The Portal of Returning

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Chapter One - The Beach

It began with a light. No. It began with a smell, a thought of a smell. A sleepy reminder of childish memories of the sea. A smell of salt, and sand, warmth and light. I was lying on warm sand, on a beach. My eyes were shut and I could remember nothing.

Who I was, and what I was, it had seemed to slip my mind. I must have been someone, I realised that, I wasn't born here, lying on the sand, but the memory was too dim, a life lived by another, as distant as a star reflected in a well. Maybe there had been a woman, a house, a job, all the things you would expect in a man. It felt of very little consequence.

My eyes opened, and then dazzled shut, I rose, and slowly focused on a gently moving blue horizon. I looked around, and found myself, apparently lying on a beach on some bright tropical shore.

The sand was a brilliant white, the sea was a light azure blue. Looking up I saw an almost unbelievably blue sky, without a single cloud in it to mar its perfection. A large ripe sun threw down its warmth onto my shoulders. Behind me was a green wall of vegetation, its dark depths speaking of ancient vine covered temples. I looked down in bemusement at the warm sand that sifted through the toes of my bare feet.

I tried to recollect what I could have been doing to have arrived at such a place. Had I been at sea, and been shipwrecked? For all I knew, I had been plucked from my bed and deposited here by some unknown hand. As a wave of panic hit me, I considered the possibility that I was dreaming. I looked around, the sea, the sand, the dark green leaves of god knew what sort of plants, seemed to me almost too real in the warmth of the sunlight. The smell of the seaweed, the sensation of the breeze on my face, and the sound of the waves gently breaking on some distant unseen rocks, could not be confused with illusion. It was all too sharp and in focus, there was not any doubt in my mind at all. A dream can be mistaken for reality, but reality can never be mistaken for a dream.

It dawned on me, that whatever had happened, I at least had no recollection of it. It embarrasses me now to think of the confused self-pity I felt for myself then, before I had any inkling of what fate had in store for me. I had no more idea of what to do than a new-born baby, but I do remember my first few actions involved running up and down as stark terror began to grip me, and an awful lot of screaming and yelling for help. It started with pacing up and down, putting my hands to my mouth or eyes, and muttering half incoherent sentences, trying to spring a memory from my foggy mind. Like many people, when left all alone I will start talking to myself, and I found my mutterings getting louder and louder until all sense was drowned out by my fast developing fear.

There was only so much shouting I could sustain, however, a fact, which had nothing to do with my lack of desire to do so. As it began to grow dark, the fear I had been feeling began to grow, and as the sky grew redder, I still had no idea who I was or how I had got here.

The stars began to come out, and a large moon illuminated the beach, almost as if it were day. The magnificence of the sky drew my attention and at last I began to return to myself. The stars were incredible, a great heavenly display of light and wonder. I was sure I had never seen anything like it my life, these strange constellations, alien to me, and yet speaking to me, a peaceful whisper.

My next thoughts were that surely I must have died, and that I was experiencing the afterlife. Contemplating this I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke, in the cool morning and as my mind reconstructed and remembered, I leant towards more rational explanations. A shipwreck, of course. I noticed for the first time, that I was only wearing shorts and a white T-shirt. This added weight to the argument. Perhaps I had been on a holiday cruise ship, or on a private yacht? I must have amnesia, which prevented my recollecting anything about how I had come to be a castaway, I reasoned.

I paced out a stretch of the beach, as I tried to recall any memories of what had happened to me. I found that while my mind wandered, my feet decided their own direction, and when I had once again come to my senses, I guessed that I had walked along several miles of the brilliantly white sandy beach. I turned to look at the prints that I had left, as the gentle tide began to wash them away. I was lost in a deep revere, I could have been anywhere, and I felt that these prints were those of another man. Surely it wasn't me, walking here and leaving temporary marks on this strange foreign shore? It was an overwhelming experience, not exactly panic, but almost as if I was adrift from my own body, I certainly didn't feel part of it any longer. I felt, for a moment, that I was drifting away completely, but suddenly my attention was grabbed by an object appearing around the jut of a rocky promontory. It was nothing so much as an ancient sailing vessel, like a galley or trireme, in full sail, and with oars rising up and down in the surf. In a moment I was shouting out as loudly as my raw throat would allow, and waving my hands to attract the attention of the craft. I saw dark figures move around the deck, and they seemed to study me, they did not appear to be in any great hurry to attempt a rescue. Presently a boat was lowered and two of the dark figures clambered into it, and began to row towards the shore.

As they grew closer, I saw that one of them was rowing, and that the other was sat in the stern of the boat. They surely must be very tall men, I thought, at least seven feet each. They got closer still, and doubts began to enter my head. I could not see the rower’s face, as he had his back to me, but the passenger seemed to be wearing a Halloween mask of some kind. A sort of boar’s face mask, with tusks, and red malevolent eyes, with coarse brown hair tufting out from underneath his hat.

I took a few steps back.

Suddenly I realized I had no more time for speculation, these two beast men were on the beach and advancing purposefully towards me. They were wearing leather breeches and long blue coats, one of them had a three cornered hat on, and the other wore a simple bandanna. They were huge creatures, broad shouldered and powerful in appearance, but the most striking feature was their animal like faces, which marked them out so obviously as something other than human. Without speculating further, I fled for the tree line, driven on by panic.

Not looking behind me, I could hear that the two creatures were pursuing, and I could make out their grunts and cackles, as they called out to each other. I fled between the roots of the tall trees, headlong, with little care as to what I was blundering into. I fell several times, but scrambled up instantly, and accelerated back to as fast as I could go. I could still hear them crashing through the undergrowth, and glancing back, caught a glimpse of one of them, a huge dark figure silhouetted in the light of the sun filtering through the trees. It was then I received a stunning blow to the head, and I had enough sense in me only to perceive I had run right into a branch. I looked down at my feet, they appeared to be a long way off, and wondered why I couldn't get them to move. As I began to lose consciousness, I felt the beasts lay their hands on me, with no more concern than a man might pick up a rabbit.

There were three beds in this room, but there were only two people currently within. The door was shut, so they had been talking in privacy. None of the beds were occupied, the starched sheets had been left undisturbed. It was a hospital ward, a familiar place. Pale green walls, with nothing to decorate them, but medical paraphernalia and a strong smell of disinfectant and simple efficient furniture.

A man sat on a chair in one corner of the room, and a woman wearing a doctor’s coat stood beside the window. The man was dressed in ill fitting jeans; two sizes too big, and held up with a leather belt. On his body he wore a T-shirt with a print on it of Daffy Duck. He was tall and thin, possibly in his late twenties, although his face was aged by two or three week’s growth of stubble. He had a very distant look on his haggard features. The woman was obviously a doctor, from her white coat, with a stethoscope thrust into one of the pockets, and the large round glasses that somewhat spoiled her pretty face. Her whole demeanour spoke of a medical profession, from the way she stood, and the look of concerned interest she affected. This one was probably in her early thirties, although she was dressed to look older, in a plain white blouse and grey skirt.

The sun had come out briefly, in between the clouds, and sifting through the blinds, it cut the room into neat little slices.

Dr. Lock looked down at the pen she had been clutching, unaware that she had been holding it. She put it down on the windowsill.

'That's quiet a ... yes'

The speaker’s eyes glanced nervously away from the doctor.

'What a way to break a three week silence.'

Dr. Lock appeared lost in thought for a moment or two, then casting off the spell of the speakers words, she remembered that she was a neuro-oncologist, and had a duty to perform.

'Do you remember who you are?'

No answer.

'Do you remember how you got here?'

Again the speaker didn't respond.

'What should I call you?'

The speaker shrugged, and then after a pause said, 'The nurses have been calling me Yarn.'

'Ah yes, they do have a taste for irony,' Lock replied. 'Still you'll surprise them all, now that you've found your tongue.'

Yarn didn't answer.

'OK,' said Lock, looking at some papers, which she had pulled from a pink folder.

'I'll run over some things for you. You were admitted to the Royal, in a state of severe confusion. Amnesia, delusions, hallucinations. You were able to verbalise, but mostly incoherently. X-ray showed no trauma of any kind, and the consultant at the Royal.. ah.. Dr. Heart referred you here, to the Weston for an MRI. You’re due for your scan tomorrow.'

Yarn, who had been looking intently at the doctor, shifted his gaze to the floor.

Dr. Lock took this moment to review the things that had just happened. Yarn had been sat in the chair when she had arrived, and had started speaking as soon as she had approached the window. His voice was captivating. Strong, dynamic, and fascinating, a sombre baritone, the voice of a natural storyteller, it almost talked straight to the ancestral part of her that had listened to spoken tales for thousands of years before the invention of television. She had been lured right into the story from the first sentence, and had totally forgotten who she was, or where she was from the very first second. For all she knew or cared, she was eight again, being read ‘Lord of the Rings’ by her father, prior to bedtime.   She had been there with him on the beach, and it had taken her a second or two to return to this room.

Yarn broke the silence and said, 'Scanning for what?'

Dr. Lock ahemed, telling herself, I am the doctor, he is the patient, try and remember that Heather, your not a little girl anymore, and said, 'A brain tumour, but I should stress that this is just to rule out the possibility.'

'And if there was one, will you cut it out?'

'That would depend on the type of tumour.'

'Would you do it?'

'I'm a consultant, not a surgeon. Mr. Hood is our resident neuro surgeon.'

'Ah,' Yarn sighed.

'But I'll pop in to see you tomorrow, after the scan.'

Yarn remained silent.

Dr. Lock talked for a bit longer, but she gradually realized that her patient wasn't paying any attention, and that she was wasting her breath. It looked like he had drifted away to whatever world it was he had just come from.

Wordlessly Dr. Lock left the room.