<< ‘Bizarre’ doesn’t really do this scene justice and ‘lucky’ is insufficient to describe the crazy joyous relief I felt at this moment….I can see a door, a way out, a passage back to the outside world. It seemed like what I would imagine an out of body near death experience to be…a dark foreground…with a bright light at the end. In the half-darkness of the watery gloom I felt as if I had been transported into some sick film where the character escapes by the skin of his teeth. It just seemed too insane to be real life, but that’s exactly what it was. Truth / stranger / fiction etc…
And now the energy, the fight for life returns immediately, flooding my limbs with power. This is it, an escape route! I feel as if I’ve been given a chance and now I’m determined to rage like hell for my life. The water has now stopped going in and out, and instead is eerily swirling round and round like a lazy, drunken whirlpool.
I kick of my sandals and trousers and swim a flailing, desperate mix-stroke towards my goal. The fluid is dark and thick with random debris, as I pull my way frantically through it’s soup like consistency. I reach the door in probably a few seconds, and put my hands on the side that is ajar. All this time I’m just waiting for one more wave to come it and finish me. One more breaker to fill up the room and complete my fate.
In another life-or-death split second realization, I feel certain that my only chance of survival is to open this door. But all the weight of the water in the room is holding it shut. It feels impossible to move.
In a moment of pure animal rage I brace myself (with hands wrapped around the side of the door) and with every last kilojoule of energy in my being I tear the door open, almost off it’s hinges in fact, surprising myself with my momentarily superhuman strength.
I flow out of the door with a load of water and find myself in what seemed to be some kind of trench, still up to my neck in ocean. Actually, I’m in the back alleyway behind the guesthouse, and a grass bank stretches up a gentle hill in front of me. Grasping at the grass on the bank’s edge, I’m weakly screaming for help now, still almost hyperventilating with fear and adrenalin.
I can hear Helen crying my name from up the bank, but I can’t see her. I still fear that I can’t pull myself out of the water and onto the bank.
Then I look up and I see Shantha. He’s standing right in front of me beckoning me up with his outstretched arms, eyes full of seriousness and focus. Immediately I reach for his help and he tries to pull me free. But at first he cannot, due to my body weight being roughly double his. After some frantic pulling and me dropping back into the water a couple of times, he eventually manages to heave me onto the bank with great effort.
I stagger up the slope, now just in boxer shorts, t-shirt and one sandal hanging half off my left foot. I’m bleeding form my left forearm. I have cuts on my legs too, but on the whole I’m fine, if limping somewhat. All I can taste is salt.
And there she is: Helen. Crying, shaking, looking as soaked and disheveled as me. Terrified but alive. We embrace and in that moment I know that she has survived. The feeling is amazing, the biggest relief and sense of warmth spreads through me like someone unloading a truckload of reassurance into your heart. >>
