Diamond Sky (Diamond Sky Trilogy Book 1)
Read Diamond Sky (Diamond Sky Trilogy Book 1) Online
Authors: David Clarkson
Diamond Sky
By
David
Clarkson
For Katie – my wife, my love, my muse.
A special thank you goes to Andrew Park, for once more
spotting my most persistent errors and for giving my prose a good kick up the
backside where necessary.
David Clarkson
Copyright 2014 by
David Clarkson
Kindle Edition
Cover Image/Design
by David Clarkson
Copyright 2014 by
David Clarkson
Also by David
Clarkson
Sapphire Sky
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material
protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any
unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this
book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or
mechanical
, including photocopying, recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system without express written
permission from the author/publisher.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or localities, is purely
coincidental.
Death was all around. It penetrated the walls and it
tainted the air. Lucy likened her surroundings to a travel agency for the
damned. Somebody would soon come for her and not long after, the end would
certainly follow.
If only she had more time. More time to say everything that
had hitherto been left unsaid. Time though, was just one of many things she was
about to lose. The verdict had been given and she could do nothing to change
it. All hope of a reprieve, if only for a short while, had long vanished.
A door swung open at the far end of the corridor; her
stomach tightened in response. As the footsteps made their way towards her, she
closed her eyes, trying one last time to convince herself none of this was
real. It was all a cruel joke. Once the punch line revealed itself, she would
be able to return to her previous life.
She focused on the darkness, twisting and reshaping it until
she could no longer sense the inhospitable walls around her. As her body and
mind relaxed, she could feel herself drifting away to a happier place.
It was New Year’s Day; a brand new year and a brand new
summer. Dad took her camping for the holidays. It was the first time they ‘went
bush’ and she loved it. She felt an instant affinity with the great outdoors
and never wanted to leave.
They spent that first afternoon by a waterhole hunting for
yabbies
. It took her two hours to make her first catch. Dad
told her how great it would taste cooked in the embers of a fresh campfire, but
she did not have the heart to subject her prize to so cruel a fate. She
released it back into the pond and felt a sense of satisfaction as she watched
it disappear under the surface of the water. It was a feeling that no meal
could have equalled. They bought some snags from a local roadhouse and
barbecued those instead. Food had never tasted so good.
When night fell, stars filled the sky. She believed Heaven
was a place she could reach out and touch. Dad knew all the constellations. Not
the boring ones her school teachers insisted upon talking about, but the good
ones; the real ones. She listened with wonder as his words brought the cosmic
ocean to life. They were all there; the turtle, the stingray and the mighty
shark. They were all there just for her and at that moment, she knew she would
always be safe and never alone. The world was too magical a place to ever let
her down.
But let her down it would. Whilst taking comfort in the
security blanket of her thoughts, she could already feel the sharp tug of
inevitability pulling at its sides.
‘Ms Skye.’
Just a few more seconds, she thought.
If
only she had just a few more perfect seconds where she could still believe in
hope.
‘Ms Skye.’
She breathed deeply and waited for the voice to address her
a third time as she exhaled the last lingering embers of her memories.
‘Ms Skye, you have to come now.’
Her eyes opened, immediately focusing on a nurse standing
over her. She figured he was a couple or so years younger than she; maybe
twenty three or twenty four. Either way, he was relatively fresh from college
and yet to develop the emotional detachment of a more seasoned member of his
profession. He was impatient; almost too eager to please, but as their eyes
met, he softened his demeanour.
‘How long?’ she asked.
The nurse glanced awkwardly at his feet. Her eyes followed
his gaze down to his shoes. They were dripping wet. She glanced behind him and
saw a faint moisture trail where he had walked.
‘It may only be a matter of minutes,’ he told her, ‘which is
why we have to go now.’
He led her through a maze of corridors, but she could easily
have found her way without him. She knew the layout of the oncology wing just
as well as any of the medical staff knew it. She recognised every face, not
just of the patients, but of their visitors too. All of them strangers, yet all
of them like a surrogate family. They felt the same pain, they felt the same
sorrow and they clung to the same fragile hope. Tonight though, she would have
to let go.
She stopped at the door to the cancer ward, but the nurse
carried on.
‘We are not going that way,’ he said.
‘That is where my father is,’ she replied, perhaps a little
testily. ‘Don’t you think I know my way around here by now?’
The nurse moved to place his arm around her, but then
thought better of it. He had only been on the job for a few months and was
still finding these kinds of situations difficult. He was not sure if they
would ever come easily.
‘Your father requested that this visitation be held outside
in the hospital grounds,’ he said. ‘We always try to honour our
patient’s...wishes.’
She noticed how he struggled toward the end of his sentence
and guessed what he had meant to say was “final requests”.
‘Dad always did like to be outdoors on a night like this,’
she replied, hoping to lessen the nurse’s awkwardness with the situation, as
well as her own growing anxiety.
In the centre of the hospital there was an open courtyard
and garden. The area was intended as a place of peace and contemplation for
both patients and visitors alike. Outside of visiting and recreation times the
staff would use it as a smoking area. A faint hint of tobacco odour lingered in
the air, but Lucy was too preoccupied to take exception. It was her first time
there and the first thing to draw her attention was an ornate fountain, which
gave birth to a slither of a stream that neatly divided the area in two. She
spotted his wheelchair nestled between the side of a small bridge, which
crossed the stream, and an empty wooden bench.
‘Oh crap!’ said the nurse, as the pair of them stepped onto
the grass. ‘The bastard’s done it again.’
The comment surprised rather than outraged her. Of course,
with her emotions in such turmoil to begin with, it was difficult to determine
what she felt. The nurse explained himself by pointing to the floor. The ground
was wet from a garden sprinkler. Lucy had not noticed the water in the dark and
did not feel it through her shoes. The nurse, on the other hand, felt the
moisture all too well. This was why his feet were wet earlier and now they were
soaked through.
‘I can take it from here,’ she said.
‘Thanks, I’ll be just inside; let me know when you are,
er
, um...’
‘I will.’
She waited for the blushing medic to go, before walking down
to join her father. When he did not acknowledge her straight away, she feared
the worst.
‘Dad?’ she asked, tentatively.
He turned his head and she let out a sigh of relief. It is a
sorry fact of the human condition that even in a life comprising of nearly
seven decades, no time is more important than those last few minutes of
existence.
‘Thought you’d missed me?’ he asked.
‘Of course not,’ she lied. ‘I am sorry that I’m late,
though. The traffic was terrible and you would not believe how difficult it is
to find a parking...’
She stopped herself, realising how terrible it would be for
the final conversation she was ever to have with her father to be about
automotive problems.
‘You’re here now and that is what matters,’ he said, before
reaching out and taking her hand in his.
His grip was weak. She dared not tighten her hold for fear
of crushing his frail fingers. Could these really be the same hands that had
once held her so strongly? Could they be the same hands that picked her up when
she fell and carried her when she tired?
‘I brought something for you.’
He was puzzled, yet amused.
‘Whatever could I possibly need right now, my dear?’
She reached into her handbag and pulled out the gift.
‘Do you remember when you used to take me camping? These
always were your favourites, but sadly I do not have anything to roast them
with.’
She opened the packet and placed a marshmallow in his mouth.
He closed his eyes and savoured the moment. Chemotherapy had completely
destroyed his ability to taste or even feel the full texture of the confection,
but this was the best marshmallow he had ever had nonetheless. His body may
have been ravaged by radiation and disease, but his mind was as sharp as ever.
He recalled the flavour, the feel, the smell, and through these memories he
really could taste it. As last meals went, it would be hard to better this.
‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they,’ he said.
‘Pardon?’ she asked.
‘Up there.’ He pointed. ‘Have you ever seen them shine so
brightly?’
She looked up at the empty black sky. They were sat almost
directly under an electric lamp and she thought maybe her eyes needed time to
adjust. After a minute, she could only just make out the South Star and part of
the Southern Cross. She assumed his memory was over compensating for his
diminished senses. Not wanting to take anything away from him during his last
moments on Earth, she thought it best to play along.
‘They’re beautiful,’ she agreed. ‘Do you remember when you
told me what they all signified?’
‘Of course I remember. I also remember which one was your
favourite.’
‘Tell me again.’
He sighed. There was no telling how many breaths he had
left,
therefore each carried with it a certain weight. It
would take a lot out of him, possibly everything, but how could he disappoint
his only child on this of all nights?
‘Let’s tell it together,’ he said.
She leaned in closer, wrapping her arms around his, resting
her head on his shoulder.
‘It all starts with the tiniest spark,’ he began. ‘After a
long, dry summer, the tiniest spark is all it takes. This one spark then grows
and spreads from tree to tree. In less than three skips of a kangaroo, the
entire forest is ablaze.’
‘But what becomes of the animals that live there?’ she
asked.
‘They run and they gallop and they hop and they sliver
away!’
In earlier
tellings
of the story
he would use this point to run his fingers up her side, tickling her as he
went. Without the strength to do this, the action could be repeated only in her
mind. She laughed more than she had ever done before as the phantom tickles
ignited her senses.
‘Not all of the animals are able to get away though, are
they?’
He shook his head.
‘No, they aren’t. One of them is left behind. Do you know
which one that is?’
She nodded.
‘The koala!’
‘That’s right; the koala. If he cannot escape from the
forest, what does the koala do?’
‘He climbs and he climbs,’ she said, taking possession of
the narrative baton. ‘He finds the highest tree in the forest and he keeps on
climbing until he is far above the flames below and he never comes down.’
‘He never comes down?’
‘That’s right; he never comes down. He never comes down
because he is so high up in the sky that when he looks below him, he can see
the whole world stretched out.’
They complete the last part of the story together.
‘Then every night when the sun has gone down, he comes out
to watch over all of the animals of the forest and to warn them when another
bushfire is coming.’
She knew her father had simply made up the story on the spot
all of those years ago. She was a bright kid and the koala’s inability to make
a rapid getaway during a bushfire did not escape her attention. The story was a
way of drawing a veil over her sorrow. It meant a lot to her, though. The
scholars had their tales to tell about the stars, as did the Aboriginals, and
now she did too.
‘Is the koala there tonight?’ she asked.
He briefly scanned the seemingly empty sky.
‘Of course, they are all out tonight. Can you not see them?
The stars have never looked so beautiful; they are like diamonds in the sky.’
She hugged him.
‘Thank you. With all of my celestial friends up there, I
shall never be alone.’
He looked upon her for what he knew would be the last time.
She was his only child and he loved her dearly, but he could not help but feel
regret for leaving her. Once he was gone, he hoped she would be able to move on
with her life; that she would finally find someone.
‘I love you, Lucinda Skye.’
And then he was gone. As tears streamed down her cheeks, she
looked up at the blank sky and for just the briefest moment, it came alive. It
came alive with all the stories of her youth. Then in a blink it returned to
blackness. She was alone.
***
‘We’re getting closer,’ said Charlie. ‘I can feel that any
day now, we will make the discovery we’ve waited our whole lives for.’
‘Do not get carried away,’ warned
Emmy
.
‘The greatest scientific discoveries do not happen overnight. They take years
of research, analysis, and experimentation. We are only at the beginning; the
hard work is all still to do.’
Once she had disconnected him from the machine, he leapt to
his feet like a hyperactive child. It was hard to believe he was thirty years
old, let alone that he had a PhD. Born in Melbourne, his family had emigrated
from Hong Kong in the seventies. He was one of the most brilliant
astrophysicists in the country and had been assigned to the project at the same
time as
Emmy
.
‘You’re as excited as I am, you just don’t want to admit
it,’ he told her. ‘You know as well as I do that we are sat directly under the
apple tree and any day now something is going to drop; something big.’
She shook her head as she checked first his heart rate and
then his blood pressure.
‘So what’s the verdict, doc?’ he asked.
‘Personally, I think you are crazy. Professionally, though,
you are fine. Your heart rate has already returned to its normal level.
However, I still think we need to be cautious as there could be side effects we
have not yet detected.’