Always and forever

4 - This is not possible

Sanem

He closes his eyes and a continuous shrill sound begins to be emitted from the device to which he is connected...

The nurses pull me away while several doctors rush around him, I shake my head in disbelief, I can't believe what's happening, it must be a nightmare, it's not possible. We have just found each other again, in a few days we are going to get married, our life together is about to begin, the happy ending of this story, suffered and fought against, but blessed with all the love possible.

We were going to have ours forever.

I see the doctors making frantic and desperate manoeuvres while that uninterrupted sound keeps coming out of that damned device, it can't be, the heart of my albatross can't stop beating, it's the only one my heart knows how to recognise, only next to his can mine work properly.

No, Can please don't give up, fight for us, come back to me please!

Thousands of frames of him pass in front of my eyes, his smile, his grimaces when he teases me, his adoring gaze, I cannot live without all this, I have overcome his absence because I was certain that one day, even far away, he would return.

I had the consolation of knowing that he was somewhere in the world, under the same sky as me, looking at the same stars that I used to watch every night sitting on that pier, I knew that the drops of amber that I threw into the sea in the form of messages in a bottle would make him come back to me.

How can I think of living an existence knowing that he is no longer there, that he will no longer hold me in his strong arms, I will no longer feel the warmth of his chest under my cheek when I rest it on his tattoo depicting my beloved albatross?

It's not possible, why is fate raging against us? He brought us together in a way only imaginable in a romance novel, put a thousand difficulties and a thousand doubts between us and then split us up and took him to the other side of the world on his boat. We found each other in a way that only destiny could have orchestrated, and now it cannot play with our hearts and irretrievably divide us.

Our forever must be one of love, it must be together, it can't happen, he can't leave me again, please Allah bring him back to me, I can't live without him!

A thousand thoughts crowd into what seem to me endless moments, time has dilated and no longer has any meaning, I see the doctors moving, their words reaching me like a distant echo.

- Set to 100... clear... - Long, prolonged sound.

- 150 ...clear ...-  Long, prolonged sound.

- 200 ... clear ... -  Long, prolonged sound.

I shake my head unable to accept that this is real, it seems to me that I'm back in the days in the clinic when I was constantly asking myself what was reality and what was a figment of my imagination.

I can't believe this is really happening, it must be a nightmare and soon the alarm clock will ring and I'll find him in the garden waiting for me to have breakfast together.
It has to be like this, it has to be.

- 200 ... clear... - Long, prolonged sound.

I keep shaking my head, crying desperately with my hands in front of my eyes, I can't look at his lifeless body on that bed, my legs can't hold me up anymore, I fall to my knees while the sobs shake me.

In my mind I can do nothing but repeat like a mantra:

Can, Can, come back to me lütfen, please, aşkım, my love. Can, Can, come back to me lütfen aşkım. Can, Can, come back to me lütfen aşkım. Can, Can, come back to me lütfen aşkım.

- 200 ... free... -  Long, prolonged sound.

My heart is gripped in a vice that suffocates me, I feel I could die with him if anything were to happen to him, I can't, without him I can't.

Can, Can, come back to me lütfen aşkım.

- 200 ... free... -  Long, prolonged sound.

I think of all the dreams we were having, the house we wanted to buy in the hills, the children we wanted to have, how we imagined growing old together in a hammock in the shade of a big maple tree.

I begin to whisper softly.

- Can, Can, come back to me lütfen, please, aşkım, my love -

- 200 ... free... -  Long, prolonged sound.

- Can, seni çok seviyorum, I love you so much come back to me lütfen, please -

Too much time is passing, I feel suffocated, a rumble begins to rise in intensity in my ears accompanied by the long, drawn-out sound that I can no longer bear, that means loss, means absence, means no more life.

I feel that my strength is about to leave me, I would like to die with him, if he no longer exists I will cease to exist with him. The roar is louder and louder, my strength is less and less, I'm about to let go, I can't face what that sound means, that sound is too much to accept. I can't, no I can't, I feel like I'm going to lose consciousness, I can't bear all this pain, no I can't.

The roar is now about to completely cover that long, drawn out hiss that I'm learning to hate when....

beep...beep...beep...beep

Hearing that new sound brings me back to reality, makes me re-emerge from that spiral of darkness I was slowly falling into.

beep...beep...beep...beep

I look up wide-eyed and see the doctors and nurses stop and breathe a sigh of relief. I stand up in disbelief, but it's not a dream, I really hear that wonderful rhythmic sound, it's the heart of my albatross beating loudly and vigorously again.

beep...beep...beep...beep

The doctors leave the room, only one nurse remains to fix the equipment and she looks up at me smiling.

- He did it Miss, the doctors were about to despair, I realised, they were about to declare time of death and instead he came back to life, it's a miracle, that's for sure, I've never seen anything like it.

Come, you can approach him for a moment but then you will have to leave him, we have to transfer him to the intensive care unit -

I get closer as tears cloud my eyes, he has been intubated, he is motionless with his eyes closed, it seems impossible but that beep...beep.... tells me he's there, he's not gone.

He came back for me, for us, it was not possible for him to leave me now.

I take his hand and bring it to my lips in an adoring kiss, I can't stop crying but this time it's tears of joy, he's back, he hasn't left me.

There is still hope, there is hope of having our forever.