Twenty one and a Half Minutes…..
Sushant Sinha
Copyright Sushant Sinha 2010
Published by Penguins Publishing at Smashwords
I was careful not to slam the car door, even though I knew nothing in the world would rouse Cathy. Not yet, anyway. She would awaken at the same time she always did, not a moment sooner or later. Nothing I ever did could change that. Not a damn thing.
I leant against the driver’s-side door, looking in at my wife’s inert frame in the passenger seat. That unpleasant throb in my chest, the ache which had been with me for weeks now, had grown more intense in the past few minutes.
Was it guilt? Despair? Sadness?
All of the above, I decided.
I turned and walked away from the car, hands jammed into my jeans pockets. I looked up at the moon, cursing it silently in my head.
Piece of shit!
How many times had I done that? And how many times had I felt like an absolute fool for doing so? What good would it do throwing all my anger and hate at an inanimate object? Yes, the moon was supposed to be the cause of all this, but hating it was like trying to strangle a cloud. Pointless.
I checked my watch, 6:10, and took a deep breath. In exactly two minutes Cathy would wake from her coma. Her eyes would snap open and she would have those few moments of wide-eyed panic before she gradually grew accustomed to her surroundings, and then . . .
Then I would have to tell her.
I closed my eyes and saw an image of her running barefoot along the beach on a sun-scorched summer day. The image was so vivid, so startling, I forgot for a moment that it was a memory. I could see the fabric of her peach summer dress, hear the whisper of her feet through the fine sand, taste the salt in the breeze as it rolled in off the sea.
How long ago was that? Not so long.
I opened my eyes on that same stretch of beach, now washed in moonlight.
Darwin Bay. We’d spent so many good days here. I thought it would be the perfect place for what I was about to do, but now . . . now I wasn’t so sure.
I looked back at the car. I could just see Cathy’s head and shoulders, her staring eyes. Even in that state she still looked beautiful to me. What a cruel twist of fate it was that had turned her into this awful mannequin.
The syndrome was a variant form of encephalitis lethargic a, the dreaded ‘sleeping sickness’ which swept the world once before in the nineteen-twenties. This global epidemic was compounded by what the scientists referred to as a ‘super lunar effect’, an anomaly which kept the sufferer in a semi-permanent catatonic state.
Except for twenty one and a half minutes each day as in Cathy's situation.
In this hemisphere that was between 6:12pm and 6:33pm to be precise. Just like the previous occurrence in the Twenties the exact cause remained a mystery, but everyone, experts and laymen alike, had their own theories, everything from the scientific to the spiritual to the downright outlandish.
I didn’t know what to believe. All I knew was that my beautiful wife had been taken away from me, and in her place I was left with a lifeless waxwork, an echo of my former lover. Except, of course, for those twenty one and a half minutes.
I saw her body suddenly twitch in the passenger seat.
I glanced at my watch.
6:12.
Her head whipped rapidly from side to side as she struggled to orient herself. Over the past two years she had become better at it, adapting to the shock of waking much quicker. She jerked her upper body forward only to be stopped by her seatbelt. She looked down at the strap as if she had never seen it before, then slowly, patiently; she felt for the release button and undid the belt. Her eyes fixed on him through the windscreen glass and I saw the tightness in her expression fade. A smile spread across her face. As always, she remembered me instantly. I was her comfort zone, her constant in a world of confusion and darkness.
Don’t smile, Cathy, I said to myself. Please don’t smile. It’ll only make this harder.
Unable to bear it any longer I looked out at the calm waters again and tried to regain control over my breathing. I heard the car door open and then shut; heard her bare feet padding over the hard cobbled surface of the promenade as she came up behind me.
Then she was at my side and her cold fingers slipped into my own warm hand. I squeezed her hand before turning and looking at her.
“Hello, honey,” she whispered. Her voice was husky, the way it always was after she woke up.
“Hello, you,” I said.
She was as beautiful as she had always been, ever since I first saw her in the park all those years ago. A vision of flowing chestnut hair and brown eyes in a stunning white dress, walking barefoot across the grass.
I glanced down at her bare feet and smiled to myself. Why had I done that? Why had I deliberately left off her shoes? To make it harder for myself to do what I was about to do?
Probably. I’d always been a masochist.
She looked out over the glistening moonlit water, a smile spreading across her face.
“Darwin Bay,” she said. “You brought me to our favourite place.”
I nodded, my ability to speak stolen away. I was unable to share in her reminiscence because I knew the real reason why I’d brought her here. Yes, it was for sentimental reasons, but it was also to soften the blow.
“Cathy—”
“We’ve had the best times here, haven’t we?” Cathy said, leaning her head against my shoulder. “Remember when we brought your parents down here for a picnic and the water came in and washed away all the food?” She laughed a little girl’s laugh. “Your dad was furious. He didn’t see the funny side at all. Still doesn’t, does he?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, even that can’t spoil this place for us. Our special place.”
“Cathy?” I said, more forcefully this time. I waited until she looked up at me, until our eyes were locked, and in the next few seconds I watched as her smile crumbled. She knew what was coming, some part of her knew instinctively.
“Cathy,” I said. “I’m leaving you.”
Her eyes searched my face, desperately looking for some sign of a crack in my façade, some hint that this was just my idea of a cruel joke. It was all I could do just to keep looking at her.
“Leaving me?” she said.
I expected her to let go of me, but her grip on my hand tightened. Security. She relied on me so much. She was clinging to me like a drowning woman to a life raft. Only this life raft was treacherous.
“You’ve met someone else?”
“No,” I said. “No. Absolutely not. That’s not the reason—”
“Then why, Jude? Why do you want to . . .?” She trailed off, shaking her head.
I had thought this through so many times in the past few weeks and it had all seemed so well-reasoned, so clear in my head; but now I was being called on to say it out loud, it was like spitting stones.
I pulled away from her, breaking the handhold. It was impossible to tell someone when they were so physically close to you. I needed a little distance. I moved a few steps away, running my fingers through my hair.
“Cathy, this is so hard. So hard. I’ve stood by you all this time. I’ve been loyal to you, I’ve done everything I can for you, but . . . It’s like being loyal to someone who isn’t there.”
“But I am here, Jude. I never went away. I can’t help what’s happening to me.”
“I know. I know that. But that’s what makes it so bloody hard. There’s no one to blame, no one I can get mad at. Cathy, I love you.” The sound of those words coming from my own lips stopped me, my emotions swelling.
“I’m not dead,” Cathy said, her voice taking on a harder edge.
“But you might as well be, Cathy,” I said, instantly regretting it.
We stared at each other.
For a moment, just a moment, I thought about just leaving her, jumping in the car and driving away . . . but that was insane. I was still responsible for her. My watch said 6:28, which meant that in five minutes she would fall back into her coma and I would have to take her home.
I exhaled long and slow, then marched down the gentle slope of the beach until I was standing a few yards behind her.
“Who’s going to look after me?” she asked without turning round.
“Your mum,” I* said.
“You’ve already arranged it then?”
“Cathy, we’ve talked, that’s all. She’s always been willing to take you in. She understands.”
“Oh, really?” Cathy said.
Silence.
“This might end, you know?” she said. “I thought that’s what we were both waiting for? For this to stop?”