UNHEEDED: Undone Realms Book 2

Ch. 22 - The Sunny Day Ahead

A/N: Today you get two Author's Notes, one pre, one post.  I don't normally include music with my chapters because it is so very subjective: what one person loves, another hates. The song Comfortably Numb has been playing through my head for the past week, especially as I edit chapters from Oliver's POV.  This song is his leitmotif and so, after some inner debate, I've decided to include it.

The following words from Comfortably Numb, are obviously not my own.  But they could be Oliver's.  They could so easily be his...

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

                --David Gilmour and Roger Waters

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It's ridiculous how Marcella and Avie carry on as though he can't hear what they're talking about.  His room is just on the other side of the wall from Avie's.  They should know how thin the walls are.

Sadly, Oliver realizes they do know, but simply believe he is incapable of comprehending anything anymore, as though the wall separating them is made of something much more impenetrable than plaster.  Truth is, information still filters through to him on occasion.  It may not be consistent, but it's enough for him to gather together some basic facts.

This is not the orchard realm, it's Avie's realm.  Here in Avie's realm, people don't like you if you're from someplace else.  Oliver is a threat and if he is found out, it will mean serious trouble for the three of them.  Worse than that, his child will be in danger.  She'll be rejected, despised by the people here, taken from her mother.  Maybe even harmed.

He doesn't know why he thinks of the baby as a girl, but he does.  He imagines her with Avie's long brown hair and glowing smile.  The thought of anyone hurting her makes every muscle on his body tense. He has to do something to protect Avie, to protect his daughter.

Marcella wants Oliver to go live in some other place.  This place is small and not quite finished yet, like a framed house with a roof but no walls.  When he's there, he'll be able to tell the difference between real and unreal.  But there's a catch.  Although she hasn't said it directly, Avie won't be able to come with him.  He's known this all along, though he forgets about it from time to time.  Oliver is used to a tent pressed with bodies, to a bed warmed by the girl he loves.  He has never been alone before.

The more he considers it, the more this place of Marcella's sounds like a prison to him.  If it's a choice between going to prison here in Avie's realm, or in this other place—this tiny unfinished world, he'll choose here, of course.  At least then he'll have the comfort of knowing he exists in the same reality as the people he loves most. 

In Oliver's mind, this is how he puts his own kind of sense to a senseless situation:  He is the reason the authorities are threatening them.  He shouldn't be here because his presence is putting his family at risk.  But if he leaves for the pocket realm, who's to say the authorities won't figure out what Marcella has done?  How can he save his daughter and Avie if he leaves them in order to save himself?

Oliver only has to ponder these questions for so long.  Once he decides what he needs to do, his resolve makes him feel saner than he has in a very long time.

He takes a piece of the hotel's stationary and writes one line on it, then leaves it on the bed where Avie will find it.  Hopefully, she'll understand.

He shuts the door as quietly as he can on his way out, then flees down the stairs, darting across the parking lot and into the street.  Once he's no longer in sight of the hotel, he hears his name shouted with such desperation that it nearly breaks him.  Oliver picks up speed.  He can't afford to let her voice draw him back.

He runs along the main corridor towards downtown.  It doesn't take him long to find the authorities.  A group of them stand in their navy-blue uniforms in the parking lot of the bowling alley.  He stops at the corner and watches them go inside.  Avie always promised to take him bowling but then he went crazy and she never got the chance to.  It was never that important to him anyways though now he wishes they'd had the time for it.

Oliver's life is a chain of discarded places and people and responsibilities.  Most of the things he gave up in his life he did so because he was forced to...but this place?  He chose it, leaving behind an old life to find a new one here where he believed he would be needed.  He doesn't want to give up his new life.  Unfortunately, what he wants doesn't matter.  He will never fully belong in this world, he will never see his daughter, he will never marry Avie, and now, for some unexplainable reason, he is devastated by the fact that he will never go bowling.

Laughter overwhelms him.  Hysterical heaves of pain nearly rip him open.  Oliver can't fathom why.  It's exactly the wrong time to be doubled over, chortling like a maniac.  He has to keep track of where he is, maintain his bearings long enough to do what needs to be done.  He must hold it together for a little longer, even if it's very, very hard to do so.

There is a reason, a purpose; his family must pick a certain amount of apples; only Oliver can make sure that that happens.

He stops laughing, shakes his head.  No.  The reason is Avie and the baby...and Marcella too, for that matter. 

Filled with resolve once again, Oliver walks across the parking lot and into the bowling alley.

"Hey.  Ain't you looking for me?"  All eyes turn towards him.  The authorities' scanners spin one by one in his direction.  He tries to focus on the people, on their strange devices, which are beginning to beep loud and fast.  Soon they sound just like the hum of this not-so-right realm, a steady drone that he's been listening to for so long—that sound he's all but forgotten about.  It drowns out the angry shouts of the armed men surrounding him.

He should be listening to the men and what they're ordering him to do, but the birds are out this morning.  Their chatter is so pleasant, especially on such a clear, fine day.  The thought of the sunny day ahead makes Oliver smile. He hates picking in the rain. 

Oliver grabs a bushel basket and steps forward towards the nearest tree.  There is a lot of work ahead of him, but at the back of his mind is the thought that he's already done what he truly needs to do.  His family is protected because of him.  It doesn't matter anymore how many apples he picks or if he picks any at all.  Whatever happens, he's done his job and done it well.

He feels a slight jerk.  His basket falls to the ground.  A warmth like the rays of the sun spreads across his back.  Then there is no more humming, no birds calling, no men with guns, no apples or trees or orchards.

There is nothing but sunlight and the certainty that he is finally, finally, right where he needs to be.

A/N:  I have never cried after writing anything before (though I was very close with several chapters of Every Day in May).  This chapter, though...it got to me.  My work goes through a serious revision process before it reaches you, but the last line appears exactly how I originally wrote it.  And after it was written, I lifted my hands from the keyboard and bawled.  Just bawled.  So if you felt the emotional tug of this chapter (and I hope that you did), you are not alone.

No questions for you today, but do let me know what you think!

Today's chapter is dedicated to @NatalieSampson, whose short story Nine is an incredibly moving tale of loss and recovery, as seen through the eyes of a baseball pitcher.  If you're feeling a bit emotional from this chapter, you are primed and ready for Natalie's story!