A way away

2. Where I saw you

Who could have known the world consisted of so much water?

It wasn't unusual that you heard the words spoken. Water covers two thirds of the earth's surface blah blah. Anyone who had done basic maths could figure out that was a lot of water going on. Tobirama had definitely done basic maths. In fact, he had done much more than that; derivatives and imaginary numbers and integrals and all sorts of things he had allowed himself to blissfully forget.

Even so, when he found himself on the small boat, as useful in the frightful sea as a rocking horse in a steeplechase, surrounded by ocean on every horizon, taking him away from his home country to a new one, he realised that he could never comprehend the vastness of the ocean.

Tobirama had been unlucky the day he fled over the sea. He had never been afraid of water. In fact, he was a college champion in his birth country. But that day, the sea was rough, with monstrous waves seemingly trying to swallow an entire nation whole. He knew that the depths of the water was about 5000 metres below them, and they had lost many men, women and children to that depth.

And he had never been so afraid in his life.

But he had made it, and the only thing remaining in his life as a witness of that bone-chilling journey being a scar on his right shoulder, memories as heavy as books, and an indescribable phobia of water.

After he had arrived on land, he had spent weeks in a refugee camp, where Important People had asked him Important Questions such as can you work and do you have an education and do you have the ability to do the dirty work in this new country without ever expecting anything in return, foreign bitch? Tobirama, 20 kilograms lighter than his usual self, his hair in desperate need of a haircut, had tried to answer the questions to the best of his abilities in broken English.

Then, there had been waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting. Many people came to and departed from the refugee camp; silent women and screaming children and men without limbs who all had in common that they had had to flee from their homes. But Tobirama, he stayed put. 

He didn't understand why. 

He was kept in the refugee camp for weeks, trying to ignore the stares cast his way because of his colouring. Tobirama wasn't dark or coloured like most people here but white, and not just ordinary white but more the colour a mineral than that of a person. A chalk marble in a bag of all ebony ones that were much more exotic and exciting and dangerous than he was. He tried eating, even if he had no appetite, and exercising, even if he had no lust, to try and put some weight back on but failed. When his waiting was finally over, he was even thinner than when he had first arrived.

The day when his waiting was finally over, an Important Person came to him.

"We have gotten hold of your graduation papers", he said. "We have proof you're a doctor with specialist training as a general practitioner. We have a deal for you."

Tobirama was trying not to fall asleep; he was so tired and weak, but who would want a doctor who fell asleep? He tried to listen to the deal, begging himself not to fall asleep so they wouldn't change their minds, but only caught glimpses of the conversation. GP practice... Remote island... Very small... Only doctor... Community not used to foreigners... Go there... Asylum... Foreign bitch...

He said yes, not quite understanding what he had said yes to.

He was transported first by plane and then by train and then by ferry. Transport seemed to be the correct word; he was definitely not travelling. Had he had his wits with him, he would have understood that deporting him to a remote island that was very small would mean travel by ferry since there would be no airport involved.

And Tobirama, after his previous traumatising transportation (not travel) by boat over a treasonous sea, finally lost it.

He had managed to be stay calm for hours, afraid that him freaking out too close to the land they had left behind would make the captain turn around again. But when the sea got rough, he lost it. He screamed at first. Those screams became convulsions. In the end , he was a frightful sight of rigidity, froth coming out of his mouth. 

He was unconscious, unaware of all of this. But if he hadn't been, if he had been able to stand at the ferry's railing, he would have noticed the lighthouse coming into view, and later on, as the ferry approached land, the patch of grass next to it where a figure stood.

That's where I saw you, he would be able to say some time later. When I first came here.

Foreign bitch, the lighthouse man would respond and smile lovingly at him. 

But Tobirama wasn't standing at the railing. He didn't see. His eyes was staring straight up into the sky, painted a lavender haze by the setting sun that he didn't see. The sped up towards land in a way that was forbidden, educated in first aid but not used to situations of this magnitude.

And then, Tobirama was carries to land, and maybe it was lucky that he wasn't conscious so he didn't have to realise that the inhabitants of the island did, in fact, not come to help him, not being used to foreigners, not being particularly happy about their new doctor after their old, local one had retired coming to them from a foreign land they did not comprehend.

But one person came. One person came to his aid, and Tobirama would remember his soft, youthful face, his full lips, his large eyes, wide and serious as he yelled out orders to those around him.

This is where I saw you, he thought before he fell into a deep, easy sleep. When I first came here.