by John Shors
She beat her fist against the board, beat it until Lek stopped her. “You’re going to hurt yourself!” he shouted, kicking so hard that he seemed to have the hip of a twenty-year-old. “Stop, Sarai! Stop doing that!”
“Where are they? Where . . . where have they gone?”
A woman’s body floated past. To their right, a complex of new bungalows disintegrated, glass shattering, roofs collapsing. Screams came from inside one of the structures, which were simply lifted up and pulverized into shards by the sea. The screams were vanquished, though in the distance, other shouts and cries pierced the constant tumult created by the raging water.
Sarai’s sarong caught on something, and she was dragged down. She kicked, her feet seeming to strike nails, and Lek pulled her up, his face contorted. The sarong ripped and disappeared. Suddenly she was free, though her feet hurt so badly that she could hardly kick. Thinking of her children enduring such pain, she began to beat the board again, wanting to take their suffering and make it her own.
Lek stilled her once more, assuring her that they were alive.
“How do you know?” she asked. “How, how, how?”
“I’m not—”
“Tell me!”
Her eyes seemed crazed, and he nodded. “Patch grabbed them. And Achara . . . the American woman—”
“The wave took them all! They disappeared!”
“Look,” Lek said, pointing to a boy who had climbed a coconut tree. “People live.”
“And people die!”
Lek, barely able to see, wiped tears and grit from his eyes. “We should have . . . sent Patch away weeks ago.”
“So?”
“Why did we keep him with us?”
“To help! For selfish, disgusting reasons.”
He shook his head. “No. He was meant to be here today. That’s why . . . that’s why, my love, I think they all live.”
She put her head against his shoulder and started to sob, praying as she had never prayed, beseeching Buddha to let her husband be right.
As if her plea were answered, a longboat appeared ahead, vacant and seemingly undamaged. “There!” she shouted, kicking furiously as the water swirled around her, pulling her down. She wasn’t afraid of death, but she wouldn’t die now, with her children still out there. And so she called upon the last reserves of her strength and will, refusing to submit even as people around her were sucked under, even as the strongest and stoutest finally surrendered, disappearing beneath the sea that had always comforted them.
CLINGING TO A VOLLEYBALL-SIZE YELLOW buoy that might have been from a crab trap and that couldn’t quite save them from sinking, Patch struggled to keep Niran and Suchin alive. Though both children were unhurt except for a variety of scratches and shallow cuts, they appeared to be in shock. Suchin’s teeth chattered and her eyes were blank and unfocused. Niran tried to swim but seemed to have forgotten how. And while Patch’s mind still sped and schemed, his body, which hung down into the debrisfilled water, was bruised and bloody. The initial impact of the wave had twisted his right knee, and that leg now throbbed and was nearly useless. He could kick with his other leg, but his hands gripped the children and the buoy, and keeping everyone above the surface was becoming increasingly difficult.
The sea was now withdrawing from the island, sucking boats and trees and buildings back toward the bay. Here and there survivors gathered on the roofs of half-demolished buildings or concrete hotels. Though these people called out to him, Patch didn’t expend his energy shouting for their aid, as there was nothing they could do. Instead he tried to comfort the children, humming to them, kissing their foreheads, and even joking on occasion.
Though he pretended otherwise, he was gripped by despair. Oil and gasoline coated patches of the surface, and his eyes stung from the chemicals. He’d swallowed so much filthy water that he felt nauseated. He tried not to panic, but his breathing was becoming ragged, and the world started to spin. The water seemed to be moving faster, pulling back, as if the island were a submarine breaching the surface. Objects too small or waterlogged to be of use swirled around them. Patch sought to shield the children with his own body, grunting as coconuts thudded into him. Suchin tried to climb out of the water onto Patch, and he was pushed under, debris striking his face and neck. With an almost superhuman strength, he kicked to the surface, shouting at her to be still and to pray.
With a free arm, he told himself, he could save one child. Letting one die would likely allow the other to live. A free arm would allow him to swim to a tree, to grab hold of something before they were swept into the bay. He wept as he wondered which child to release, which child to save and which to let die. Suchin was so happy, and that happiness shouldn’t be extinguished. But Niran was bright and eager, and his love of science would surely lead to good things.
Patch swore at himself, cursing his weakness. He kissed each child again, deciding that all three of them would live or all three of them would die. A middle ground couldn’t exist, as much as the practicality of that decision made sense on some level. No, Suchin and Niran would live or die together, and he would share their fate.
The last of the coconut trees was suddenly behind them, and Patch knew that they were being swept out to sea. Two hundred yards to his right, a large sailboat careened into several overturned longboats, sinking them. Life jackets surfaced but were too far away. People clinging to debris screamed for help that wasn’t coming. Though plenty of boats were still afloat, they were vacant and headed toward deeper water.
“Your clothes . . . are too heavy,” Patch whispered, struggling to stay afloat, weakening with every passing moment. “Take them off.” As the children did as he asked, he looked skyward, wondering how he might comfort them if death finally came. “You have . . . you have to try . . . to kick,” he added. “You have to . . . help me.”
“Don’t . . . please don’t let us die,” Suchin said, still shivering.
“That won’t happen.”
“Please, Patch. Please. We don’t want to die!”
He started to reply, but something bumped into his injured leg, prompting him to groan. Dimly, he wondered what had happened. One moment they had been on the beach, the water had receded, and the wave had come. Where’s Ryan? he asked himself, panicking once again, kicking harder. He looked around, calling out his brother’s name, crushed by the thought of their fight, that it might prove to be their last moment together. If anyone could survive the calamity, Ryan could. Patch didn’t fear for his brother’s death, but for their looming separation, because with each passing moment, Patch grew more certain that he would soon die. His life would last ten or fifteen more minutes. And then it would be over, all his dreams and joys gone forever.
“I love you, Suchin,” he said, tears cleaning his filthy face. “And I love you, Niran. You’re my sister and my brother.”
They answered and he kissed them, hugging them tight, protecting them from the unseen, from the weight of their own bodies. He couldn’t imagine the world without them in it, and this thought was almost magical, for it gave him strength when it seemed he had none left. He kissed them again, making promises he could not keep, tricking them with smiles and with words.
But the sea could not be tricked or beaten, despite his resolve. It continued to pull them out, dragging them from the bay and into deep water. Patch looked for something to grasp, for a gift from the heavens, but no such lifeline existed.
Wanting to give the children a few minutes of solace and hope before his strength gave out, Patch began to tell them a story. Reaching inward, gathering what remained of his will, he whispered a tale about an American man, about how that man had come to a small island in Thailand where he met two children, a brother and sister who made him laugh so many times, who made him feel happy and loved. The three of them went for a swim one day, a swim way out into the ocean. They swam so hard, so far. Finally, when they could swim no farther, when they were so tired that they couldn’t raise a finger, a whale surfaced benea
th them. And the whale lifted them up into the air, into a world where they could once again run and play and be free.
AMID DISTANT SCREAMS AND CRASHES, Ryan thought he heard music, which seemed to drift down from above—a woman’s voice, rising and falling, accompanied by violins. Ryan had listened to thousands of musicians create wonder with their voices, with the keys of a piano, but he had never heard such beauty as he did now. The woman sang in a language that was foreign to him, yet her words seemed directed at him. He saw her in a dark room, her lips red, her long hair pulled back. Surrounding her were musicians holding stringed instruments, everyone moving so gracefully, as if each arm and wrist were a snowflake, blown by a gentle wind, sent toward an unknown destination.
Supported by the life jacket he’d found, Ryan let the current pull him toward the bay. Though his blood, his warmth, continued to leak into the sea, the music comforted him. It seemed to come from the deeper water, and he followed it, believing he was being led toward Patch. His body, so cut and bruised and beaten, drew strength from the woman’s voice, and from his own will. He pushed himself harder than he ever had, his arms and legs propelling him farther away from land, from safety. On several occasions he could have swum to a tree or a surviving building. But somehow he knew that Patch needed him. The woman seemed to sing of this need, her voice haunting and compelling. Ryan saw people clutching at debris, and bodies tumbling in the water, and he wondered whether they could hear the woman too.
He whispered his brother’s name, shuddering, weeping as he kicked out into the maelstrom that had once been the tranquil bay. A handful of people called to him as they stood on the bottom of an overturned ferry. One of the men threw a rope in his direction, which Ryan ignored. The woman was still singing, her voice like a beacon from afar.
Something crushed against his injured leg and he groaned in pain. The world around him went black and then slowly reemerged, colors and sights forming like the first dream of the night. He lifted up his leg and saw a deep, frightful slash in his thigh. Ripping a strap from the life jacket, he tied a tourniquet above the wound, pulling it as tight as possible.
The water was swirling ahead, and suddenly Ryan was sucked under. Blackness engulfed him once again. For a moment, he let himself be pulled deeper. The woman still sang beneath the waves, and under the surface he didn’t seem to be as cold. But then he thought about Patch, about raking a massive pile of leaves together and jumping into those leaves. He kicked upward, memories flooding into him. He saw them playing in their parents’ station wagon, saw them running through the rain. And as he broke the surface, gasping for breath, he called out for his brother, called out until his throat hurt almost as much as his leg.
More memories came to him then, as he swam as he never had, again following the voice, which carried him forward, through the footsteps of his life. He saw his mother as she painted Easter eggs, his father as he showed his sons how to build a campfire. His parents laughed; they smiled from distant places. They lived. Patch came next, and as Ryan swam and wept, he remembered how Patch had always wanted to play with him, regardless of what he’d been doing. They’d raced on their bicycles, hunted for crayfish at the creek, whispered about sports after the lights had gone out.
Another twisting eddy pulled Ryan under, and again he was tempted to let the water win. If the woman had stopped singing, he would have given up, but her voice didn’t disappear, and so he fought the currents with all of his strength, his endless runs and workouts letting his muscles do what his mind commanded—wrench him free of the blackness.
The sun was out, shining powerfully upon him. He’d never seen such light.
“Where . . . where is he?” Ryan stammered. “Please . . . oh, please tell me where he is.”
A plane passed above Ryan. And though the woman still sang and his mind swirled, he realized that if he’d left earlier, he might well be on that plane. He might be safe. But then Dao would have died. The wave would have extinguished the light of her life and she would have never experienced the happiness that he was certain she’d know someday. She would never have had the three daughters and three sons she wanted, nor rejoiced in all the laughter that was destined to spring from her lips. She would have died alone and afraid, and so he didn’t regret staying on the island, didn’t regret the numbness in his leg.
An arm waved from far out to sea. Shivering, Ryan called for Patch, called again and again and again. The arm disappeared, but the woman continued to sing. Sure that his brother still lived, Ryan followed the voice, not believing that it came solely from God or from some sort of divine intervention, but that now, as his life bled into the sea, the bond between him and Patch was stronger than ever, and that his little brother needed him, that Ryan had been summoned to Thailand not to save Patch from the police, but to save him as he had saved Dao.
Though the world was still angry—swirling and killing—to Ryan it made sense. He had been brought here to save his little brother. That was why he had always loved to run, to channel his will into movement and muscle. Though he had never known it, his whole life had been about preparing for this one moment—this one chance to save Patch. Because if only one of them could live, surely it had to be Patch, who had always been weaker but better, who had always given, not wanted.
Ryan knew that the voice marked the start of his own journey, that the voice would lead him to Patch, and then toward a world where he would always be able to run, where his feet would never grow tired and aching, where light would always be on his back. He knew why he had come to the island. He knew what he had to do.
DESPITE THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE initial wave, the situation had worsened at the tree house. A stronger and higher wave had come from the other side of the island, reaching almost twenty feet tall and sweeping over Ko Phi Phi like a swollen river toppling a dam. The weight and fury of this water thrust buildings and trees and people back toward Rainbow Resort. Brooke and Yai watched in horror as the water climbed higher and higher, surpassing the top of the ladder, then swirling about their ankles, then their thighs. And still it climbed, creating a crest of white water around the platform and railings that Patch had nailed to the sturdy tree, boards that he’d fastened securely, but that weren’t meant to resist an almost incomprehensible amount of power.
The torrent of water had forced Brooke and Yai to the edge of the plywood, where they leaned against a bent railing and clung to the tree’s main trunk. Though they wanted to climb up, the trunk was slippery and to fall would mean death. And so they stood, fighting to not get swept to the sea, Achara held tight in Brooke’s arms. Yai put her body between the American’s and the current, trying to protect her granddaughter, knowing that she would be safer in Brooke’s grasp than in her own. Yai didn’t think about her other loved ones. In her mind, they had to be alive. She wouldn’t have the strength to save Achara if she believed her loved ones were dead. And so they lived. Patch had saved Suchin and Niran. And Sarai and Lek were standing on top of a hotel, sending help their way.
The filthy water climbed higher, reaching Yai’s waist, roaring in her ears. With each inch that it rose, there seemed to be another set of hands pushing against her. Yai screamed as Brooke slipped, unable to cling to the trunk with Achara in her arms. Dropping deeper into the water, Yai pulled up Brooke and didn’t stop pulling even when something popped in her shoulder. “You climb!” she shouted, knowing that Brooke had to carry Achara higher or she would die. “You climb now!”
Brooke eyed the thick trunk, which glistened with water and was almost free of smaller limbs. She also realized that they couldn’t remain on the plywood platform much longer. Soon they would be swept off, and when that happened, the end would come quickly. But climbing the trunk looked impossible. She’d have to shimmy upward, dragging herself higher until she reached a trio of wrist-thick limbs about six feet above her. Still, she had no choice. She could try to climb or she and Achara would die.
“Hold her,” Brooke said, handing Achara over to Yai. Then s
he wrapped her legs around the trunk, clutched at irregularities in the wood, and pulled herself up. Twigs left gashes on her thighs, but she continued to climb.
“Hurry!” Yai shouted. “Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
Brooke tried to reach for a stout branch but felt herself sliding down. She wrapped her arms around the wood, and again sought to climb, and again slid down. She repeated this process three more times as Yai screamed from below. But no matter how deeply her nails bit into the trunk, no matter how hard she fought, it was impossible to go any farther. The trunk was simply too wet and too free of smaller limbs. Knowing that soon everything would be black, that the water would extinguish them as easily as it would a trio of candles, Brooke began to sob.
But then another miracle happened, for she felt one of Yai’s hands against her bottom, pushing her up with an astounding strength. Brooke lunged away from the water, her fingers encircling a small branch and pulling on that branch with a ferocity she didn’t know she possessed. Suddenly she was higher, and able to reach thicker branches. She grasped them, pulled herself to safety, and then reached down for Achara.
The water was up to Yai’s chest. She squeezed Achara, kissing her lips and telling her to always be happy. Then, using both hands, she lifted her wailing granddaughter higher, shrieking with effort, rising to her tiptoes as the water knocked her off balance. She smiled as Brooke grabbed Achara’s hand and pulled her to safety.
Yai blew her granddaughter another kiss. Then the water swept her away, dragging her into darkness. For a moment, she tried to fight this darkness, but it was too strong, too omnipotent.
