Escape from Paradise

Chapter 16: Diana's End

In a room filled with machines which produced only an almost inaudible buzzing of high frequency lay a still shape of a woman tangled in a hay of tubes. Half-dead, breathing heavily in a monotone pattern with unfocused eyes she gazed at a sparkling chandelier. It seemed as if color had left her face ages ago and she had become a wraith, an embodiment of a demonic disease, nailed to the bed with no remorse, floating in between the two worlds and given no opportunity to chose either. Still, in her tense facial features and clawed fingers, one could find scarce signs of life, manifestations of subconscious will to survive inherent to all living beings. When young, she thought it would be romantic to die old, in a soft, perhaps even swinging chair, under a warm sun, with a gorgeous vista in front of her, either of a forest, of a river or of an ocean. Here she was in her early forties, tormented by bursts of pain that sometimes managed to overcome the effect of drugs lying in an ordinary hospital bed while cold wind and night reigned outside the barred windows.

By her bed sat an older version of Larry all frowned and worried, devoid of gentleness and goodness, an image of a time-hardened grim reaper. He watched intensely at his wife who was about to make a choice: take the ordinary route and disappear to nothingness or go to a Paradise, not 'the' Paradise but a Paradise of a different kind, creator of which was not God but Larry and Diana themselves. How silly of her to begin having doubts when the time has come to take action. Her answer should have been a short and definite "yes" two minutes ago, the instant when he had asked if she was ready to go. During the two longest minutes of his life with every passing second, his body temperature had increased by a degree, ants appeared under his skin which caused constant itching. They multiplied by an exponential function. He would have torn himself apart if he had to wait any longer.

Many consider it as inadequate to hold a grudge on sick people, especially when they appear terrible, miserable, pitiful and in terrible pain as if their condition is sufficient repentance to be excused for their sins. This time it was not the case. Diana's indecisiveness filed Larry with anger and he accepted it. The Paradise was their life's work, they had promised to go there one after another, to make sure that after death they would live together, not in some thought out religious tale but inside a real thing architects of which they would be themselves.

Calmly, with great focus on preventing the signs of his annoyance, doing his best not to sound patronizing Larry said, "Diana, it is not the time for doubts. We must act quickly and decisively. We had decided what we would do when your time comes."

As if she would have been in another place, Diana spoke in the fashion of a calm saint about to be burned on a stake, making Larry doubt if he was the subject for whom the speech was devoted or some imaginary crowd, "This situation reminds me of a time when I was a child, when my mother told me that during Easter break at school we would be visiting the ocean for the first time. Oh, how exuberant I begot. For a month I imagined myself playing on the sand, swimming, jumping in the waves, dancing on the shore, and building sand castles. I had known the ocean only from the TV. On television, the waves had been almost non-existent, the water azure and transparent, and the sun always shining. I imagined that it would be just like that. Oh, how foolish I was. You never know how things truly are before you see them.

"When we passed a forest and neared the ocean my excitement turned into fear for I heard loud rustling, violent explosions and ear piercing wind whistles. There was no sun in the sky that day, in fact, above that spot of Poompuhar beach in which we emerged there had not been a single sunray for over a hundred years. And when I saw the violent, brownish liquid they called the ocean my fears came true. I did not build a sand castle that day, nor did I play on the beach, nor did I jump the waves, and neither did the numerous adults or other children. Everyone just sat on the beach and silently watched the terrible spectacle. I cried.