On the edge

Chapter 17: Life after death

"Hey, Miss! Hey! Look at me!"
"What?"
"She's back! It's alright; she's back!"
Her vision was blurry, her mind not entirely in its place, and in her mouth the taste of salt water. The sun was up, so it had to be daytime; probably early in the morning. The coast wind was chilly and made her shiver. The man who kneeled next to her covered her with his coat. He had a head full of ear-length, jet black, tight curls, and big, dark-brown eyes. A slightly crooked nose and prominent cheekbones gave him, together with very impressive eyebrows and a pointy chin, a friendly and almost childish appearance.
"Nic?" Sue asked, rather confused about what he was doing in St. Margaret's Bay.
"What?" the young man, about thirty years of age, wanted to know.
He now seemed not less confused than the red-haired.
"What are you doing here, Nic?" Sue asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Miss," the black-haired replied, "You must confuse me with someone else... You're probably still under shock."
"What do you mean, confuse you with someone else?" Sue inquired, now audibly a bit upset.
She tried to lift herself into a sitting position, but the man who looked exactly like Nic, yet claimed that that was not his name, ordered her not to.
"My name is Matthew Andersson," he said, "But call me Matt if you like."
The red-haired seemed completely bewildered by his words. Even if people shortened his name to Matt, that still was very far from Nic. Was this whole thing a bad joke?
"Where's Jim?!" was the next, apparently incomprehensible thing Sue wanted to be told.
"Who's Jim?" Nic, or Matt, asked while looking out for the paramedics.
There were sirens to be heard, but no car to be seen yet.
"Jim!" Sue exclaimed, "James Winter, he was with me-..."
"No, Miss," the black-haired cut her off, "You were alone."
"No, no, he-..." she tried again.
"You were alone up there," Matt repeated.
"I had just come back with my fishing boat and harboured when I saw you up there," he said, pointing at the cliffs, several feet high and a few yards away from the place on the beach where Sue lay in the sand.
"I don't know what foolishness made you go there on a slightly stormy morning when you probably couldn't even see your own hand in front of your face," the black-haired lectured Sue.
"But then you feel," he continued, "Looked as if you've lost balance... You were very lucky that the sea is exceptionally high today, and that you did not to hit a rock on your way down."
Matt frowned a little and seemed to think about whether or not Sue was ready for the rest of the story, but he sighed quietly and went on, "You drowned."
"I what?" the red-haired wanted to know.
"You drowned. By the time I got to you... I had to pull you out of the water and perform CPR on you for an entire ten minutes," Matt told Sue, "I honestly thought you were gone for good..."
"Excuse us, Sir!" another man, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, in white clothes appeared behind Matt, "We're the paramedics, please, Sir, make way."
The black-haired nodded, got up, and made way for the professionals.
"I'm fine," Sue tried to fight them off, "I need to go home."
"Uh, no, Miss," one of the two ambulance men replied, "You literally died, I don't think you're fine."
"But I need to-..." the stubborn redhead tried again but was cut off once more.
"No," the paramedic said with a stern voice, "You'll come with us for a check-up, and the doctor in charge will decide if you're fine and when you're good enough to go home."
And Sue knew that there was no use fighting them. After she had been declared stable for travel, Sue was wrapped into several warm blankets and carried to the ambulance on a stretcher. There were at least a dozen of people watching, whispering into each others ears, and commenting the scene. Only Sue seemed to still not be entirely sure what exactly was going on.
"Excuse me?" she asked the young medic next to her, as she driven to the closest hospital, "What's the date today?"
"Eighth of January, Miss," he replied.
"That's not possible..." Sue muttered.
"Are you sure?" she asked again.
"Yes... Very sure," the man to her left replied with a slight frown.
"That's the day I went up the cliffs to release my father's ashes," Sue mumbled quietly.
And while the car stopped, the doors opened, and she was carried into the ER; while everyone, nurses and doctors alike, asked her seemingly a thousand questions, all Sue could wonder about was, "Was it all but a dream?"