Authors: J F Elferdink
The next e-mail Mark sent me contained these words:
“Just wanted to remind you that I am in love with you.”
Four months into our relationship, and I, too, was becoming certain that Mark was ‘the one’.
Almost from the time of my divorce, six years earlier, I’d been praying for an intelligent and considerate man to be my last husband.
I kept busy
preparing for his visit by making food, cleaning my house and buying little gifts I thought might make Mark smile.
The Saturday before Thanksgiving he called. He was on his way to the train station to spend the weekend with his son and daughter-in-law and looking forward to our time together. His flight was booked. Before hanging up, he promised to call just before his plane lifted off.
That call never came.
***
The next communication was not from Mark, but from his son. The e-mail read:
‘Late Saturday morning Dad suffered kidney failure and is now in the hospital in a semi-coma. His right kidney is functioning very well and is replacing all required activity of the failed one.
The doctors are not overly concerned and feel that within a few days he’ll be strong enough to proceed with the removal of the bad kidney scheduled for this week.
I’ll keep you informed on any changes.
Martin’
He lay, motionless, in what might have passed for a luxury hotel room if the bed hadn’t sprouted wires and tubes.
In the background, bleeping life-support machines and medicinal smells were clear indications of the ICU unit in a hospital, yet the situation was not quite as it might have appeared to the medical team.
Mark could tell he wasn’t in his own bed by the way the mattress encased his body; it reminded him of the sleeping compartments on trains. He could see that he wasn’t wrapped in the blue and tan comforter that Martin and Claire had given him for his last birthday but couldn’t turn his head to see beyond his direct line of vision.
The room seemed inordinately warm but his efforts to kick the covers off were futile. ‘Why won’t my legs move? And why do I feel so strange?’ he wondered.
He could sense people moving about. The characters seemed eerily real and familiar but blurry, almost like scenes from the Super-8 home movies he and his ex-wife had made when Martin was a toddler.
Then he heard Martin, reading aloud, somewhere nearby. Hearing him articulate the words to one of Mark’s favorite books, a historical novel, had a slightly calming effect
—
until he tried to get up.
‘I’ve had these dreams before where I try to move but can’t; a harrowing feeling until I willed myself to wake up. Okay, wake up now.’
His body wouldn’t respond and his mind started jumping from one subject to another, completely out of control.
Scenes rotated and spun like the contents of a kaleidoscope, bouncing the views around in his head. As the rotation became dizzying, he seemed to be breaking free from three-dimensional space into four-dimensional space-time.
Then everything stopped; all activity was interrupted as though every actor in a scene had been jerked from the stage in mid-sentence.
Now he appeared to be in a void—no noise, no one in the room; only whiteness surrounding him.
‘What’s happening to me? Am I in a grave? Am I in hell? But everything is so light. Shouldn’t it be fire and darkness? If I’m dead, why can I think? Wherever I am, it’s worse than any nightmare.’
A procession of people approached and withdrew, returned and retreated, as though in a chorus line; touching and testing for signs of life beyond what was indicated on the read-outs, but there was no response from Mark.
Waiting, close to hysteria, Mark was frantic: ‘If I’m not dead, I wish I were. This must be what a moth feels like in a cocoon. If only I could sprout butterfly wings. At least then I could fly away!’
His body, no longer under his control yet reacting to his emotions, clenched like a raised fist, symbolizing resistance.
‘Help me, God. If you are out there, deliver me now.’ Mark repeated the last three words over and over again, like a mantra, forcing himself into a kind of mental stupor and allowing no other thoughts through.
He had no way of measuring the passage of time but, suddenly, after what seemed like an eternity, he became aware that something was moving toward him, calling out to him.
Hallelujah! Hal-le-lu-jah!
Mark didn’t care who, or what, it was, provided he was no longer alone in a vacuum.
Into the void walked a male figure. Dressed all in white, he would have blended into the background were it not for his skin tone. Stopping beside the bed, the apparition seated himself in a chair, which had only become visible as his body dropped into it, and gazed directly into Mark’s eyes with an extraordinarily kind smile.
“Who…who are you?” Before the mysterious person could answer, Mark went on. “Whoever you are, you are more welcome than you can possibly imagine. I don’t believe I could have lasted another minute.”
Relief was raging through Mark.
“You seem to be someone I ought to know, but I’m embarrassed to say that I can’t recall your name.”
The smile remained in the stranger’s eyes as he replied.
“In my community, we do not have personalized last names; we all take the family name of our leader. You may call me Zachri.” The voice was soft but not weak. In fact, everything about this man implied genuine indisputable authority, without a hint of arrogance.
“Have we met, Zachri?”
“Yes, we have, but it was a very long time ago. You wouldn’t remember me.” Zachri paused to let that sink in.
“I came now because someone who loves you intervened….”
“Intervened? What’s happened to me and where am I? Why did I seem to be in a room one minute and a cloud in the next?”
“This will be hard for you to comprehend but it’s the truth. You are in a coma. Only your brain is functioning on its own. Your body is attached to various devices and tubes to keep it alive.”
Mark’s mind was reeling.
“Then why can I see you? I can’t see anything or anyone else. Who or what are you? Some kind of a counselor trained to work with the comatose?” Mark paused.
“I’m sorry for all the questions but I’m desperate. I was even asking God for help and I’m not all that certain He exists. Then you showed up but you haven’t exactly eased my mind. I’m wondering if God isn’t a better option.”
Zachri did not respond but, all at once, Mark experienced an infusion of calmness. It felt like watching sunlight bathe the earth after the abrupt end of a raging storm.
“I am a spirit, Mark. Your friend, Janine, who intervened for you, did it through the intensity of her love for you.”
That silenced Mark’s mind as though he had been doused with an icy stream of water, but only for a moment.
“I don’t know what you mean by spirit but, if Janie contacted you, do you also have some way to get a message to her?”
Mark wished he could make it an order, but a demand coming from a man who couldn’t even point a finger or raise an eyebrow would be ludicrous
“Could you, would you, tell Janie and my son that they will hear from me soon?”
I e-mailed Martin back; trying to relay at least a touch of assurance, for both of us, that all would be well.
Thank you very much for contacting me. I haven’t heard from your dad since Friday and I’ve been concerned. This is certainly disturbing news, but at least I now know what’s going on.
Let’s believe the doctors who are saying that this is temporary. I thank God that you knew how to reach me, and will keep me informed.
Be assured that I am fervently praying for his quick recovery.
Janine
After clicking on the send button, I almost gave in to fear but then made myself believe that God wouldn’t take Mark so soon after he had come into my life.
Convincing myself that the bond between us could be interrupted neither by a coma nor the Atlantic Ocean, I tried something I’d read about: mental telepathy. Throughout the day and when I awoke during the long night, I repeated: “Wake up, dear one. I’m at your side.”
As I fervently repeated this message, I became more assured that Mark would fully recover.
Even my Catholic nun friends, who had agreed to include him in their daily prayers, seemed similarly encouraged.
‘His healing is assured.’ These words became my constant refrain as I prepared to celebrate another family Thanksgiving without a partner.
I hid my anxiety from my family as I helped prepare the traditional feast.
Being strong and independent were traits instilled in my siblings and me from my earliest remembrances.
Several times during the day I sneaked to the computer, hoping to get the message from Martin that his Dad was awake and my celebration could begin. The only messages exchanged between Martin and me that day were brief notes of hope.
The next evening, I rented some movies to help me escape briefly from the vision of Mark lying still as death. In the movie I chose to watch, ‘City of Angels’, Nicholas Cage portrays an angel who uses his free will to become human, for love of a female doctor, ably represented by Meg Ryan.
When she is killed in an accident, soon after the angel discards his wings, he doesn’t lament his decision to give up his perfect life in paradise. Instead, he declares: ‘only one moment with her would have been worth the sacrifice.’
I cried over the angel-turned-human’s plight, but went to sleep thinking about the things Mark and I would do when we were together again.
As Zachri, the strange guest, hovered over Mark, their communication soon showed signs of becoming as dramatic as the movie Janie was watching thousands of miles away.
“Mark, our meeting is not accidental. Before I give you details, I want you to think back to some of the greatest challenges of your life. Tell me about some of your climactic moments.”
“Hmm, being wounded while on active duty in Vietnam and, I guess, losing my job when the bank I worked for went bankrupt. I’d have to add leading my company through the piracy of one of our freighters with my son on board. Those were weeks and months I’d never want to live through again and I keep trying to forget.”
Zachri smiled and nodded his understanding:
“Anything else?”
“Oh, I do remember a bright spot. It might seem rather trivial but it continues to give me strength. Once, when I was hiking over particularly tough terrain in Vietnam, I found a flower in full bloom; something that should not have been there but managed to thrive under impossible conditions. The image of that flower often comes back to me during particularly rocky periods.”
“Mark, an assignment has been prepared for you that will involve traveling back to some rocky....”
“What the hell are you suggesting?” Mark interrupted heatedly.
“You’re talking about time-traveling and that only happens in books and, I told you, I never want to experience anything even remotely like those events again! If you’re real, get me out of here. If I’m hallucinating, I choose to deny this is happening to me.”
Zachri didn’t leave. Neither did Mark.
“All right, tell me, please, how I can be completely immobilized, hardly taking in what is happening around me and yet able to talk with you?”
“By now, it should be clear to you that we are not communicating with vocal cords.” Zachri explained gently.
“It is the power within me that allows us to connect. This conversation is taking place only in our minds. I can read your mind and you, a fragment of mine.”
Zachri could measure the rise of cortisone, adrenaline and cholesterol in Mark’s body at that comment.
“You’ll reduce your stress level if you can accept this on trust. In time, I will be permitted to explain how it’s possible. For now, here’s an example of what humans reveal to me. In the next second, you will again see your hospital room.”
Zachri paused momentarily and then continued speaking.