I have no memory of the past, no identity, I simply awoke to this world fully grown, cold and naked. I opened my eyes, clutched at the distant memory of a face of beauty and sublime, racked with the guilt of innocence. I was lying on a beach somewhere, waves crashed and cantered, my past, my future, all held in subtle balance among the dunes of an unknown beach.
I sat up and looked up into the sky at the dawning sun, it all seemed so peaceful. Blue ocean, beautiful sunrise, quite ethereal. I then realised that I needed to be somewhere, maybe it was part realisation and part instinct but I stood with all the effort of a newborn infant and I walked away from the water, I walked with hope of finding out who I was with each step among the sands.
With the beach behind me I stumbled through dense ferns and new morning mists, without any guidance whatsoever I happened upon a trampled path, my feet dragged through jungle thicket and hanging vines and onto the path I tread. It wouldn’t be long before I would find my identity and clothes I silently confided, and the eternal hope spring in my heart swelled.
I came upon a small village after about an hours worth of stumbling over rocks and naming various plants which I had never encounted before. Everything I saw became a new experience and in its own way become unique to me in my journey. I walked into the village with quiet trepidation as many people of islander decent crowded around me. It was easy to understand on their faces that they had never seen anyone like me, but on the other hand, I was seeing their faces for the first time. I was stepping back into time before the days when an English captain first introduced his ship crew and scientists to the awkward islanders offering their hospitality to the strange white people, and I was afraid, afraid of the unknown and afraid to offend.
Fortunately my fears were laid to rest when a young man approached me, hand outstretched and a smile in his eyes. I took the hand and he shook his with great enthusiasm, my arm aching to be free of the physical battery. “Welcome to our village” he announced in a proud but stunted English. “We find you are needing help yes?”, I just stood with a helpless glance and nodded at the young native. “Where have you come to?”, I now felt little wary that he may not understand my answer without at least a few attempts, “Uh, from the sea…” I added with hesitation. It then occurred to me that I was right, “You travel on boat?” “Err, no, I washed up on the beach, I have no memory of where I came from or who I am”. He then stood there for a moment and took in what I said, then he turned to the men standing next to him and started hammering out something to them in his own tongue. I felt like a third wheel and after what seemed an eternity of a back and forth conversation between the young man and his elder the young man turned back to me and smiled as if to say he had reached an agreement, “You stay in village with us, we help?” and although it seemed more of an order than a question, I nodded.
I stayed in that village with the polynese and taught English to the young ones and in exchange they taught me as they taught their own. I hunted, fished, and learned their language. The villagers even named me ‘Swahi’ which meant ‘mysterious’, and I also had a young admirer named ‘Jonas’, an eight year old pupil of mine. Jonas followed me everywhere and he seemed fascinated by everything I did, he gave me insight into his world and helped me learn more about polynese than the other villagers were willing to teach. Jonas became my rock it was with Jonas that I felt entirely at home.
Then I started to dream, I saw a woman’s face, it was beautiful and sublime, and would be smiling at me in my sleep. Then just before I woke up, the face of the woman would have a deeply forlorn look, as if she were tragically hurt by something, and after that I would wake suddenly into a bed of ice water. I had no idea why this was happening and after a while I just grew accustomed to this dream, then one day it stopped.
I knew somehow that I needed to find the woman who I dreamed of and I knew that would mean leaving the village I called home. The only thing that held me back was Jonas. I remember one day we were coming back to the village after fishing that day and I was looking at a scar on my arm and suddenly I remembered where came from. When I was little my dad was fixing an old television and he had it open with its circuits showing and he was soldering them with an iron. I waited and watched him with great curiosity and then he stood up and turned to me and said “I’m just going to the bathroom, don’t touch anything!”, I nodded but as soon as he left the room I walked over to the table. I got up onto the stool in front of the table and I looked inside the TV, it was like some sort of miniature city, I was amazed by the little chips and diodes, each like a giant skyscraper. I then turned my attention to the soldering iron and decided to help dad while he was gone to the toilet. I picked it up but it was much heavier than it looked. It dropped till it was dangling by its cord, collecting my right forearm along the way and leaving a permanent and painful reminder never to disobey my father again. I told this story to Jonas and almost immediately afterwards he turned away from me. I pulled his arm and he turned to me with tears in his eyes. “What’s wrong Jonas?” I asked, “I’m worried when you remember where you from, you leave” He looked up at me and defiantly held back his tears. I was surprised by how smart Jonas could be and I knew I would have to lie to his face, but it did not help that I didn’t want to, “Don’t worry Jonas, I’m not going anywhere”.
Nevertheless, I did leave in the end.
It was about two years that I spent on the island in French Polynesia, the island didn’t even have a name to the rest of the world or appear on any map. It was because of that reason that my journey to Tahiti was very long and difficult. I sailed for three weeks on a single man catamaran with barely enough supplies to get to Tahiti in weather which was quite foreboding at times and deadly at others. Then the dreams started again, growing more intense each day as I sailed further and further away from the only place I could call home. It was the day I reached the shores of my destination that I almost died, and that wasn’t the last of my worries.
I was lying on my back looking up to the sky, and before my eyes it changed from a brilliant light blue to a dark purple. I then saw two people standing side by side, blurred at first but becoming sharper and sharper. I could then make out a man and woman, the man in a dark suit smiling and the woman in a white dress with a tear streaked face… it was her! My eyes darted back to the man’s face, it was me! He turned and looked at the woman and said “Grace, I will always love you forever, and ever”. I wanted to slip into a coma and see nothing but this vision for the rest of my years.
Life had other plans for me however, and as if it knew I was thinking about giving up it dunked me into ocean. I thought I would have to get back into the boat but I was surprised again because when I dropped my legs to start treading water I found land. And when I looked up I could see imposing mount Ronui looming above me. I looked around but saw no signs of any people. I then dragged the boat to shore and kissed the sand, my first urge was to get sleep but I did not want to sleep on some deserted beach so I packed what I could carry and made my way off the beach.
It wasn’t long before I found a path and a sign pointing to Teahupao (which I assumed was the nearest town) I then gave a sigh of relief, my long journey was over, now it was time to get started on my next.
My new goal from that point on was to find out where I came from, and unfortunately for me the only employment I could find was in the merchant corps as a swab (the lowest of the low jobs on a ship). So I became Swahi the swab, and I travelled from port to port, I saw most of this earth from the deck of a ship and apart from my dreams getting more and less vivid none could compare to my vision on the journey to Tahiti. So as the years passed I sank deeper into malaise, and as I circled the globe on the sea-lanes I felt lost, searching for Grace.
My turn on the wheel of fate did arrive after four years of mindless travel, and in the most extraordinary of place’s… London, a city where people are literally a drop in the ocean.
I was on a pub crawl with some mates and we were coming out of the Prospect of Whitby formerly known as the ‘Devils Tavern’ and just outside the door I knocked some poor lady over, I offered my hand to her but she just froze as if I was the devil himself. “Oh my God!” she cried, I looked behind me to see what she was looking at. It was me… “Oh my God!” she repeated, this must have been some joke my mates had set up, but they were gone. Then I looked at her face again, it was Grace! But she looked so old… “Grace?” was the only thing I could say, I was as dumbstruck as she was. “Joseph? Is that really you?” people were now gathering to see what kind of entertainment we could afford them. “Grace, is that my name? Joseph?” she then looked at me puzzled, and then offered her hand to me. I pulled her up and people began to disperse when they realised there would be no violence, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, what happened to me?” Grace just looked at me and then directed me to a bench across the road, “I should be asking you what happened, and where have you been? You’ve been missing for six and a half years!”. “I don’t know Grace…” she then gave me another puzzled look, “Why do you keep calling me Grace?” it then struck me that this was not Grace I was speaking to, but a relative perhaps. “Where is Grace?” I asked, but I was not ready for the answer… I don’t think I would ever have been, “Grace… Grace is gone, she was lost at sea with you… you don’t remember do you?” I just shook my head slowly, hope was lost now, hope and Grace.
I went home with my mother in law Sarah that day, we talked about my past and I learned that Sarah was my only living relative left. I was lucky in this respect (Sarah had a room with all my possessions in it), time did return some of my memories, but I only dreamed of the worst ones.
Sarah was as happy as she had ever been in the past six and a half years and she let me stay in the room with all my stuff, but it didn’t help. The more I learned about the past, the more I lamented a love lost and the events of one fateful night. I had all the pieces now, I was a pilot, Grace and me were on our second honeymoon, we were still as madly in love as if we were just married and we were heading from Tahiti Nui to Bora Bora. It might have gone fine if I had checked the weather report that afternoon but I just didn’t bother.
We took off in the afternoon, that was the last time we would be seen. I levelled the plane off at 3500 feet and put it into a cruise speed, then I adjusted the flaps and set the autopilot, it was a small-chartered plane we hired for two days and it would have gotten us to Bora Bora by eight o’clock if it weren’t for the storm. I made the biggest mistake when I started reading a Stephen King novel instead of checking the horizon, with Grace fast asleep next to me neither of us noticed anything until the turbulence hit. After that I tried my best to go around the storm but it was no use, we were doomed. I remember the last words I heard from Grace and that was where my memory stops. “I will be waiting for you”, it was those words that haunted me more than anything now, they echoed in my mind as I woke in the morning and they followed me to bed at night, “I will be waiting for you”.
I knew now what I had to do, it was clear to me for the first time in seven years.
I climbed into the cockpit of my loan-bought 172 skyhawk, there was no looking back, I was determined that there would be no return. The engine started and I shuttled her to the runway. Its strange how cleanly she glided up this time, no bumps at all, perfect flight.
I had done my research over the past six months and the conditions were almost perfect tonight. The plane shuddered slightly and I let off the throttle, I put her into the autopilot the same way I did it a thousand other times. I closed my eyes and waited. Thoughts flooded my mind, the happy ones I cherished and kept in the back of my head, the sad ones moved up to the front and one by one I banished them from my mind, this would not be a solemn occasion, this was a time to celebrate.
The plane shook and twisted to port, it gathered speed into a dive.
I looked to my side at Grace, she smiled. “I’m waiting for you”
I smiled back at her and said those two words that I had been waiting to say for over seven years… “I’m coming”.
FINI
