Super Seeds by Avalon Cole Hive - HTML preview

THE FLIGHT

Australia

Sydney

2020

The dawn rose with its powerful nuances of pastel colours to reveal the beauty of the land it touched.

When she was a young girl, Sarah was in awe of the sun rays above the trees near her mother’s house. She adored watching the birds flying in a concert of whistles.

It was a celebration of their freedom and happiness.

One day without understanding why, three white ladies came, and they took her to a religious mission.

She only used to speak mostly in her aboriginal dialect but now they forced her to communicate only in English.

The first months she arrived in the mission, she often cried.

She missed her mother dearly, she never knew her father because he died of her heart attack when she was an infant,

When Sarah thought about her mother, she felt lost and confused.

She was in a program designed to make her a good Australian girl. She should forget her aboriginal culture.

At night, she often dreamed that a magic wind would take her back to her mother.

After one year at he mission, a couple came, and sister Laura the head nun announced her that they would be from now on her parents.

They adopted her.

She should forget about her mother.

But Sarah said that she would never do that.

When she heard these words, sister Laura beat her up with a cane.

Sadly, her adoptive parents used the same method through all her formative years.

The family moved to Sydney.

Sarah was bullied at school because she was different.

Some of the children used racist slurs to describe her.

When she felt sad, Sarah remembered how the wind blew in the trees next her mother’s house.

She used to pick up the fallen leaves and to look at their nervures.

In a leaf design, she could see the secret language of the universe.

Throughout her life Sarah kept her sense of wonder to overcome difficult moments.

Sarah grew up.  She had boyfriends but never married.

Something in her could not cope with the fact of being loved.

Her sense of identity was damaged by years of neglect and abuse.

After countless therapy sessions, she finally forgave her adoptive parents.

But the event that made Sarah shifted her perspective on her existence was the near death experience which happened when she was twenty five year old.

With a group of friends, They rented a boat to explore Indonesia departing from Australia. 

The first days everything seemed so nice and fine. The dolphins came to play with them. But on the fourth day, dark clouds gathered signalling the formation of a dangerous storm. Because the captain of the boat was very experienced, she thought that he would handled it well. But rapidly, the storm turned to the worst thing they could imagine.

The waves were enormous.

The boat capsized under the gigantic force of the ocean. Sarah was disoriented in the water, the temperature shocked her body, and for a couple of minutes, she lost consciousness.

She saw a magnificent light in front of her. She heard her mother’s voice telling her that it was not her time yet. 

Sarah regained her faculties. She managed to swim to the surface. She saw the emergency inflatable boat. Her friends helped her to board.

Finally, after one day, an oil tanker spotted them. 

They returned to Australia. By miracle, all people who were on the catamaran survived.

Since that day, Sarah realised how fragile and precious life was. She decided to never let fear stopping her to achieve her goals.

She finished her nursing studies. Sarah commenced the process to become a doctor for the intensive care unit,

What could be more fulfilling that to bring back to life someone that was near death.

Her journey to achieve this ambition was very challenging.  She had to find the money to finance her studies.

On top of her salary as nurse, she took on different loans.

She slept very little between her work and the studies.

Sarah cried almost everyday due to the exhaustion.  The mental toll to face the harsh realities of the hospital life wore her out.

But she succeeded to overcome any barrier that her mind could come up.

When Sarah thought she had put most her dark past behind her, a colossal challenge showed up.

She just turned fifty year old.

Sarah started her shift at the hospital when one of her colleagues explained the new admissions for the day in the intensive care unit.

They had dedicated the entire unit to treat people suffering from covid 19.

At first Sarah noticed the name of one patient who just had been transferred from another hospital.

She thought that it could be a coincidence.

The patient was a lady who was ninety three year old and her chance to survive looked quite slim.

Sarah put on her uniform and protective equipment to enter the unit.

“Hi Sarah this is the new admission, we put her on the ventilator last night, she deteriorated so fast.” said her colleague.

When Sarah saw the lady’s face, there was no doubt, even with the wrinkles, she recognized sister Laura.

She did not let her colleagues noticed that she was in state of shock.

All the bad memories rushed back in her mind.

She remembered when she used to do the laundry for the mission. One day her arm was stuck in the machine. and she was burnt to the second degree.

Sister Laura did not call a doctor.

She said that the sun would heal the wound naturally. Sarah could not sleep for days.

The pain was excruciating.

“It’s in your head” said sister Laura

The sound of the monitoring machines in the unit brought Sarah back in the present moment.

But in a part of her mind, a rage erupted that she was unprepared to control.

She was so surprise. She thought that she had forgiven all the people who hurt in her childhood, but she could not stop the flood of feelings that submerged her.

Sarah also remembered the day when an apple was missing in sister’s Laura’s room.

She accused Sarah of stealing it.

She locked her up in the cupboard under the stairs without any light for hours to punish her.

When finally sister Laura opened the door, she ordered Sarah to strip down and to walk naked to take a bath, she had to pass in front of the boys.

Sarah felt totally humiliated.

In reality, the apple was stolen by a sister who was jealous of Sarah.

She wanted to teach her that she had to know her place. Whatever she could do, she would always be a savage needing re-education.

After this incident, Sarah’s mother tried to get her back because she thought the mission was there to educate her not to belittle her. 

But her mother was thrown in jail for kidnapping. Sarah asked herself how a mother could kidnapped her own child.

It did not make any sense. But it was the law.

Sarah looked at sister Laura breathing with the ventilator.

Life was so unfair.

How such an evil person could have a long existence?

Sarah imagined what she could do to sister Laura if her colleagues were not there.

Sarah knew that she was totally incapable of doing any harm to a patient.

She went back home. She talked to Mina her best friend on the phone to ease the pain.

After going to bed, she had a bad dream.

She was near her mother’s house.

She was bitten by a very venomous snake leaving her suffocating. Under her feet, a black hole sucked her into the nothingness.

But as soon as she slid in a different dimension, she went back to the same spot and was bitten again by the same snake.

Sarah woke up sweating profusely.

During all these years she had bottled up her pain.

The day after, Sarah went back to the hospital.

She stayed very professional. She took care of sister Laura who was in a stable condition.

The family asked to talk to her about her situation.

Sister’s Laura’s niece came with her daughter.

“We do everything we can to stabilize her but the lungs are damaged, the vital prognostic is engaged, we have to wait to see what happen in the next twenty four hours.” said Sarah.

Her niece was the only family that sister Laura had.  Sarah could not believe the words she used to describe her aunt, how kind and generous she had been for others.

The following night, Sarah had the same nightmare the only difference that there were two snakes this time.

One of them was smaller like it was the child of the first one. They kept biting her again and again.

Against all odds, slowly sister Laura recovered, and she came out of coma

Her niece was elated by the news.

Being deeply troubled by her bad dreams, Sarah consulted a psychologist at the hospital who explained to her that her anguish was perfectly normal. The feelings, she profoundly buried, had to come out.

Sarah decided that it was the moment for her to visit for the first time her mother’s grave.

She cried abundantly.

It was cathartic. All the sorrows and sufferings stored in her body came out.

She also visited where her mother’s house was.

But now it was a new building.

They kept the tree she used to climb. She sat there watching the birds like she used to do when she was a young girl, it revived happy memories.

Sarah went back to Sydney.

After two months, she went to check on sister Laura who totally recovered. The old lady did not recognize her.

Sarah asked herself if she had to reveal her identity to sister Laura.

Finally, she decided to leave the past behind her.

She went for a walk with sister Laura outside the hospital.

“It’s strange your face does not look totally unfamiliar I do not know why.” said sister Laura.

“I think it’s because I treated you when you were in the coma” said Sarah

“I owe you and your colleagues my life, you are my heroes.” said sister Laura.

“I’m happy you are better now. it’s our satisfaction to see that you are well.” said Sarah.

“Oh look the birds in the trees they are so lovely”

said sister Laura.

“Me too, I love watching birds being free and happy.” said Sarah.

The birds flew between branches.

It was the celebration of a new dawn.