. 34

We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.

Stand up me hearties, yo ho.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.

Then they were plunging down through the darkness, water roaring all around them -- until they were adrift once again, floating through what had to be another world...

+++++

Rolf looked at the envelope once again; it was tucked inside the front cover of the three-ringed binder Henry had left on his bunk, and the envelope was marked "do not open until noon on 28 December" in handwriting that was clearly NOT Henry's.

But now it was time.

"Granma-ma? Tracy? Could you come here please?" he called out, and when they had joined him he showed them the envelope, and read aloud the instructions as well, taking time to note that the handwriting on the envelope was not, as best he could remember, Henry's.

"Well? Go ahead. Open it," his grandmother sighed, now clearly even more exasperated with Henry Taggart's never-ending and nonsensical dramas...

Rolf pulled the envelope free of the binder and opened it.

There was a letter inside. Typed. And three passes -- to Disneyland Paris -- but Rolf handed these to Tracy while he started reading the letter aloud.

"Hi all," the writer of this missive began, "sorry to drag you out of the boat on such a warm winter's day, but I need you to head out to Disneyland now, and make sure you board the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at exactly six this evening. Thanks, Henry."

"What?" Dina cried. "Are you kidding me?"

But Rolf shook his head as he passed over the letter, and as she yanked the paper from his hand Tracy help up the three Annual Passes and read aloud "Disneyland Paris, Pass Begins Only on Date Indicated." And there at the top of the ticket was the date: 28.12.24. She scanned the ticket for more clues and found the tickets had been purchased more than a month ago by one Taggart, H. at the concierge desk inside the Hotel Crillon, and right away she knew Henry was behind all this.

"It's legit," she said as she read off the last four digits of the credit card he'd used. "He bought the passes almost a month ago, too."

"Alright," Rolf said, "let's get our coats and go."

"You do so if you want, but I'll not be joining you," Dina hissed.

"There are three passes, Granma-ma. Henry wanted all of us to go or else he wouldn't have..."

"And I don't give a damn what Henry Taggart wants -- or wanted! I'm done with all these endless games, so I'll be flying back to Bergen tonight."

Tracy clinched her jaw and ground her teeth, and after both Dina and Rolf took note of the change that had come over her, Dina backed away a little.

"Actually," Tracy growled, "you're coming with us right now. Grab a coat if you like, but we're leaving now; you can get back on your fucking broomstick and go wherever the hell you like after we get back..."

+++++

The orcas surrounded Henry, forming a perfect circle around him while he tread water in the space between them, in the center of their circle...

+++++

They were sitting in some kind of Captain Jack Sparrow-themed restaurant, spooning little mouthfuls of soup while they looked at people floating by on this peculiarly French version of Pirates of the Caribbean. Rolf looked at his phone and saw they still had almost a half hour before they needed to board the ride, already a little excited about doing this, because, he hated to admit, he'd always wanted to come here but his mother had told him a gazillion times that they just didn't have enough money for a trip like this.

Yet, here he was. But while he had some vague idea where his mother was, she was so inaccessible now as to be...what? Gone. Like Henry, perhaps? Now dead and gone? Because if she really was living fifteen million years in the future...

"I detest that music," Dina groused. "Over and over...yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirates life for me. How nauseatingly American! Such mindless barbarism masquerading as hedonistic materialism!"

Tracy shook her head. "Gee. Ever here of just cutting loose and having a little fun with your grandson? Or is that simply beneath you, Dina?"

Yet Dina ignored the question and turned to Rolf. "What about you? Have you ever wanted to come here?"

"Only all my life!"

"What? Why on earth...?"

"Because, Granma-ma, this is a playground of the imagination, and I grew up with these movies. This is very special to me..."

"And that," Tracy added, "is why we're here, Dina. But I can understand why you'd be upset that a total stranger knew more about your grandson than you..."

"Do you know what is worse?" Rolf asked. "Listening to you two bickering at one another. God! Look around you! Let your mind run free for a while but please, please, just let go of all this hate for just one stinking, miserable minute!"

Then Rolf threw back his chair and walked away.

"Nicely said," Tracy muttered.

"I had no idea..." Dina sighed, wiping away a tear -- but she caught herself and sat upright and sucked in a deep breath. "For his sake, we must find a truce between us," she said, her voice just barely above a whisper.

"Oh really? Why?"

"You are insufferable, you do know that, don't you?"

"Listen close, Dina. I don't know why you're here, other than to get some work done on Rolf's boats while we're away..."

"Away? Away? What does this even mean, this away? First, there is this vanishing priest, then all these mysteries surrounding my daughter and that other girl..."

"You can't even say her name, can you? Henry loved her and yet you can't..."

But Dina broke out in laughter. "Oh, you poor fool! Haven't you figured out yet that our dear Henry loved absolutely everyone? -- but that when you love everyone, you in effect love no one?"

Tracy sat back and sighed, now more than angry. "You were with him, what? Five months, or was it six? And in that time, in all that vast amount of time," she continued, her voice suddenly dripping with overwrought sarcasm, "you never once saw past your own worldview. Your own take on love. You never once, Dina, saw into Henry's heart, saw just how much love was waiting in there, just waiting to reach out. Waiting -- maybe even for you. For you to reach out and embrace what he had to offer?"

Dina nodded. "And what did he have to offer, Tracy? Nothing more than an illusion, just like this place...it is all an illusion. Worse, really; his love was more a delusion, a blind alley...a place that felt oh so comfortable until you discovered that his love was leading nowhere..."

"Love is love, Dina. Love doesn't take you places, it won't lead you to bliss or nirvana. Love simply allows us to find what is in our own heart, and then, and only then, can we share our own gifts."

"You speak in delusions, Tracy."

"I speak the language of empathy, Dina. A language you know nothing about."

"Maybe that's why he was attracted to you."

"God, I hope so."

Rolf walked up to the table, his hands stuffed in his coat pockets. "I have paid the bill. It is time. We must go get in the line to be there at the correct time."

Dina growled. "That infernal music! Won't someone please make it stop?!"

+++++

They made it through the line with plenty of time to spare; Dina's eyes kept darting about like a cornered animal's and the closer they got to the boarding area the more they darted -- yet by the time they stepped into the front row of the little boat she was having trouble breathing...

"Dina?" Tracy asked. "Are you alright?"

Dina shook her head. "Something is not right. Something is going to happen to us."

"Grandma-ma? What do you mean?"

"Can't you feel it?" Dina hissed. "Like black space...like gravity pulling and stretching us..." she just managed to say as she began weeping. "Time dilating...slipping away...we're slipping away...like sand..." she said as the little boat took off into the twilit bayou with moss-draped trees on one side and a restaurant on the other...just before they fell into a maelstrom of dancing fireflies...

"What the hell is going on?" Tracy cried. "There's something going on, something is not right..." she said as their little boat began falling away through the fireflies into a sea of complete darkness...

Then in an instant the sensation of speed, of an immense stretch of time passing in the blink of an eye, inflating as new, discordant feelings grew beyond the merely gut-wrenching -- but by that point, Dina had been screaming for hours.

+++++

He was aware of them, of course. How the chill waters of the Pacific grew warm as they surrounded him. How, with his head just out of the water, their huge black faces seemed to tower over his own. Yet -- he was just barely aware of their presence -- as the music seemed to be flooding once again through the fabric of the universe. A strange piece, classical, almost a dirge, and as he bobbed on the waves he felt an endless sorrow unfolding around them -- this pod of orcas and himself.

Then...a new feeling and the impression was unmistakable...the music was coming from...his orca...this new friend of his.

The orca came close and leaned in to meet Henry halfway, and instinctively Henry turned to meet his friend. He placed the side of his face on the orca's, right beside the whale's huge brown eye, and the music exploded -- literally exploded into his mind.

Then the visions came. Of strangers. Of people he had never known. Yet.

'How do I know that?' he asked the orca.

'Listen. See with your heart.'

Then he saw Edith with two men, men he must've known once, or would know someday.

And still that music played...this infernal dirge...surrounding him, filling his soul with despair.

Then another explosion of light.

A boy. The eyes of a child. Seeing the world again, through the eyes of a child...

Sitting between two women? Why?

A mother? A grandmother? Who were these people?

Then the orca pulled away, all contact broken. Images like sand falling to the bottom of an hourglass, because his life was passing too quickly now, the sand slipping through his fingers as winds came for him...

He opened his eyes and looked around.

The orcas were gone. Nowhere to be seen.

But the boat was gone, too. Rupert. Pete. All of them. Everything gone.

Then...another orca. A female. Very old, almost ancient.

A grandmother. The real leader of the pod.

She came up to him and looked him in the eye.

Understanding. Empathy.

No...it was sympathy.

"Why do you feel sorry for me?" he asked.

She leaned close, her meaning clear. He leaned into her.

"Come with me. It is time."

"Time? What do you mean?"

"Your time. It is at an end. Come with me."

She moved away and began to swim off, then he saw she was turning, circling back to him, waiting for him.

Henry Taggart went to her, he reached out to her, and when he had hold of her she started down into the darkness.

'This is so easy,' he thought as his mind gave up on the idea of taking another breath.

Pinpricks. Like starshine on his naked soul. Pinpricks and light. Cold light. Light wiping away the darkness. Then that vision again, of the boy with two women by his side.

And music.

'I know that music,' Henry Taggart sighed. 'How many times was I there? Yo-ho, yo-ho...'

He thought he felt Edith just before he felt Claire standing there inside the blinding light -- only now she was the wind, the wind with her arms all around him.

*****

Come Alive is at an end, and I hope you have enjoyed the trip. In the not too distant future look for a coda, and look to The Eighty-Eighth Key for all your unanswered questions. This work © 2020-21 adrian leverkühn | abw | and of course this was a work of fiction, pure and simple. All music herein quoted under the Creative Commons, including lines from Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me) © 1967 by the Walt Disney Music Co. Ltd., music by George Bruns, lyrics by Xavier Atencio. Thanks for coming along. A