Diakrino’s deadly howl resounded through the land. It was falling fast. Mouth agape. Rows of serrated teeth ready to claim a victim.
“Uh…uh…okay…so…there are three guys on a desert island…and they…uh…they find a lamp with a genie who grants them all one wish…”
The dragon swooped. Only a few seconds now…
“The first one wishes he was off the island and poof, he disappeared and was sent back to his home country. The second one wishes he was off the island and poof, he disappears and is sent back to his home country, too. Then comes the third one, and he says, ‘Well, I’m kind of lonely now…so I wish my two friends were back.’”
Diakrino’s shriek filled the night. A few dozen yards away…and the three men did nothing but lifelessly stare…unimpressed.
Then, slowly, the corner of Darwin’s mouth rose up. “Ha, not bad.” And with one quick wallop, the giant grabbed a mug of beer and swung it at the dragon’s nose just as it reached the deck. The animal let out a bloodcurdling moan of anguish before flying off into the night, making its escape. Darwin watched as the monster vanished over the horizon then lifted the mug to his lips, took a long drink, and exhaled in satisfaction. “Ahhh. You see what a little confidence does for ya, lad?”
Sam gasped in the chair, still fighting off the shakes. Nedry burped and groaned, his mouth covered in juices, a wide smile beneath his sleepy eyes.
Any physics teacher will tell you that time never actually speeds up or slows down. That it’s just a myth. But any psychology teacher will tell you otherwise. And to four of Sam’s five family members sitting in the lobby of the hospital, the two hours he was in surgery felt like a week. His father, on the other hand, was too busy watching a basketball game to really notice.
Finally, the double doors swung open. The surgeon walked out, her mask tucked under her chin.
And she didn’t look happy.
22
The Grotto of Purpose
The bonfireroared on the beach. The stars glittered in the black sky. Cook and Doc danced to a fiddle, kicking up sand as Nedry happily fetched sticks, wagging his tail. It was like a merry party in an old pub. Of course, with much larger company. Even Sam got involved, though he had to use two hands to drink from the enormous mugs which the giants picked up so easily. At one point Nedry jumped on him and he fell back into the sand, laughing as the dinosaur licked his cheeks.
“I knew the boy would loosen up eventually!” Doc hollered, his voice carrying over the surrounding jungle. “A little elixir goes a long way!” He chugged his beer and dropped the empty tankard to the ground, where it landed with a loud thump, kicking up dust.
As the festivities continued, Sam drunkenly stumbled to a log around the fire and sat next to Darwin, who had remained guardedly quiet throughout the night. He towered over Sam’s comparatively meek frame, the top of the boy’s head barely reaching the end of the giant’s long beard. He watched his two companions blankly, a solemn look in his eyes. He had an elbow to his knee and smoked a lengthy pipe, the smoke rings of which made odd shapes as they dissolved in the nighttime air.
“Enjoying yourself?” Darwin asked in his gruff, resonant voice.
“Yes, actually. I’m not sure what’s in that beer, but—”
“Nothing.”
“What? Uh, did you just say ‘nothing’ is in it?”
“Nothing at all. Wheat. Barley. No alcohol.” He took a long puff and let out a smoke ring large enough to crawl through. He whispered, “But don’t tell the others. It is the thought that makes them happy.”
“Uh…right…” He suddenly felt disappointed. He’d fallen victim to a placebo. And danced to it. Like an idiot. Great.
“Tell me, Sam Pierce. What are you doing here?”
“I, uh…I’m on my way…to somewhere…” He couldn’t remember. He knew he was following the road. Which led to some weird tower. Which led to more desert. Which led to a jungle. Which led here. Where was here? Where was he going? He honestly had no idea. “You know, I can’t really remember.” Sam smirked at the thought. “Doesn’t really seem important anymore, anyway. I like it here. Might stick around for a while.”
“Are you accepting that your journey will end in Oasis?”
He considered it. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Hmph.” The giant grunted and sighed. “So very young. So very stupid.”
“Stupid? I’m actually pretty sm—”
“Intelligence and sense are not one in the same.” He pulled a smaller pipe from one of his pockets. He lit the tobacco and handed it to his guest. “Here. It’s usually for children, but at your size…”
“Thanks…I guess…” Sam hesitantly took a puff, then coughed.
Darwin laughed, a hearty, cavernous guffaw. “You are still so young.”
“Not that young. I’m in my thirties with nothing to my name, struggling to keep my family alive. In my world, there are teenagers with millions of dollars for sounding good over voice modulation who couldn’t pass a kindergarten spelling test and go around beating women.”
“Voice modulation?”
“Nothing. Never mind. So, what’s your story?”
“Bitter, I suppose. Much like yours.”
“Mine?”
Darwin took another long drag. Exhaled deeply. “Your words are laced with anger, Sam Pierce. Even if you do not mean them to be. You feel slighted by life. And you carry your pain with you, like a virus, wherever you go.”
“Maybe so, but I keep it inside.”
“Do you?” The titan tapped the bottom of his pipe to the face of Sam’s broken watch, who immediately covered it in shame with his free hand. “Memories are wonderful gifts, but some can be poisonous. Some leave scars. Scars we carry with us the rest of our lives to remind us of our pain.” He blew out a circle of smoke in the shape of a ring of metal with a diamond mounted to the top. It dispelled in the breeze. “It is harder to remember the good ones. Since happiness leaves no wounds.”
“Didn’t have a whole lot of those growing up.” Sam stared into the fire. The reflection flickered in his glassy eyes. “Taking care of younger siblings was a full time job. My father didn’t do it. My mother worked so she couldn’t do it. I never had guidance. I just had to figure it out for myself.”
“And you do not feel that it made you a stronger person?”
“What’s the point of strength if I have nothing to show for it?”
Silence. Doc, Cook and Nedry had moved into the water, splashing about playfully. Nedry had even caught a fish, which he displayed proudly as the two giants cheered him on.
Darwin sprinkled fresh tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. “Nothing to show for it?”
“I look around, and I see all these other people who have everything I’ve ever wanted. Good jobs, respect, wives, children. And they take it all for granted. People cheat. They go corrupt for greed. They neglect their kids. And yet they’re happy. They have the lives they want, yet don’t deserve. And then there’s me. I try my best to be a good man…but I have nothing.” He breathed in smoke from the end of his pipe. The ring he exhaled was flat and broke up almost instantly.
“There is no denying that some people have it easier than others.”
“Easier?” Sam looked at the bearish man like he’d just said the most stupidly obvious thing in the world. “Let me tell you a little bit about my life. I woke up every day as a child sacrificing breakfast so my sisters could have some. I had to go from school to school because we kept getting evicted so I could never make any friends. I had to watch while everyone else got to make Christmas lists while I had to hope the dollar store had a sale if I wanted any presents. I had to listen to my own father boo me at a soccer game when I was little because I wasn’t as good as the other kids.”
“This is good.” Darwin sucked in more smoke. “Tell me more. Let it out. Don’t bottle it.”
“When I was twenty years old my mother asked me a favor. She’d gotten behind on her electric bill and they were going to cut it
off over Christmas. So, she asked me if she could use my name to open a new account. How could I say no?”
“Difficult, yes.”
“Thank you! All I heard about was what an idiot I was for doing it. But anyone who says they wouldn’t have…”
Darwin nodded. “I assume this did not turn out exactly how you planned?”
“I was struggling to pay my way through school at the time. I didn’t think about it. It didn’t show up until I was looking for a job. Took me forever to find one because I was considered untrustworthy. Then when I did, I was considered a bribe risk for having student loans since my parents weren’t rich enough to afford my tuition, so they let me go. Next thing I knew I was on the street again. Punished for doing the right thing. Or trying to, anyway. And that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the way people looked at me when I was let go. Like I wasn’t anything more than a common criminal.”
“Your anger stems from jealousy over the things you do not have?”
He paused. “It’s hard to explain. It’s just…one step forward, three back, you know? Like trying to climb out of a well that won’t stop crumbling around you. I just can’t keep up anymore. Sometimes I just want to…stop. Just stop.”
A brief gust of wind blew across the shore. The fire crackled. On the beach, the music continued as Nedry leapt between the shoulders of Cook and Doc, a game of tag. Sam was clenching his fists, glaring at the hissing flames.
“You know,” Darwin let out a heavy breath, “I was not always here, in Oasis. I once had a life. A difficult life. Like yours. Then, one day when I was very young, I came here, and I stopped.”
“And what happened next?” Sam unclenched his palms.
“Next? Well, it’s quite a short story, I’m afraid. I went to sleep one day, right about your age, and woke up right about mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that a life of struggles is not a life wasted. A life of stoppage is a life wasted.” He looked out over the lake. Blew another smoke ring. Spoke dreamily. “I often wonder what would have become of me if I hadn’t given up. You know what will happen if you do. Nothing. Nothing will happen. But if you don’t…then you never know.”
“It just gets so frustrating…”
“As it should. If it didn’t, then you would not rightly appreciate the occasional gifts life grants…a trait that some people cannot seem to grasp.” He tugged at his beard, which shook in the draft. “Are you truly considering staying in Oasis?”
“Yes,” Sam answered defiantly. “There’s nothing out there for me. Nothing at all.”
Darwin sighed. He produced a smoke ring that made an arrow pointing to the little island at the center of the lake. “There is a cave on that islet, Sam Pierce.”
“What’s in there?”
“I do not know. Never have I had the courage to look. But I think that you should take the honor.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because you know what will happen if you never look. Nothing. But if you do…you just may find what you’ve been searching for.”
He was right back where he started. Tucked into a hospital bed, wired to machines and IVs. His chest steadily moved up and down. Half his body was wrapped in bandages. His eyes remained closed. The heart monitor beeped away.
“The surgery, as a whole, was successful,” Dr. Eade explained to his family just outside the room. “But we can’t bring him out of the coma.”
His father spoke coldly. “I thought you said he’d be fine once he got out?”
“I never said that. I said we’d do all we can, Mr. Pierce. Sam’s been through quite a lot the past few days. There’s no guaranteeing he’ll wake up any time soon. If at all.”
Those last words dawdled. John stared in at his son with a solemnness in his eyes Bev had never seen before, as if he’d been struck by some sudden and terrible realization. Even if he tried to hide it a moment later.
“Well, this is ridiculous.” He grumbled and turned back down the hall. “Call me when his ass wakes up.”
The music had died long ago. The three goliaths—and Nedry—slept near the fading fire, the orange glow of its last embers waning in the night. There was a wake in the lake made by a lone figure daring to swim across. After five minutes of huffing, puffing, and pushing his body to its limits, Sam emerged from the water and collapsed to the gravelly shore of the islet. He inhaled air, dripping wet, until his strength had finally returned enough for him to work his way up to the entrance of the cave.
Where a familiar sight was there to greet him.
Humming along to some sinister tune, the horrible creature known only as Jinx sat on a rock and clipped his distorted toenails by crunching them between stones.
“You again?” Sam muttered.
It looked up in surprise. “Sam-oo-el’s alive?” It cleared its throat and changed its tune. “Ah, I mean, oh thank goodness that Sam-oo-el’s alive!”
“Uh huh. I’ll be going into the cave now.”
“Ooooh, the Grotto of Purpose, is it?” Jinx leapt down from the rock with a smile on his face, clapping his hands excitedly.
“Um, yeah…I guess. What’s in there?”
“Only what you need to see! At that very moment in time! The purpose! Yours!”
“Uh, okay. Great.” He stepped toward the mouth of the hollow but the creature’s ugly fingers aggressively clasped his ankle.
“No!” It cut him off and stood boldly, guarding the opening. “If you want to enter the Grotto of Purpose, you must earn your way.”
“Alright. Whatever. How?”
“It’s simple!” Jinx smiled, venom in his voice. “We will play a game of brainteasers. If you win, you will be allowed to enter. If not, then—”
“I really don’t have time to waste a whole chapter on this.” Rolling his eyes, Sam grabbed the little gatekeeper by the scruff of his neck and set him off to the side.
“You can’t go in! You can’t! You must not know your—”
“Shut up.”
The annoying drone of Jinx’s protests dwindled as Sam walked deeper into the cave. The moonlight only went so far, and soon he was marching in near pitch black. He could hear water dripping from stalactites and felt the ground gently slope downward. The dark passage started to brighten, though only dimly, with a faint azure blue. He eventually came to an enormous chamber under the lake with ceilings stretching upwards of a hundred feet. At the center was a rustic, circular pool fifty feet in diameter with water like glistening sapphire. It glowed, illuminating the grotto and casting dancing shadows on the rocky walls.
“This is it?” He stepped into the pool, which came up to about his knees, and sloshed to the middle. There he stood, looking around the empty void of stone, waiting for something to happen. “Hello? Anyone?” His voice bounced around the cavity, but was otherwise unanswered. He was left with only the sounds of trickling water and the fluttery wings of bats perched far over his head, paying him no mind. And for the first time in a great while…since he’d spent many nights staring out the windows of his apartment in Manhattan, he felt really, truly alone.
Delaney stood over him, listening to the heart monitor struggle to overpower the sound of the rain pelting the window. “Are you gonna come back, Sam? I need you to come back.”
Outside, John Pierce asked, “Who is that girl, anyway?”
“Her name’s Delaney,” Bev answered. “And I think they’ve known each other a long time.”
“I thought you told me earlier that they just met?”
“They did,” she smiled. “But they always knew…”
He grumpily shook his head, confused. “God, you’re weird.”
“Maybe. Maybe…”
In the room, Del sniffled and pressed her forehead to Sam’s, staring into his closed eyes, feeling his shallow breaths on her face. She whispered gently. “My daddy used to sing me a song when I was feelin’ down. I know you’ve heard me hum it all them times you was too scared to talk to m
e.” A light chuckle escaped. Then, she started singing, her words barely a murmur, cracked by hopeful tears: “In the dark blue sky you keep…And through the clouds you often peep…”
“Hello?”
Through the darkness, he heard a voice. It resonated off the cavern’s rocks, echoing between stony formations as it filled the chamber.
Music.
Sam chased it, but could find no source. It grew louder, more energetic…wonderful.
“For you never shut your eye…’Till the sun is in the sky…”
“Hello?”
He pushed through the water, only to find himself back in the exact center of the grotto. Above, a large droplet began to form at the tip of a stalactite. It swelled and swelled and swelled until it was the size of a balloon.
“As your bright and tiny spark…Lights the traveler in the dark…”
It broke from the tip of the rock and dove toward Sam, who leapt out of the way as the glob of fluid plunged into the water, where it created a ripple of orange that radiated through the pool.
A thin orange ring within a backdrop of sapphire blue.
“Delaney…” he whispered to himself, the memory—the good ones—coming to sudden fruition. He finished the song with her as a translucent female figure rose from the water.
“Though I know not what you are…”
She caressed his cheeks, rubbing them with her thumb as she finished.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star…”
And as she gazed upon his face, she got the sense that, despite the idea that he may have been trapped in a completely different time, a completely different place or even a completely different world, he could see her. He could feel her. That he knew she was there. And that gave her a strength she’d never known.
In the pool, Sam approached the figure and looked into its soul. And he got the sense that despite the fact that Delaney was in a completely different time, a completely different place or even a completely different world, that she was with him. And it gave him a strength he’d never known.
Farewell from Paradise Page 15