“Why not?” Paul asked with childlike innocence. Did he really believe she’d stay here forever?
“Perfection only happens in dreams and movies.” She added, “Look a little closer, and the postcard of paradise crumbles under inspection.” Jane looked around for an example. “Like look over there,” she said pointing to a man typing away at a laptop underneath a giant beach umbrella. “Even here, the chains of technology reach out to pull us from seclusion and bind us to work.”
“He could just be playing a video game.” Paul offered. His intoxicating smile could be so annoying sometimes.
“Yes, he’s probably immersed in solitaire while the miracle of nature passes by around him,” Jane said. “And it is passing him by. Things are only ever perfect for a moment. Even in Thailand, all the wonderful things we saw, they’re temporary. The great ruins we saw are just shadows of what the real cities were like. The jungles we trekked through are shrinking around the world. The coral reefs we swam through are dying. In one generation, all those diving spots will be gone. We’re living in a special moment in history. It’s a beautiful moment, but it can’t last.” Didn’t he get the hint?
“Well, we can enjoy its dying beauty together then,” he said cheerfully.
“We can’t last,” she blurted out. “My flight home leaves tomorrow.”
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “It could leave later than tomorrow,” he suggested. “You like it here.”
“I do,” she admitted.
“Then stay with me,” he insisted. “There is so much more to explore, so much more to experience here.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I have a life back in the States. I have work to do, important work that could help save the beautiful forests and oceans here.” But she wondered how important her work really was, sitting in a lab all day. “You mentioned that you’re originally from China. Don’t you have anything there calling you back? Your brother maybe?”
“There is nothing left for me in China,” he said sharply.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Jane said. “I just don’t understand how you can care as much about the world as I do and yet.” She hesitated.
“And yet bum around aimlessly?” Paul finished roughly. “I didn’t always live the simple life. Back in high school, I was eager to leave my mark on the world. China was industrializing quickly, transforming itself into a capitalist free market. I was excited that we would finally be taking our rightful place in the world, and as one of the top students in my high school, I would help lead this revolution.” Jane sensed some bitterness in his words. The easy-going smile had faded from Paul’s face, replaced by a deep seriousness.
“After graduation, men typically serve in the military for a few years. I had gotten into the prestigious Beijing University to study International Relations, so there was no pressure to serve. Many of my close friends chose to go to the University. I, however, wanted to be in the trenches, to work at the center of the nation’s heart. I was caught up in patriotic fervor, and so I deferred entering the university and volunteered for the People’s Liberation Army.” Jane studied his face intently as he spoke. She hadn’t taken him for a military man.
“I was excited to serve my country, but things got complicated just a few months after I started my service. I was stationed in the 27th army outside Beijing when pro-democracy advocate Hu Yaobang died. Hundreds of thousands of students and intellectuals gathered in Tiananmen Square to mourn. The mourning quickly turned to protest.” Jane remembered watching a newscast about Tiananmen Square. But she had only been nine at the time and didn’t remember much. She listened intently.
“In the following months, the soldiers in my division watched the events unfolding from our base,” Paul continued. “Many of my comrades were supportive of the students and saw the protests as a sign that we had finally moved into a free world. They believed the government would allow the protests to continue. Others scolded the students for needlessly provoking the government, condemning their acts as selfish and unpatriotic.”
“The protests dragged on for a couple months, and then one day, my division was mobilized. We were told that street gangs had taken over the city and that we were to retake it by force. I returned to my hometown in an armored personnel carrier with a dozen other soldiers, weapons at ready. Barricades had been hastily erected out of burned-out buses along the streets, but the tanks just bulldozed over them. We set up a perimeter around the city, blocking off the university district where the protests were centered. Then we waited anxiously.” Jane could see the anxiety in Paul’s face as he retold the story.
“That night, the order came, and we advanced towards the square. Soldiers started firing indiscriminately into the crowd. I was shocked but could not find the strength to speak up. One of my fellow soldiers ran out to protect the unarmed protesters. He was shot immediately by his commanding officer. I was scared and disoriented. When we reached the square, I could no longer duck the responsibility. My commanding officer looked me in the eye and ordered me to fire into the crowd.” Jane could see a bit of moisture forming in Paul’s eyes. He was staring hollowly at his own feet.
“I obeyed the order,” he said. “I fired into the unarmed crowd of protesters, the same crowd where some of my high school friends had gathered. For all I know, I could have shot one of them.” He looked up into her eyes. “For all that matters, I did.”
Paul recovered his composure and cracked a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all of this on you.”
Jane reached out and took his hand. “No,” she said. “Please continue. I need to hear this.”
He squeezed her hand gently but didn’t let go. Then he continued. “Well, after that, life in the military changed. The soldiers became more patriotic, more fervent. But I think that was mostly just fear. No one wanted to be singled out as disloyal. I acted overzealously too and worked hard to be the perfect soldier. But inside, I had lost faith in the new China. The new China was just like the old China. People were fighting to gain power or maintain power, and everyone else paid the price. I felt powerless, a pawn in a meaningless struggle.”
“Then I got lucky and was re-stationed in the Yunnan province near Kunming. I got to know some of the locals there and found that they didn’t care about the new China. They didn’t care about democracy or communism, about capitalism or rights. They just cared about friends and family, about living and surviving. That was the life I wanted.”
Jane looked at him with a new found softness and admiration. Then he said, “So one day, I decided I would take that life. I packed some provisions and just left. Of course it wasn’t easy, but I managed to backpack over the mountains into Vietnam, crossed over to Laos, and eventually ended up here in Thailand where I spent the next ten years just enjoying my freedom.”
“Now I just work to make sure I have a roof over my head, good food, and good company. In China, my ambition and hard work would have just turned me into a puppet of those in power. So now I steer clear of politics and power and just focus on living a good life with those around me.”
“I’m sorry all that happened to you,” Jane said, holding him close.
“It was a long time ago,” Paul said. “But I do understand wanting to make a difference in the world. That was my story, not yours.”
“You understand why I need to leave then?” she asked.
“I do,” he said.
They held each other in silence for hours until the cold of the night chased them from their embrace.
************
Jane woke up. Did she feel a shudder? Next to her, she could see Paul’s still form, peacefully sleeping beside her. She drifted back into sleep. Twenty minutes later, she woke again. She definitely felt a rumble, like a giant garbage truck had shaken the hotel. She hated garbage trucks. She glanced at the alarm clock next to the bed. 8:21. Her flight home wasn’t until late afternoon. No need to get up. Paul still hadn’t budged. He slept like
a log.
Red. Sunlight streamed through a crack between the curtains and shone directly on her face, pushing through her eyelids. Groaning, Jane rolled over to discover...emptiness. Where was Paul? She peeled open her right eye to take a look. The clock now read 9:46. Paul must have gone out for a run along the beach, or maybe a swim. Her flight wasn’t until late that evening, but still, each remaining moment with him was precious, and she was loathe to give up a single minute.
Jane sat up, stretched out her arms and yawned loudly. For some reason, yawning helped wake her up in the mornings. She wondered if there was a scientific explanation for that. Then she looked at Paul’s empty side of the bed and noticed an envelope perched on the flat of the pillow. It had the words “Merry Christmas” written on it.
Suddenly eager and awake, Jane opened the envelope and dumped out a card and a small pendant. She recognized it immediately as the lucky charm Paul always wore around his neck. It was a small globe made of tiny bits of seashell and stone glued together into a colorful copy of the Earth. The continents were made from bits of green stone and sea shells. She noticed that North America looked a little oversized and Africa a little undersized, but she appreciated that a single white seashell was meant to represent Antarctica. The ice caps were melting, but hopefully they wouldn’t be that small anytime soon. Fragments of a brilliant blue stone formed the oceans, marking a continuous path around the quarter-sized globe. A small eyelet was glued to the Arctic to suspend it on a simple leather rope. She opened the card and read it.
Dearest Jane,
Though I don’t celebrate Christmas, I know you do, so here is a small gift to maintain the tradition. My brother gave it to me, kind of as a joke, when I graduated from high school. You see, I wanted to save the world too, and I still do. China is no longer my home, but neither is Thailand. I think it is time for me to leave my haven and start anew, and what better place to do so than America? Perhaps this is too forward of me, but I love you, and I’m going to fight to keep you in my life. I have made arrangements with some American friends here that can help me get a start. In a few weeks I should be able to join you, if you’ll have me. Until then, wear this pendant as a sign of my love and protection. It will keep you safe until I can come join you. I want to save the world with you, and this is a good way to start.
Love,
Paul.
Jane’s heart almost collapsed in on itself. She had wanted to ask him to follow her, but that had seemed crazy and too much to ask. And yet it turned out that she hadn’t needed to ask at all. She smiled, walked to the mirror next to the bathroom, and tied the necklace around her neck. It was perfect. She noticed there was hot coffee in the coffee pot too. This was just too good to be true. She poured herself a cup and then walked out to the balcony to enjoy the morning sun.
Their hotel room was on the third floor and had an excellent view of the beach. Each balcony was just big enough for two chairs and a small table. She set the coffee cup on the table, leaned back in the chair, and let the sun warm her arms and legs.
She sat there imagining a life here. Below, she could see children playing on the beach, their parents sunbathing on white lounge chairs arranged in an orderly line along the back of the beach. Her eye caught on one small figure playing in the water. The boy was walking knee deep in the water. When the wave came in, he would run away, laughing hysterically. A girl a few feet down the beach, did the opposite. She would stand in the water, and when the wave came, she would jump into it, also laughing hysterically. Maybe the two were siblings. Jane imagined Paul and herself lounging on this beach with kids of their own playing in the water. She sighed. She was way too young to be having these thoughts. Still, she closed her eyes and kept having them.
Fifteen minutes later, she opened her eyes and looked down to check on the girl and boy at the beach. What she saw would be imprinted in her brain forever. The beach was gone, or rather the water was. People were scattered around where the water should have been, picking up the flopping fish with their bare hands. Some sea kayaks that were moored to buoys in the water now sat awkwardly on the sand. Seaweed, rocks, and fish were all exposed to the sun and the curious hands of the surprised tourists. Jane was perplexed. Where did all the water go?
Then she looked to the horizon and saw a white line drawn on top of the ocean. The line got thicker and thicker. Her heart started pounding. She was suddenly afraid. The white line wasn’t just getting thicker. It was moving. A dull roar filled the air. Suddenly the line reached up to the sky and became a wave. The churning white water was rushing towards them impossibly fast. Her eyes found the little boy and girl that had been playing in the water earlier that morning. She had to save them, but her body froze up. She didn’t know what to do. Powerless to act, Jane screamed, “Run. Run!”
Then the wave was upon them. The people on the beach disappeared beneath a thirty foot sheet of solid water. When the wave hit her building, it had dropped to just ten feet, but it still made a deafening bang as it broke against the concrete walls below her. As she stared at the devastation unfolding around her, one word repeated in her head: Paul.
Chapter 4: The Test
Flora stared at the graduation exam in front of her, trying to push the voices out of her head. Paul. The name echoed through her skull and clenched onto her heart, and yet she had never heard it before. Over the last few days, little snippets of her dream kept popping in and out of her head like fireflies in the night. The memories were so vivid and real, and yet every time she concentrated on one to try to explore it, the thought just disappeared, dissolving into ether. She felt crippling emotions without the concrete memory behind them. One morning she just woke up crying, feeling like she had just lost her father again.
Eager to qualify for the Mayor’s office, she had spent every free moment studying, an aberration that her mother undoubtedly witnessed but failed to question. She had even asked Mendel for some tutoring which had been a bit awkward though quite helpful. But it was difficult to study with the emotions of another woman screaming at her from the inside. Jane Ingram. Who was she? And why was she in her dreams?
Flora ticked through the first third of the exam with ease. The Institute made the questions progressively harder, and it was common for no one to finish the entire exam. Flora figured that if she got the first three quarters done, that would be good enough to qualify for the Mayor’s office. Suddenly she felt a cold chill on her spine. Before she could panic, a voice whispered in her ear. “Good luck Scarface.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Crick had just slid a slime mold down the back of her shirt. She couldn’t risk reacting to his juvenile prank and brought her focus back to her test. Passing the exam was the first step towards getting access to the Institute scholars. Crick wasn’t worth it.
About halfway through the test, the sky darkened, and it began to rain. It began as a few drops, barely noticeable amongst the scratching of leaves as the students worked furiously in silence. But soon the pace quickened. Raindrops turned into a steady stream banging against the web of branches and leaves stretched overhead. As the leaves collected the water, they formed cascading waterfalls down the side of their protective willow. And then the water began to roar.
In her mind, Flora saw a wall of water, more water than existed in all of Terrene, rushing towards her. The sound surrounded her, an ominous rumble that reverberated through her body, unrelenting and inescapable. She froze, encased in fear and foreboding. A terrible feeling of loss struck her heart, held her captive in its terrible grasp. Paul. It was with great relief that she finally felt the chill on her back, and she let the blue dot override her vision and wash away her debilitating emotions.
“Ten minutes left.”
Flora’s eyes drifted open. She looked down at her exam, still only halfway through. A distant voice in her head was panicking, screaming at her to finish the test. It whined about all her preparation being wasted and cursed her misfortune. But the bulk of her brain was still in a
daze, wiped clean of any thought or emotion, as if it had already experienced too much of both. She let her hand take over the task of writing as she lounged in the luxury of blankness.
When Mrs. Gardner called time, Flora simply stood up and quietly ducked out of the canopy. She walked to the grassy clearing and lay down on her back, letting the cold wetness permeate through her clothes. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the clouds were already clearing. As she stared at the vastness of the sky, she imagined flying through it, free and unfettered. Jane Ingram. What kind of world do you live in? A body settled down in the grass next to her.
“You completed the test before I calculated you would,” commented Mendel, crouching next to her to avoid getting his pants wet from the grass.
“I was done,” replied Flora. She wasn’t ready to elaborate.
“Great,” Mendel said. “Then I trust our study sessions have proven fruitful?”
“Not likely,” she said. “I blacked out.”
“During the test?” he asked. “I did not anticipate that possibility. There was no instigating event.”
“There was for Jane,” Flora mumbled.
“Ah, your new alter ego,” Mendel said. “Interesting.”
It had just slipped out during one of their study sessions when he had probed into her constant inattention. She had kept silent about the cave, her father, and the snow globe, but she had told him about the lucid dream about Jane. Flora had almost hoped that he would just forget it, but instead he had pledged to help her understand the dream, calling it a “research opportunity.”
Mendel pulled out a small leafbook and started scratching. “I’ll have to adjust the case profile.”
“Wait, what case profile?” she asked.
“I’m beginning to document your unique condition,” he explained. “It’s the first step in understanding what’s been happening to you. Now that the graduation exams are behind us, I’ll have much more time to devote to this study. With your cooperation, I think I’ll be able to make good headway before I travel to the Institute.”