What Happens on the Cruise

85. I Can See Clearly Now

The woods were beautiful, Spanish moss draping the live oaks. Birdsong, cicadas, and the breeze through the treetops filling the world with sound. A light sheen of sweat coated his face, but he didn't mind.

He turned to his left to say something, but he was alone. He spun slowly around, looking for that someone that should be there, at first calmly and then with more and more panic till he was running through the woods.

Suddenly he realized he wasn't moving. He looked down and saw a bear trap closed around his leg.

"Austin?" a voice called. "Austin, where are you? I need you!"

He opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out.

"Austin!" the voice sounded frantic now.

He reached down to try to open the trap, but it wasn't there. Instead, his foot was sinking into the ground. There was a tombstone. He was sinking into a grave.

"Help!" he tried to yell, but it came out barely a whisper.

"Take your shoe off," a different voice told him. "You have to take your shoe off."

"No, I don't want to," he thought at the voice but knew it could hear him.

"Austin, please, help me!" the first voice screamed.

Tim. It was Tim.

He needed to get to Tim.

Half of his leg was in the grave now, skeletal hands reaching up to grab at him.

"Your shoe, take it off."

"I can't!" he thought-spoke.

He pulled desperately, trying to get free. The hands clawed his leg open and his flesh started falling off like meat from a slow-cooked roast, then the grave opened and he was being devoured.

He looked up and Tim was there, blood dripping from his mouth and nose, pale as moonlight. Tim reached out and Austin grabbed his hand. As the earth started swallowing him, Austin could feel Tim's arm give way, his last vision was Tim, body ripped asunder as the grave closed over him.

"Austin, wake up. Please, baby, wake up." There was a hand, warm and solid, holding his, another gently stroking his face.

He opened his eyes, blinking at the harsh light, until Tim came into focus. "You're okay," Austin croaked, relief flooding through him. "And I'm not dead."

"You're not, no." Tim kissed his forehead.

Austin sat up, trying to make sense of the sensations coming from his right foot. He looked down and saw the sheet cave in midway to where his foot should be.

The morning came flooding back to him. Tim's presence, warm and solid and comforting. His momma on the phone praying with him. Sarah the nurse -- the one Tim called Lazarus girl -- writing "Yes, this leg" on his right and "No! Not this leg!" on his left in permanent marker. Multiple medical people checking with him, asking him questions about when he'd eaten last, what his allergies were, double checking he understood the procedure.

"What do you do with the foot?" he'd asked Sarah.

"They're usually disposed of as medical waste," she'd answered. "Though some people ask for them, I guess so they can be buried with all their parts. And some people donate them to the local medical school."

"What does the medical school do with them?"

"Dissections, usually, though yours would be great for them to see how a complex fracture can be rebuilt."