The Sapphire Lagoon by Chrys Romeo - HTML preview

 

Nobody is what they appear to be

What the lagoon will make you see…

I would hear those lines whispering time after time in the middle of the night, but I didn’t know what to make of them.

And then the rhyme started flowing in with visions, fragments of dreams that didn’t have an explanation either.

But then, one night, I opened my eyes into the depth of water and I understood who I really was – or rather, where I came from. I was from the lagoon. It called to me.

I understood, as I was diving deeper into the sapphire water of the unknown lagoon that seemed to evoke distant memories and instincts from a time I hadn’t been aware of before, I realized I could breathe effortlessly in the liquid. At first I thought I had that ability because it was a dream, but in a few moments the feeling became so infusing that it was too real to think it was only an insight into subconscious imagination.

I could breathe underwater. I knew I had to try it out when I would wake up. Until then, I opened my eyes and looked around. I was a living being from the water and it answered so many unfair questions I’d had my entire life. That was probably the reason why my immune system didn’t work very well. That was the reason why I couldn’t find an earthly living girl to take enough interest in me and consider me more than a temporary adventure. That was probably the reason why the most real girl I had ever met had disappeared near the water too – the only girl who had ever wanted to be with me was gone in a storm and I hadn’t seen her since.

I finally discovered the answer to other mysteries in my life: why I had always wanted to live by the sea, why I felt like I belonged there.

The lagoon was endless, boundaries lost far away and the water so clear you could see for miles around the coral reefs and sand dunes. It wasn’t one of those murky ponds full of weeds and poisonous jellyfish; it was rather a serene liquid space dense in invisible energy and sounds, flashes of light that seemed to hide undeciphered messages.

“Nobody is what they appear to be… what the water makes you see…”

I could hear the sound like a melody, yet the voice awakened some memories in my mind.

“Amber?” I asked and the water filled the word, taking it away into sapphire distance.

I remembered the name of the girl who had disappeared near the sea. It would seem fit to hear her voice in a lagoon.

“Where are you?” I asked again.

The lagoon didn’t answer right away. It stirred a whirl of undercurrents beneath my feet, tingling my skin. I could hear only two syllables, indistinctly mixed with the sound of swishing algae from the coral reefs.

“E-e-e-o-o-o…” the water went on repeatedly.

I tried to listen more attentively, but the water was blurring the whisper, drifting away with the sound.

“N-n-n-e-e-e-o-o-o-“…

I was lost in the depth of the singing lagoon anyway so I started swimming in the direction of the current. I followed the tide through the pale blue light that was overflowing in the lagoon until I arrived in front of a cave wall. The wall was glistening in mirror reflexes.

“N-n-n-n-e-e-e-m-m-m-o-o-o-o…” I could hear from beyond the cave, as clear as if the voice was right there beyond the glistening silver rock.

“Nemo? Who is Nemo?” I asked in my mind,

“It’s your name. You are.” the voice whispered back as if it had heard me think.

I wondered what Nemo it referred to: the lost fish or the captain Nemo from Jules Verne’s submarine story. It had been one of my childhood readings and I started to think there was more to it.

“I am Nemo?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yesss… Nemo from the lagoon. Nemo from Atlantis…”

Atlantis was another story that had sparked my interest long ago. I figured my subconscious was using my own myths, mixing them up to make a movie in my mind. And yet I was positive the dream was something more than a random dream. I could breathe underwater and I had to verify it in daylight.

There was something more I needed to know.

“Are you Amber, by any chance?” I asked.

The voice paused, then said alluringly: “Do you want me to be?”

It would not be easy to find out, I thought.

“Are you, or are you not?” I insisted.

The whisper created an invisible wave.

“I might be…”

Then the wave drifted off into the pale blue lagoon.

I woke up instantly and unexpectedly with a sensation of splashing cold water on my head. There were seashells on the pillow, smelling of algae, echoing of waves.

*

That morning I went out in a boat, looking for the lagoon.

It wasn’t an easy day to go out at sea because the winter blizzard made the waves high and threatening. It was snowing above the agitated surface and the snowflakes were stinging my eyes, but I was determined to find the lagoon that I had seen in my dream.

I went around the frozen cliffs, the motorboat swaying dangerously against the waves; as I kept trying to see through the diagonal blizzard of snowflakes, little empty gulfs would greet me in desolate visions. I was beginning to lose hope that I could ever find Amber again. She was gone. Only the memory of her warm presence and pleasant voice had remained – but I could see no trace of her in the cold sea. I couldn’t find any place that looked like the lagoon from my dream.

I returned to the bay and I decided to walk along the pier to clear my thoughts of the illusion from the night before. It kept snowing above the sea and the horizon was clouded in a shroud of mist. Suddenly, I saw something like an abandoned notebook on an empty bench at the end of the pier. I stopped and looked around. There was nobody in sight. Someone must have forgotten it there a while ago because it was covered in snow.

I picked it up and dusted off the layer of snowflakes. It was a notebook with thick leather covers, the same sapphire blue I had seen in the lagoon. A dark blue string tied the covers shut. I untied the knot and browsed the pages. Each one revealed endless rows of handwriting. It was a diary of some kind.

I sat on the bench and picked a random page to read a paragraph.

I want to tell him but I can’t because it would destroy the sapphire portal to the other side. Besides, the sentinels already told me it’s not allowed to reveal the way that goes beyond, not for an earthly being anyway. I should go now. They called me and told me to leave. I don’t want to let him believe I don’t care, but I can’t talk about it anymore. I must leave everything and disappear, especially since the storm opened the door to more trouble. The portal was shaken badly and the sentinels said there are cracks in the pillars. If I stay longer it might crumble before I can get back to the other side – and who knows what will happen to him. Good thing I took him out of the water that night. He wouldn’t have drowned because of his half genetic heritage, but he would’ve been lost in the depths and who knows, the big eight legs might have swallowed him.

At that point the notebook was slammed shut by the blizzard.

I hadn’t noticed someone had approached me. It was a girl, wrapped in a fluffy winter coat, wearing a woolen hat. She sat next to me and extended a hand to ask for the notebook.

“Hey, that’s mine”, she said. “Thank you for finding it. Can I have it now?”

I kept clinging to the sapphire blue revelation. I was sure it was Amber’s and by some mysterious miraculous arrangement of events it was destined to be in my path so that I could finally know the truth about her disappearance.

“I can’t give it to you. I’m reading it.”

“You don’t need to read anymore. You just finished reading. You closed it. You must give it to me now, it’s mine and it’s private stuff.”

“It’s not yours. It belongs to a girl whose name is Amber.”

“How do you know that? I told you it belongs to me.”

I looked at her attentively. Her black hair coming out of the woolen hat reminded me of Amber’s, but this girl had cut it short. Her clear bright eyes were the same sapphire nuance as the lagoon, but there was something steely and daring in them. She wasn’t going to let me get away with the notebook. I just knew it.

“Who are you? Are you related to Amber?” I asked her.

“How do you know I’m not Amber?”

“Because you’re different.”

“I’m not that much different. You’ll understand soon. Now give me the notebook.”

“Not before you tell me who you are.”

She smiled with confidence, answering simply:

“My name is Joy.”

“Joy?”

“Yes, Joy. Now – can I have my notebook back?”

And before I could react she snatched it from my hands and dashed off running towards the end of the pier, laughing. I ran after her. I thought she was just making a game out of the whole thing, but when she arrived at the edge she jumped into the cold waves and was gone like a dreamy vision in a whirl of snowflakes.

I stood there wondering what had just happened. I was sure she hadn’t drowned. I was certain there was something unreal about it. And yet I knew Amber had written that notebook. I stood there wondering what to do: jump after the girl who had stolen it, call the authorities or just wait.

I waited. And as I expected, in a few moments I saw her far out at sea, on top of a rock emerging out of water, waving at me with the sapphire notebook through the curtain of snow.

“Yoohooo! Over heeeree! I got youuuu!”

She was jumping up and down joyously. I found it strange that her clothes weren’t wet and she seemed fine after just having swum through the ice cold waves. But I was beginning to understand there was something that had happened beyond the boundaries of the real world. I knew I had established contact with the other side that Amber had mentioned on the page I’d read – and I would keep finding bits and pieces of the puzzle that would unfold the mystery of another existence I hadn’t been aware of having the opportunity to experience.

“Bye Neeemooooo!” Joy shouted from her cliff, laughing and then disappeared instantly.

The horizon was hiding the mystery of a world I wanted to know more about.

*

My mind was stuck on the fragment of Amber’s story. I kept viewing the lines with her handwriting over and over, trying to make the most of the clues it had revealed. I realized everything had an explanation. She had disappeared in another realm. It wasn’t that she had found another man. It wasn’t that her mother had taken her away – though I didn’t know that for sure either. My theories about her disappearance had been far from the truth. And yet I had been right about one thing: she was a creature from the sea.

What about Joy? I wondered. She surely was from that realm too. She had appeared the moment I had found the mysterious blue notebook with Amber’s revelations. She must have been sent to take it from me, so that I wouldn’t know too much about them. But Amber had mentioned my half genetic heritage and the fact I could breathe underwater. I had yet to test that.

There were many things I was beginning to learn about myself. I had just discovered the truth about who I was: it was dawning like a flickering light ready to reveal an entire display of wonders and miracles.

I submerged in the bathtub, to check if I could breathe underwater. I was trying to inhale but the water went up my nose to my lungs and my reflex was to cough it out. I knew there had to be some way to practice breathing in liquid, I just hadn’t found it yet. I was determined to get to it. I submerged my head in the bathtub water again.

Nobody is what they appear to be… but the lagoon will make you see…

I could distinctly hear those lines in a melodic flow. And then I heard the phone ringing. I emerged out of the bathtub, put on a bathrobe and picked up the phone.

“Hello”, the warm voice spoke as if from beyond my hopes of ever hearing it again.

“Amber”, I smiled enlightened by a feeling of sudden happiness. “Is this really you?”

“Yes, it’s really me”, she answered.

I realized how much I had missed hearing her speak.

“What happened? Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay. I’m home now. I left in a hurry. I had an argument with the people I was staying with and my mother came to take me home. I’m sorry I left like that. I wish I could have stayed longer, but…”

I listened.

She paused.

“You know”, I said thinking of the blue notebook, “I imagined a story about your disappearance.”

She laughed.

“A story that’s displaced out of reality, right?”

“Well, not entirely, but there is something unreal about it.”

Our conversation was going so smoothly, as if it was the most harmonious dance, unfolding by itself and taking us along. I was amazed once again at how good it felt to hear her on the phone.

“And what happens to me in that story?” she asked amused.

“Well, it seems you’re from the sea, from another world…”

“And I go home and have a wedding and twin boys”, she laughed again.

“This is beginning to sound like The Little Mermaid”, I said as if a bit reluctant to let her change the script, even though we were just playing along with it.

I really couldn’t have felt better about the conversation. It had been so long and we had shared so many good moments, it was only right to be together again.

I was wondering when she was going to tell me the truth about where she was and the surreal nature of her presence.

“You’re making a fairy tale of that story,” I said smiling.

“Yes, something like that”, she replied and I could feel her smile, enjoying the game of imagining the end of it the way she wanted.

We stood there in silence. I was so happy with her presence that I didn’t want to scare her off by asking more precise questions. If there was something she wanted to reveal, she had to do it willingly. I wasn’t going to mention anything more.

“Look how beautiful the moon is tonight!” she said dreamily and I could feel she was just as happy talking to me as I was to find her again.

I looked out the window. The moon was bright and fully shining beyond the clouds.

“There are clouds over here and some branches of trees,” I said watching the night sky.

“There are no clouds where I am,” she giggled.

“That’s not fair.” I said jokingly.

“You should be here to see it…”

“I wish I could.”

“I missed you”, she added casually, but I felt in her voice the truth was deeper than she made it seem.

“I’m glad you called. I missed hearing you speak”, I said and she laughed.

“Good. We can speak some more... anytime you want.”

I thought about the blue notebook again.

“You know, I found an interesting blue notebook on the pier the other day. I thought you wrote it.”

“Really? That’s interesting indeed. What did it say?”

“It said something about a portal and the fact that the storm had caused damage around it and you had to go”.

She went silent for a few moments. I sensed she wasn’t prepared to discuss it.

“I was worried that it was my fault you disappeared”, I continued, afraid she might hang up.

“No, it wasn’t your fault”, she answered determined. “There were certain circumstances and I had to leave. It had nothing to do with you.”

“What about the storm?”

“What about it?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I couldn’t elaborate. I didn’t want to force her to say anything she didn’t want to talk about yet.

“So when will we see each other again?” I asked instead.

“I don’t know… right now I’m over here… but we’ll hear one another again for sure.”

“What are your plans?”

“I don’t know yet…”

She waited for a while. And then she said as if in a hurry: “Listen, I’ve got to go now, but you can call me later if you want.”

“Okay.”

I couldn’t even say good-bye because she hung up. She must have had something urgent to do – or maybe someone had discovered she was connected to the real world and she was not supposed to. I didn’t know for sure.

But I was happy I had heard her again.

As I returned to the room I found an ivory pastel string of pearls on the table where the phone had been when it rang.

*

I thought I would talk to her frequently from then on, but Amber didn’t call again. I dialed her new number a few times but I only got the automatic response that the number was not available. I wondered if it had been her way of saying good-bye, but I couldn’t get used to the idea of finding her and losing her immediately after that. I kept trying to breathe underwater, but I couldn’t make it seem as easy as it had been in the dream. I also couldn’t explain the pearls or the seashells that had appeared out of nowhere. I thought that the materialization of such aquatic apparitions meant the two worlds were intertwined somewhere and I kept finding traces of that invisible connection.

Because of the winter harshness the tourists didn’t come for boat tours very often, so I had more time to spend ashore and walk around the pier. Everything seemed suspended and unanswered again. And then I met Joy once more.

I was sitting on the same bench where I had seen her the first time.

I was just thinking about everything and then she came by out of nowhere and sat casually by my side.

“Hi”, she said and smiled.

She had bleached her hair blonde and it was cut shorter, fixed upwards in a spiky bunch. It made her seem even more surreal.

“Where is the blue notebook?” I asked her.

“Why do you want it so badly?”

“I need to read what’s inside. I must know the truth.”

Her smile became brighter. Her eyes flickered in amusement.

“You don’t need that notebook. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Really? Like you did the last time?”

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

“Right now, not very much.”

She didn’t seem disturbed by my words. She crossed her legs, looking to the sea thoughtfully.

“Nobody is what they appear to be…” she chanted as if for herself.

“Indeed. Is that why you turned blonde?”

“Don’t you like it? I thought you would.”

“I like it fine, but I’m still wondering who you are.”

“Who would you like me to be?”

“Is that how you’re going to answer?”

“I told you, I’m Joy. Anything else you need to know?”

I felt I wouldn’t get anywhere with her. She wouldn’t tell me the truth. She was just playing with it. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to say more. But somehow I would have expected her to break those boundaries since she seemed so daring, and it felt disappointing that she restrained communication to a casual chitchat, keeping the truth distant from me.

“I care about you”, she said as if she had guessed my thoughts and her sapphire eyes looked at me seriously, glistening mysteriously.

I shook my head.

“If only that was so, but I don’t believe you. You don’t even know me.”

And yet I had an unexplained hunch there was something about her that I knew very well. I didn’t remember where from.

“Come with me”, she said suddenly and went to the edge, jumping in the cold water at once.

I walked to the end of the pier, but I couldn’t bring myself to jump into the waves. I stood there watching them endlessly splashing against the cement.

In the distance, Joy appeared on that rock again. The horizon was clear and she waved at me.

“Come on! I’ll show you the way!”

Something from her determination convinced me to believe there was more to discover. I wondered for a while, then I decided to try and I jumped in without hesitation. The water felt freezing at first, but as I went deeper under the waves it became warmer and warmer. Instead of darkening, it also turned lighter and more transparent. I could see Joy swimming ahead, her blonde spiky hair like a candle flame, flickering through the light blue silent water. I tried to keep up with her speed, but she was faster than I had expected. I also expected to run out of air soon, but instead, breathing underwater wasn’t difficult anymore. I could inhale and exhale without any liquid filling my lungs. It seemed so easy and natural that I wondered if I was dreaming again.

Joy and I finally arrived in a valley of coral reefs, sparkling rows of fish and swaying algae. Next to a big rock there were four pillars, white marble columns that guarded an entrance to a cave. By the entrance the water was forming a glimmering wall, a silver liquid screen.

“Is that the portal to the other side?” I asked Joy, speaking in my mind.

She could answer the same way, simply speechlessly.

“Yes, but we’re not going to go through it now.”

“Is Amber beyond that portal?”

Joy turned around and moved swiftly in circles, watching me with a mysterious smile.

“Why do you still want to find Amber?”

“Because I miss her. And she gave me a ring. That must mean something – we have to meet again. She’s the only girl I’ve ever known who liked me in some way.”

Joy shook her head:

“That’s not true. She’s not the only one. There were others.”

“Like who?”

Through the water her sapphire eyes were alight with strange warmth.

“Like me”, she said. “You and I, we met long ago. We cared about each other when we were children. Don’t you remember?”

As I stood staring at her, I couldn’t recall where I had seen her. And then she flipped a hand over the silver liquid and it started showing images from the past. I saw a girl, ten years old, running barefoot on a railway track. I saw myself as ten-year-old boy, running beside her on the other railway track, in parallel speed. Sometimes we held hands to maintain some sort of balance. Her black hair and sapphire eyes seemed the same. The innocence and enthusiasm, the daring adventure ahead of us, everything came back to my mind. I had known a girl like Joy in my childhood, and I felt so free, so ready to go on amazing adventures, as if the whole universe was mine with her by my side, but I remembered she had moved away and our friendship had lasted only a year and a half.

“Was that you?”

I stared at Joy in front of me, as water filled the words and dissipated them.

“Yes, that was me.”

“But your name wasn’t Joy then. And you disappeared!”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”

She smiled.

“I’m so happy you remember me”, she added, swimming around. “Remember when we went looking for a spaceship to fly us to another planet?”

I blinked and the sparkling dots of light swirling between us seemed to intensify.

“Yes, I remember… have you found that spaceship?”

“Not yet. But there’s still time.”

As time was unfolding in my mind with sudden tidal strength, I turned to look through the silver wall. The liquid was trembling, changing to another memory. It was a woman with red curly hair and deep-water eyes, so clear that the sky and the oceans were reflected in them like eternal truth. Suddenly, lavender and lilac aroma infused the lagoon, the perfume subtly reviving the past in my mind, as if from another life.

“That’s Lilac”, I whispered softly, watching in fascination the image that I had long forgotten. “She used to babysit me when I was four years old. She always wore lavender color and a lilac scent. I was so attached to her… she meant the world to me but one day she suddenly left. She disappeared without a trace… without a word. I never understood how she could bring herself to abandon me like that.”

The trembling image became blurry and diffused.

It was soon replaced by another silhouette: a radiant woman smiling confidently from a window. A piano keyboard was floating above.

“That’s Candy”, I said, remembering another episode of a presence that became absent much too soon. “She was my neighbor and she used to play the piano. At night she was an entertainer in a club. As a teenager, I was amazed by her way over my head. I used to listen to her sing… she had a voice so mesmerizing it could have magnetized the water across the sea. She often came to the window to say hello. But one fine morning she went away to a bigger stage of a different town, without so much as a note. She was like sunshine to me but she destroyed that vision when she left. I was so sad when I saw the piano loaded in a truck to be taken away. I knew that was the end of meeting her by the window. I guess I had seen it as much more than it was. At the time I thought she loved me, but later I realized she didn’t… not in the idealistic kind of way as my teenage dreams wished she would. She loved the stage more than anything or anyone”.

The window frame faded off into the water, along with the piano keys that were replaced by sapphire light.

I suddenly became aware that these apparitions had something in common.

I turned around, somehow angry. Joy was relaxing by the entrance, floating on her back, her hands behind her head, her intense eyes watching alternatively the liquid visions and me.

“Why do you always disappear?” I asked her, demanding an explanation, a conclusion, a closure of some kind. “Each one of you appears and disappears out of the blue. Starting with my childhood I can remember many girls that meant something in my life and yet stayed only for a brief fragment of time. I could never get used to the loss and absence. Why? Why this sudden disappearing act each time?”

Joy kept smiling as if she knew the answer.

“It’s because they come from and go back to the sea. The water gives you what you need… what you dream of. But then it has to claim it away. It’s only temporary. None of us belongs on earth and we can’t stay there too long. We have to return here, to the lagoon.”

“But why?”

“It’s simple: because we come from the other side”, she said, pointing to the silver portal.

I stared at the glimmering water. I needed to know more.

“Why me?”

Joy turned around in a whirl of sapphire ripples.

“Don’t you know? I thought you’d realize by now. It’s because you also come from the other side, the lagoon is sending you signals to return. It kept sending you someone to bring you here. You only saw in them what you wanted to see. You didn’t realize they were water apparitions. They couldn’t get you to come along - but I did, didn’t I,” she giggled triumphantly.

“Are you any different from them?”

“Do you want me to be different?”

“It’s not about what I want. It’s what you are.”

“Are you sure about that? Do you really see me for who I am right now?” she inquired teasingly. “

She swam to the entrance, looking over her shoulder as the silver wall was sending reflections in her spiky hair.

“Would you like to see more than you ever imagined?”

Her sapphire eyes were alight with thrilling anticipation. She pointed to the glimmering portal, disappearing inside for a second. Her head appeared immediately from behind one of the pillars. She was swimming around the columns, touching the marble playfully.

“Are you ready to go through?” she smiled at me.

“What happens if I cross over?” I asked uncertain of the unknown beyond.

“You cannot return to earth if you do. You must decide if you belong here or not. You were lost on land for many years. You didn’t really adjust over there either, as much as you wouldn’t completely adapt to what is in here. You are half human, half amphibian. Your mother is from this enchanting lagoon. After you were born your father took you to a town with people. You grew up as one of them, but you are more like one of us, really. Didn’t you feel you never belonged with them? Didn’t you see how the lagoon called for you? That’s why if you choose to go through the portal you can never return to your world to live away from water. You’ll be on a permanent connection to the lagoon and you won’t be able to remain on land for too long. You’ll be pending on and off between two worlds, but I think you’re already doing that now, aren’t you?”

Joy’s revelations seemed like a fairy tale I found hard to believe. And yet there I was, in front of the silver portal. I was so curious to see the other side beyond the marble pillars.

Suddenly, Joy took my hand, unexpectedly yanking me away from the portal and started swimming in the opposite direction. It looked like the water was instantly turning dark with ink everywhere around. I saw the shadow of a giant octopus swishing its arms at us, fr