Dark Price of Paradise

Fading Away

After Sefina left it was an hour before Nash finally arrived. It was actually earlier then Teuila had expected him. Nash brought a basket of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and coleslaw. All takeout from the Victory Cafe. He also brought a couple bottles of Coke that were still cold when he arrived. The chicken was still hot.

Nash placed two plate settings on the table and served out the meal. Teuila picked at her food. She felt bad about not wanting to eat. Felt angry that she felt bad about it. She couldn't work up any real emotion about it. Teuila wanted to talk to Nash, more than she wanted to eat, or be social.

"Charlie told me you killed someone once." Teuila said as she played with her food.

Nash lost his appetite at that moment. "I told him that in confidence."

"He told me because it was something I needed to know. I needed to know that you would understand what I was feeling." Teuila pushed her plate aside. "Can you tell me about it?"

"There isn't a lot to tell, we were attacked while I was doing some reporting on an island the Marines had just taken. A bunch of Japs came out of the jungle and it was a vicious attack. I had a rifle. I shot one of them point blank. In the chest. I remember his face. I see it in my dreams."

Nash never thought he'd share this story with Teuila. There were too many emotions behind it which he kept bottled up.

"I picked the baby up. It didn't cry. It didn't laugh. All the baby did was stare straight ahead. It didn't react like a baby should. I figured that this should be easy. Father had showed me how to do it. He promised that it was painless." Teuila believed him. Her Father was tall for an islander, muscular, and active. Until he started having to kill babies that were the result of the fallout. "Like me, he just faded away."

"I'm here, Tay. I love you, I won't let you fade away." Nash promised her.

"I'm already fading away. We all know it." Teuila began to cry. The last thing she remembered was Nash holding her. Nash carrying her to bed.

Sex. Charlie said that a distraction was the best thing to bring her out of this depression she seemed to be stuck in. Nash was anxious, Teuila was desperate. Anything that might take her mind from dwelling on what she did. It had worked. Teuila exhausted herself. She fell sleep in Nash's arms.

Nash stirred when Teuila woke with a start. It had been another nightmare. The nightmare faded quickly. The pounding of her heart was not as bad as before. Teuila looked over at her alarm clock, the glow in the dark marking indicated that it was past midnight. Nash didn't actually wake up, he turned away from Teuila.

Teuila got up and covered herself with a cotton robe. Tying it off, she wandered out onto the patio. Stared at the ocean, the stars in the clear sky reflected off the ocean. Any time that Teuila was worried about events on the island she sat on the patio. Watched the ocean. She remembered that she was living in paradise.

Things seemed much clearer. Teuila didn't feel like she was in much of a fog anymore. She had killed the child out of mercy. That was clear to her for the moment. Perhaps sex did help distract her thoughts so she could look back at the situation more realistically.

She sat looking out at the ocean. Her thoughts began to race. "The baby wasn't really alive." She said to herself in a whisper. "It would have been a burden to her parents. Taken up much needed resources on the island."

Teuila continued to try to reason with herself the necessity of what she had done. She argued with the voice in her head that continued to condemn her for her actions. Nash woke up, noticing that she was no longer by his side. He pulled on his pants and walked out onto the patio. He heard her arguing with herself. A conversation he could only hear one side of.

"You are right. Teuila, it was a mercy killing. Distasteful, necessary, mercy killing." Nash interrupted her dialogue with her inner voice. Teuila stood up and embraced Nash.

"Please hold me." Teuila cried as Nash held her.

"It's going to be okay. We will make it all okay." Nash said as she cried. "I know how it hurts, I want you to know that I love you no matter what."

"How? I killed a baby. Because it was inconvenient. A problem for the island." Teuila shook. "I'm a monster. How can you love a monster?"

"I killed a man. Because I had to. If I didn't he would have killed me." Nash held her tight. "Am I a monster? Can you still love me?"

"That's different." Teuila turned away from Nash. She didn't try to leave his embrace, but she couldn't face him. "You had to kill that man. I didn't have to kill that child?"

"Didn't you? There is a reason this has been a custom since your ancestors settled on this island.  You were arguing with yourself about it. You know you had to do it. Nobody else could. Not Doc Bao, he's vowed to not cause harm. Not the parents, it was their child, and if they could have they would have done it."

"It wasn't right." Teuila stared back at the ocean. "I shouldn't have done it. That child was alive. What right did I have to kill it."

"So was the Jap that I killed. What right did I have to kill him?" Nash asked her.

"He was going to kill you. That baby was no threat to anyone." Teuila didn't see how it was any way similar. "It was wrong for me to kill it."

"That baby was deformed. Mentally it couldn't have functioned even as well as some of the surviving children with microcephaly. This child would have been bedridden all of it's life. It wouldn't have talked, wouldn't have understood any thing. It would have laid there and it would have been nothing but a burden on it's parents who would have to take care of it."

"Him. It was a boy." Teuila slipped out of Nash's grip.

"It was brain dead, Teuila. Doctor Bao said that it was the same as brain dead. With a head that small." Nash was hoping to get through to her.

"It was a boy." Teuila clenched her fists and shouted at Nash. "It was a human being. It was a little defenseless baby."

"That baby boy was a victim of radiation. Of the Bravo Castle fallout from four years ago." Nash said. "You were doing what needed to be done. No one, with any sense, can condemn you for that. You can't condemn yourself from saving the boy from a miserable existence. There would have been no dignity in that life, that boy would have been nothing but a burden."

"I still had no right to kill that poor little boy." Teuila felt her self hatred rise out of her soul. With a scream, Teuila smacked her head with her fists.

Nash grabbed Teuila's hands. She kicked at him. Nash smacked her face. Hard enough to shock her out of what she was doing. Teuila collapsed against Nash. Nash called Doctor Bao's house. Telling Kane when she picked up the phone the emergency.