Page 43 of Chaos

The rain pelted down in sheets, and lightning struck in the distance. As fast as possible, I reeled my line in and packed up my things, rushing over to the ramp because I knew they’d need my help loading the boat. Another roar of thunder filled my ears, and I counted the seconds until blue lightning flashed in the sky, not knowing if there was any truth to the whole method. Three seconds separated the two, and panic stretched within my body.

The water that had been calm began to rage and rock their boat, and I prayed to God that Jeff had enough sense to pack oars. I looked into the bed of the truck and saw one lonely oar leaning against the body of the truck.

“Shit!” I murmured and paced the edge of the water, watching Noah’s line break and his grandfather grab a single oar, frantically trying to get the boat to move. One last crash of thunder boomed across the pond, and then the lightning burned across the sky, hitting a tree on the edge where Mulder and I had been.

The tree broke and I knew what was happening, but I was fucking powerless. I couldn’t stop what was unveiling before me, but I had to do something. A guttural scream came from their boat as the tree fell onto Jeff, flipping the boat from the weight of it, and Noah was launched into the water.

Immediately, I dove into the water and fought to tread its rage. I had to find them. “Noah. Jeff!” I screamed when my face emerged and water pushed me downward. Somehow, I found the top again, throwing my hands into the water, hoping to have enough strength to move myself forward to find them. They couldn’t die. I was a fucking doctor!

My eyes burned from the mud that had seeped into the water or merely from the constant dunking under the water. I didn’t know or have time to care. Now, I was not only fighting for their life, I was fighting for my own.

“Noah!” had barely left my lips when water was scorched into my lungs as I propelled myself upward and coughed, kicking my legs as hard as I could to stay afloat.

Momentarily, everything slowed, and my vision blurred. I was losing consciousness, but I rejected the urge. They couldn’t die. Dizziness overtook me, and my head seemed heavier than normal, launching downward, and water splashed my nose. Like most of my body, I thought my fingertips were numb from the water’s temperature, but I felt something unnaturally colder under them. It was the change in temperature, I was sure, that awoke me from blacking out. I really didn’t care what the reason was as long as I was able to fight for them.

It was Noah’s arm! “I got you!” I screamed over the thunder and lightning, pulling his body under my shoulder, and determination rolled through me. I. Would. Save. Him!

As soon as I brought us to the shore, I began compressions. Tears of horror tumbled down my face as I saw his. “Come on!” I begged his lifeless body. “Please,” I cried, losing hope. By the grace of God, Noah coughed and water expelled from him. Immediately, I rolled him onto his side, relief blanketing my fears.

“You’re okay, you hear me?” I demanded him to answer and cradled him into my chest. His little head nodded in agreement. His body shook, and I knew I needed to get him to the hospital.

“I lost my hat,” he complained in a weak voice, and I looked down to his hairline, soaking with blood. A heatwave of panic moved into my body, and I fought to breathe. Blood was something I saw daily, and it never bothered me in the slightest. My love for animals by far outweighed my compassion for other people, or so I had thought. As I held this boy in my arms, I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t care for people. It was I cared too much to lose them.

“Shit,” I whispered, applying pressure with my hand, and the child’s blood seeped around my fingers as his body went limp. Checking his wrists, I found a weak and thready radial pulse, but it was there…and then it completely faded.

“Somebody, please!” I screamed into the storm and began compressions again. After my fifth compression, my linked fingers and palms sank farther than they had before. His ribs broke under my hands—the hands I’d promised would only heal. Nausea rattled my insides, but I had to overcome it. This wasn’t about me.

Headlights topped the hill and spotlighted where we were, I continued to fight for him because his body had given up on him.

“Help him, please,” I begged him in such a dreadful voice, but I knew I wasn’t only asking this man, but God.

The man rushed back to his vehicle to call 911 he informed me when he returned to my side. I continued compressions until the paramedics arrived and they pulled my hands from Noah’s breathless body. I’d lost him.

“Sir.” The officer approached me, but I’d lost myself into the flashing red and blue lights. Each split second of darkness allowed his face to appear behind my eyes. He’d been so full of life only a few hours before. Now he was gone. There was no hope to save Jeff. I had accepted that the moment I dove into the water to save Noah, but I didn’t save him. I tried to save him and failed. What kind of doctor couldn’t save a little boy?

“Sir?” he said again, his voice filling with alarm.

“I tried,” I cried, burying my face into my hands, and Mulder crawled closer to my feet. “I tried to save them,” I repeated myself, noticing the blood covering my hands, and shook with disgust. It wasn’t the blood that bothered me; it was whom the blood belonged to. Someone I couldn’t save.

One of the multiple cops took my statement, and they searched for Jeff’s body, finding him and determining him a D.O.A., which stood for dead on arrival.

“It was one of those freak accidents,” a news reporter spoke in front of a camera, and it took all the restraint I had not to throw the camcorder to the ground, smashing it into little pieces. This was why I’d decided I didn’t like people. They’re fucking inconsiderate. Apparently, I just needed a reminder of how indecent they could really be.

In the middle of a storm, more people left their tracks in the mud than these grounds had ever seen. The saying about misery was abundantly clear in this moment. I hated all of them, every last set of prying eyes that was unnecessarily here. Each heart that had to be blackened, because how else would their present be justified?

Once the last person left, I found my rod and dragged the bottom, searching for his hat. If it were important for him to let it be his last words, I would fulfill his dying wish because I owed him a hell of a lot more.

Slowly, I looked the love of my life in the eyes and watched every bit of light fade from her. I watched as she wilted before me, and I was completely helpless. I couldn’t save her any more than I could save her son. I was a pitiful excuse of a man, and for me to ever think otherwise was proof of exactly that.

Eris didn’t ask any other questions. Actually, she didn’t speak at all. She blankly stared at her son’s hat in her hands. Her eyes never quite met mine again. Quietly, she removed herself from my grasp and walked out of the room. The door creaked as she closed it on her way out of my house.

I knew I should chase after her, but there are certain situations that just simply can’t be fixed. This was one of those irreparable events. Our glass panes had shattered, and no amount of glue or love could mend the damage.

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