Dad took me back to see Benji first. “He’s going to look a little different, because the doctors were trying to save him. He has tubes sticking into him, but they didn’t hurt him. We’re going to let the doctors clean him up a little before Rudy and Angela see him. But I thought you might want to see him alone, first.”
He was on a gurney and covered in a sheet. He looked just like he was sleeping, with his mouth open, but his skin was white and his lips were blue. He had tubes running out of his nose and mouth and the back of his hand, which was taped to a light blue block of foam.
He looked really small and I watched him. He wasn’t moving, not even to breathe, and it was eerie. I put my hand out to touch him, and then jerked it back.
“It’s okay,” Dad said. “You can touch him. Just don’t move him. I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.” Dad turned and left. I looked around and the room was white, with carts filled with empty trays and machines that were turned off, all under fluorescent lights that flickered softly. It looked cold and sterile, and I didn’t think Benji would’ve liked it here at all. I gently reached out again and put my hand on Benji’s. It was soft but cold, and I recoiled before forcing myself to put my hand back.
Benji’s death just didn’t seem real, even when I’d walked into the hospital room where he lay. But seeing him there, feeling his hand and how cold it was suddenly made it feel real to me. I felt kind of numb again, and the room began to swirl.
“Benji, I—this was my fault. I’m so sorry, I should’ve got to you sooner, I should’ve stopped you, I should’ve... I should have listened to you better.” My voice cracked and big, hot tears came again. My head felt stuffed up and I couldn’t stop myself from crying. “I should’ve done something.”
I let go of his hand and put my head on his chest and cried. I don’t know how long that went on before I felt hands on my shoulders and heard Dad say, “Okay, it’s time to say goodbye to him for a bit.” He gently lifted me by the shoulders and I stood up. I turned my head further away from Dad and scrubbed my eyes with the arms of my t-shirt, one and then the other.
Benji was still laying there, just like he had been when I walked in. Just like he always would be from now on.
I leaned over and looked at his face. “I love you, Benj.” Then I kissed him and straightened up again. I turned around and my dad put his hand behind my shoulder again.
We walked out of the room, and Dad squeezed my arm once we were outside. “Do you need a moment?” he asked. I looked down at the floor and shook my head.
“Nah, I’m good.”
Dad patted my arm and we both walked back down the hallway, our footsteps softly echoing as we passed. It was calm and tranquil, then we went back into the waiting room and it was louder but a lot more depressing than the halls.
Time passed. I stayed with Rudy and Angela until a while later they got to go back and see Benji. I didn’t want to see him again, but Mom and Dad wouldn’t leave me in the waiting room by myself.
This time, the tubes were gone and he still lay there, unmoving. I stayed just inside the door.
Dad drove us home that night, and he went with my uncle back to the cabin the next day to pack up all our stuff. They were gone overnight. Then we ended up with a babysitter so Mom and Dad could take care of whatever needed to be taken care of for Benji. It seemed like a lot of appointments.
For me, it all passed by like a blur. I was never much hungry and I kept dreaming that I was underwater again. I never saw mermaids, but I knew that I was being asked to stay. Sometimes there’d be food underwater somehow, and it looked so delicious! But I always refused it. I felt that I’d insulted whoever laid it out under the lake, but even when I tried to apologize and reached for something, I woke up before I could touch it. As hard as I tried, I could never remember anything about the food afterward.
It took a long time to get Benji’s death certificate. Dad said it took so long because the doctors had to examine Benji’s body to make sure they knew why he died. Eventually, the doctors decided that Benji had suffocated. Technically he didn’t drown because he wasn’t in the water when he died. But he had swallowed enough water that got into his lungs that they had swelled up and stopped working. So even though he was still breathing, his body wasn’t getting enough oxygen and he suffocated to death. Mom and Dad had to make photocopies of Benji’s death certificate, and I had a chance to look at one. The cause of death was listed as “aspiration pneumonia.” We still called it dry drowning, though. It was easier to say.
A week and a half later, we had a viewing for Benji. The funeral home had a chapel, and Benji was in a coffin, in a little suit that I guessed he wore at Easter, and all my family came and some of Benji’s teacher and school friends, too. Everyone got to go up to the front and look at him. He still looked asleep, but this time he didn’t look blue at all. He looked normal, if a little too orange. Dad said it was makeup. When we went up, Mom broke down crying and Dad had to pull her away. Uncle Jim came up quickly and stayed with me and Rudy and Angela. I didn’t look at Benji very long. I didn’t need to. I could hear his voice in my mind, asking me to come play with him. I bit my lip and didn’t say anything to him. I’d already said everything in the hospital.
A pastor came up and talked about how God had called Benji up to be an angel and how he was in Heaven now and would no longer be sad or suffer again, and how he would never grow old. That last bit made a lot of grownups start to cry. It made me angry. I knew that whatever had called him was under the lake, and it hadn’t done him any good even though he escaped. But I kept that to myself because I didn’t want to make a scene.
Then the pastor played a cassette tape that played “Abide With Me” and “Amazing Grace,” and everyone sang along. Those songs did make me cry, because I could hear everyone trying to sing and their voices breaking.
After the service, there was more time for people to go up to the coffin and say goodbye to Benji. But I had to stand in front along the side wall with my family and listen to people I didn’t know tell me how sorry they were and to hang in there and how God loved me and how Benji was in a better place.
The place Benji wanted to be was under the lake, but now the only place he’d ended up was in a coffin near home.
Even worse was when people asked me how I was holding up. What did you even say to that? I was fine, but Benji wasn’t. I wished I could take his place. But I stood there, in my own suit, and tried to smile and thank everyone. They didn’t cheer me up, but they were trying.
At first, it was strange not to see Benji around in the mornings. Rudy came in and slept with me sometimes, Angela wanted me to be around more, and Mom would set a place for Benji at breakfast or dinner, and then when she realized it, she’d excuse herself to her bedroom so we wouldn’t know she was crying. But we always knew.
Very slowly, everything went back to a kind of normal. It wasn’t all the same, but it became more familiar.
And then the dreams started.
I still sometimes had the dreams of being underwater. But now when I swam towards the table of food, there was a shadow there and when I got close it was Benji. He was naked, and when he turned, he’d always have the biggest smile on his face.
“I’m so happy!” he’d say. “Stay with me. We can be here together!” He’d stretch out his hand and offer food to me. Sometimes I’d hesitate, and sometimes I’d reach out for it, and every time I’d wake up just before I could take anything.
But the dreams started happening more often, and every time they felt more real. I could remember the foods that were stretched out along the underwater table like a cartoon Thanksgiving feast. The turkey and the apples and grapes and mashed potatoes with gravy that almost glowed with their own color unlike the murky blue-greens between the shadows around me.
I wanted to tell Dad, but I was afraid he’d think I was crazy. Or worse, he’d tell me it was all in my head. So I kept quiet. And the dreams kept coming.
Five
> Almost a year passed, since Benji died. And the dreams kept coming. We didn’t go to the lake this year, for the first time I can remember. Part of me was sad and another part never wanted to go there again. Instead, we stayed north up the coast and we spent one day by the ocean. I think Mom and Dad wanted to prove we could do it, more than anything else. Or prove that our lives had to move on, even if we were still sad. Just for an afternoon. But when I lay down and closed my eyes, over the smell of salt and banana-scented sunscreen, and the heat of the hot sand and sound of the seagull’s cries, I could hear the shushing of the waves. And beneath the sound of the waves, I could hear Benji.
Whispering to me.
Come with me. You can still visit. I forgive you.
I sat up with a start, and looked around. Mom and Dad were on their towels next to me, and Rudy and Angela were running up and down the sand.
“You okay, Joey?” Dad asked.
“Yeah, Dad. I guess I just dozed off for a second.”
My head felt sort of cloudy, and I got up and headed toward the water. But when the waves ran over my feet, I felt strange again. My feet were cold like they had been in the lake a year before. And I could feel the presence of long shadowy columns stretching up in the distance in front of me, and shadows swimming through and around them. I closed my eyes and I knew where they were ahead of me, and down in the deeps. I’d have to walk forward about 150 feet until the sand dropped off and the ocean got deep. And then I could sink down and join everyone. Join Benji.
It was all right in front of me. Just like I’d been seeing at night all year long. And I wanted to go, to find out just where Benji had gone. And I couldn’t wait to find out until—
A jerk at my waist interrupted my thoughts and I looked down. My hand was holding my drawstrings and I’d pulled them into a knot. I blinked again and shook my head. I was almost waist-deep in the ocean. I twisted my back and looked around and Rudy was yelling my name from the shore. I pushed my drawstrings back into my trunks and turned to wade back toward him.
“What is it?” I called as I made my way through the water.
“What took you so long to hear me?” he asked. “Angela and me want to see who can do the most somersaults without stopping and you have to count for us.”
I was angry at this intrusion. “Why don’t you take turns counting?”
“Because! We have to do it at the same time without stopping. Come on, count for us!”
After that, I stayed away from the water and just built sandcastles with Angela. Rudy came over and joined us later.
All the while, I could see in my mind where the beach was, how far out the sand went before it dropped off into the deep, and I knew something was out there, waiting for me. Welcoming me. Sometimes I heard Benji with the waves.
And ever still, I feel that call. It’s never words I can hear, but every time I’m by a lot of water I feel it, inside my head. It’s hard to explain why I never want to go with my friends to the pool. I hear whispers there. I even stopped taking baths and switched to showers.
At night, now all my dreams are of water, of the deep, of the cold currents and flows beneath the surface. Up above I see sunlight or moonlight or occasionally the wild storms that rain and rage above my head, all muffled by the cool embrace of the water. And the warm, calm refuge ahead of me, if only I swim forward and visit the shadowy buildings, and eat the feast that’s not for me but that I’m invited to every time.
And I can hear Benji calling me, hear in his voice that he misses me, but he always sounds happy, inviting me to visit him and stay.
Every day the desire is stronger. Today I won’t join him. But I know, as much as I’ve ever known anything else, that I will. The feeling creeps into my daydreams, my idle thoughts while I’m awake. One day I’ll walk into the waves, and keep walking.
And then we’ll be together again.
About the Author
Nathan Haines loves computers and videogames, and spends a lot of time reminiscing about old ones he’s owned. He can often be found typing on an Alphasmart Neo so that he will not be tempted by those old computers or videogames.
Nathan Haines writes sci-fi and fantasy stories, and sometimes he writes stories set on Earth that remind him of growing up. He has also translated novels from the X-Universe game series from Egosoft into English so more readers can enjoy them. He has written a friendly guide to the Ubuntu operating system.
A hybrid author who enjoys stiff drinks, moonlit walks on the beach, and five-star reviews on his books, he can be found on the Web at https://www.nhaines.com/ and would love to hear from you at [email protected].
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