Coronado Dreaming (The Silver Strand Series) (24 page)

Back on the boat, I sat on the deck, alone, under the stars. Well, I wasn’t alone, exactly, because Boris was at my feet. However, he was asleep, so it felt like I was alone. I looked up into the heavens and contemplated fate.

If there were so many realities, how could there possibly be such a thing?

Was it fate that I met Melody that day? That our lives had intersected, briefly, at a quick nexus in time, before multitudes of worlds spun off again from that point? Were we only to have held hands that one time, and then been torn apart in that frame of reference? Or, in another reality, was I awake and not in a coma? Were she and I next to each other, still holding hands and finishing each other’s sentences? Letting each other have bites of our desserts, or tastes from daily meals off of each other’s forks? Was I teaching her to play golf, or, was she teaching me to paint?

Was she accomplishing something fantastic, with me at her side… something that would be remembered thousands of years into the future?

It was all so confusing.

Did every possibility exist like Giddeon said? If so, then it seemed like everything was fated. Each and every moment, each and every emotion… each and every particle in each and every place. It didn’t seem quite right to me.

I considered that maybe fate was simply which of the realities were experienced, and which were left to spin off into infinity… real, yet, not so real, after all.

Still, it was perplexing. I looked into the heavens and wondered… ‘
If everything’s in the same place, then, why does she seem so far away
?’

I saw another shooting star streak across the night sky… once again, I heard the lines from Jack London that Giddeon had recited:

‘I would rather be a superb meteor,

every atom of me in magnificent glow,

Than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.’

The irony was that with all of the things I had seen and done, and all of the places I had been and experienced over there… I didn’t feel like a superb meteor at all. Is a meteor really magnificent if, after traveling for eons, it puts on a display in the upper atmosphere of a sleepy planet, and no one is there to see it burn? Is the flame wasted in the darkness if there is no one to see it glow?

If no one is looking up to make a wish, does the meteor at least get to make one before scattering forever into ash?

The next day I went to play golf by myself since Giddeon was a no show. I presumed he was either back on his newfound planet or checking out the Italian girl from over 2000 years ago… or, I thought, maybe, he was somewhere else, entirely. I doubted very much that he was asleep, but I couldn’t really have sworn to it. All batteries eventually lose their charge… he’s definitely a Duracell, or an Eveready, or one of those long lasting ones, though.

The air was cool and I thought that maybe I should have brought a long-sleeved shirt. But, then, the sun came out and it became exceptionally nice… perhaps seventy-two degrees with just a hint of a breeze.

There were a few people on the course, so I just played right through them, literally. Sometimes, I would stop and listen to their conversations on the greens or tees, and when I did, it almost felt like I was part of the group.

Every now and then I would walk along with a foursome, tee it up right beside them, and say things like ‘
Good shot!
’ or ‘
Bite!
’ or ‘
Nice putt!
’ when it was warranted. All in all, if felt like a normal day in Paradise… except for the fact that no one could see me or hear me.

On the way home, though,
Paradise
changed.

__________

I had driven my Focus to the course, and when I was done with the round, deposited my clubs in the trunk. I got into the automobile, cranked the engine, and noticed that the fuel gauge, as always, was on ‘Full’. I pulled out onto
Glorietta
and took a left towards the marina. I went slowly, because of the speed bumps, and played the radio on my way back, singing along with David Bowie… the song was ‘
Changes
’.

I was in a good mood. When I was almost home, however, I saw something that made my comatose heart grow cold. Very, very cold. There, in the street, was a cat.

It had obviously been hit by a car.

__________

The feline was close to the shoulder on the marina side of the thoroughfare, and the coloring of it was so familiar that my mind began to instantly rebel at the possibility. I thought, ‘
No… no… no… certainly it can’t be…
’

I got closer, slowed and pulled sharply to the right, onto the curb. From across the pavement I could see blood was by the animal’s mouth, pooling on the gray surface underneath it. In what felt like slow motion, I opened the door and made my way onto the road without looking, still hoping against hope that I was wrong. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

A car went right past me, unbelievably close, but I didn’t pay it any attention.

I ran to the other side of the street and knelt down beside the cat. It was struggling to breathe… red liquid from its mouth was mixed with saliva, making foam bubbles on the cement. There was a large gash on its cheek, and I could see fascia and bone through the torn epidermis. I reached down and tried to gently pet it.

He looked up with big yellow eyes, and gave a pitiful attempt at a meow.

It was Boris.

I began to shake, and to cry. “No… no… no…” I repeated, out loud, that time. “No, Boris! You’re gonna be alright, buddy!”

I reached out to him, but my hands just went right through his little body to the road below.

“Boris… Boris… I’m gonna help you… Boris!! You’re gonna be okay!” I tried and tried to get my hands under him, so I could get him out of the boulevard and onto the grass, but, it wouldn’t work. Tears began to flow copiously from my eyes, and my nose started running with mucus. I had never felt anything like what was going on inside of me at that moment. My constant companion for the last three years was laid out before me, blood leaking from his body, and I could do nothing… nothing, at all.

A car approached and slowed… I saw a teenage girl peer over with an anguished look at my animal on the side of the road. I screamed to her through her open passenger window.

“Help! Help!! Please stop! Pleasssse, stop!! He needs a vet! Pl-please… take him to a vet!!!”

My diaphragm began contracting in sobs. “H-he needs a vet! Please! Please… help him!!”

I continued to yell after her, but, she kept right on motoring. I could see her eyes in the rear view mirror as she got further and further away.

“Please… please… come back! Please… he-help him… please… oh, please…”

I begged until I could no longer see her eyes. Of course, she couldn’t hear me. I reached up to wipe at my nose. Blood was on my hands and it smeared on my face. I hunkered down, still doing my very best to try and comfort my pet.

“Boris… Boris… Don’t die on me, buddy! You c-can’t die. Please… Boris… p-please, don’t die!”

I attempted once again to get my hands under him. I saw a flicker, and felt the fur somewhat more solidly against my skin. Boris mewled in pain as I reached around him and began to gently move him onto the grass. I could feel broken ribs beneath my fingers, and I saw a sparkling path trailing behind him as I pulled on his damaged body.

He kept slipping from my ‘grasp’, but, finally, I succeeded in moving him out of the road. I could barely see him at that point, my eyes were so full of tears. I put my face down next to his neck and tried to get as close to him as I could, to let him know I was there. I could smell his familiar essence, and thought of all the time we had spent together, just that close. My tears spilled down, covering him with liquid sadness. I knew he was dying… and there was nothing I could do to help him. Nothing, at all. I raised my head up to the sky.

“Giddeon!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Giddeon!!’

My voice filled the street.

“Giddeon!!!”

I didn’t think anything could be worse than the day I experienced that pain from the nuclear holocaust… I was wrong.

“Boris needs help!!” I shouted into the
Coronado
air.

“Giddeon!! Giddeon!!!” I closed my eyes, and I don’t know if at that point if I was screaming or praying. I suppose I descended into hysterics. “Gi-dd-eon!! Oh, God… Giddeon!!!”

“Greg! Greg!! It’s alright!! Look at me! Look at me!!” Giddeon was shaking me by my shoulders. I opened my eyes. My hands were covered in blood and there was a roaring in my ears.

We were on my boat.

“Listen… it’s okay! It wasn’t real!! You were in another frame of reference. Boris is right here!!”

I looked around at my blurry surroundings. Things slowly came into focus, and the noise in my head began to subside just a bit. I’m sure I looked like a mad man.

“Wha- what?” I wiped at my eyes and managed to smear more blood on my face. Boris was at the door, looking back with his tail all puffed out and acting like he very much wanted to bolt. He couldn’t, because the door was closed.

“You somehow got into another timeline at the golf course… when you changed the weather!”

“I… I don’t understand. B-Boris?” I looked at my cat and said his name, again. “Boris? Is that you?”

“He’s okay,” said Giddeon.

“Are you sure?” I looked to Gid, and then back to the cat.

“Positive.”

I held a trembling hand down, and tried to calm the frightened animal. “Come here, Boris. Come here.” After a few seconds of coaxing, Boris finally came over and sniffed at my unsteady fingers. He looked up and meowed, obviously wanting an explanation. I’m sure he could smell his own blood.

“It was so real… so awful,” I said, quietly.

“I know.”

Boris jumped up onto the couch. I sat there taking in his presence for the better part of a minute.
 
Finally, I took in a deep breath and let out a laugh that was mixed with a sob. “I… don’t think we can ever let him off the boat, again.”

Giddeon smiled. “He’ll get mighty hungry in here.”

I wiped my eyes on my sleeves. “Yeah… you’re probably right.” I held my hand back out to the cat; he smelled my fingers, again, and tried to lick them. “You see that Boris…? Don’t you ever go in the road, again. That’s what can happen. Do you hear me?”

He looked at me with big, yellow eyes, and meowed.

I was reluctant to open the door, but, finally, late that afternoon, I did. Boris looked back in my direction like he was trying to reassure me that he would be a good cat and stay where it was safe. He then slowly sauntered outside, and went down towards The Boathouse in search of an evening meal. I watched him go, like a nervous parent on a child’s first day of school. I took in a deep breath of the clear,
Coronado
air and went back inside. Giddeon popped into existence on the couch; there was some type of a drink with an umbrella in it in his hand.

“Want one?”

“What is it?

“A Blue Hawaiian. They’re pretty good.”

I nodded and one appeared on the table. I walked over and took a taste. “Kind of sweet, but, not bad.” I set it back down.

“Wanna go watch the sunset off
Maui
? We can have some coconut shrimp and Banana’s Foster.”

I’m not sure where he got that combination, but it didn’t sound half bad. I shook my head, though.

“No… I’m gonna stay here and wait for Boris. I don’t really feel like going anywhere.”

He nodded. “I understand. You’ll feel better, tomorrow.”

“Probably. It’s just… it was so real.”

“I know.”

I took another sip of Blue Hawaiian. Some coconut shrimp appeared on a plate next to my drink and I had a bite. Delicious, naturally.

“The timeline outside… is it the ‘real’ one?”

“They’re all real.”

“So Boris is dead, somewhere else?”

“I’m afraid, so… most probably. But, he’s very much alive, here. And, as far as your question goes, yeah, I think the one outside is the ‘real’ one.”

“How do you know?”

“It just feels right.”

I grunted, because I kind of knew what he meant.

He continued, “When you were playing golf, I felt the shift when you altered reality and changed the weather. When I do it, it’s lighter… more of a localized phenomenon. When you did it, it was stronger. Like an entire shift from one world-line to another. Something felt wrong. It just felt… sad. I was here on your boat, and when Boris went to the door, I called him back and shut it. I could swear that I saw another Boris keep on going… I’ve never seen that, before. I don’t know why I did it… shut the door, that is… it just felt… right.”

“Thank God you did.”

“I can’t say for certain that this Boris would have met the same fate, but, I get the feeling that maybe he would have.”

There was that word, again.
Fate
.

“So, you think this was meant to happen?”

Giddeon shrugged. “Maybe everything’s meant to happen.”

I took another bite of shrimp. It wasn’t quite as good as the first, but it was still extraordinary. I shook my head. “The universe is a strange place.”

Gid nodded. “Like someone once said: ‘
It’s not only stranger than you imagine, it’s stranger than you can imagine.
”