Степан Мазур – Tai (*in english) (страница 2)

It was Phuket’s blackest day.

After the tsunami left, there were the ravaged beaches, cars on the trees and hotel walls atop the hills. Boats were found in the jungle two miles away from the coast. No coastal building was spared. The remains of houses and streets were covered with sand, scum, seaweed, and earth, the flood carrying pieces of furniture, local merchandise, clothes, and food. The street vendors’ overturned carts could be seen on the balconies. But the worst thing were the dead human and animal bodies scattered everywhere, among dead fish and seafood.

Playing that over and over again in his mind, Tai felt like losing his sanity. His soul was consumed by grief and pain as he realized that his entire family was probably dead. This tide of emotion was so overwhelming that it turned his hair gray.

In a nervous breakdown, Tai pulled out a clump of his hair. As he stared at the gray, curly strand, he realized he could no longer stay in the hospital.

“I must go,” he whispered to himself.

He was seeing double.

The people around him all had glowing doubles of different colors, mostly dark-red, violet, or navy-blue. These doubles were fluttering around their bodies, stretching up to the ceiling or shrinking to the size of a pea as they constantly changed shape.

Dismissing that as a hallucination, Tai removed his blanket and stood. No one seemed to pay any heed in this crowd of people requiring urgent medical assistance as he put on his shorts, then his tee, clenching his teeth as his nape, shoulders, and back ached to the touch of the fabric. Then he covered his gray hair with a baseball cap, slipped his feet into sandals, and walked off toward the exit.

The pain filling Tai’s body reminded him that he was still alive.

Following this pain, he walked and walked, leaving behind the tumultuous hallways flooded with pain, the no-service elevators, and the stairs, slipping through the space like a water drop would slip through sand.

But out in the street, things were even weirder.

Chapter 2 – See What Is Hidden

Slava passed around the pile of bottled water packs brought in by the emergency service people. Next to it, the members of some NGO were putting up another pile. More and more water was brought to the hospital yard by all sorts of vehicles with local numbers: local businesses and ordinary people stepping in to help.

He looked around. Groups of volunteers were unloading the vehicles, rushing the packs to the hospital stairs and putting them down with care. As he stepped out into the sun from beneath the cover, he pulled his cap down over his eyes and winced, moving his shoulders. The burn ointment had formed a crust over his skin, painful even to the slightest touch of the tee fabric. But Slava hardly paid any heed. His world had suddenly become overcomplicated, flashing its new faces at him and pelting him with surprises, his mind playing a game he couldn’t fathom.

No one there to explain him the rules of this weird daydream. Or had he died with everyone else and that was the afterworld he was seeing, with rainbow-wrapped passerby being a common sight?

A Thai man muttered hasty apologies for hitting Slava with his elbow; he hadn’t seen the boy because of all those boxes he carried. Slava recoiled; not as much with the impact as with astonishment at the man’s carrying a snake. A big, eyeless, white snake coiling around his neck and most of his head.

Is he a conjurer? Why would he bring his snake to the hospital at a time like this?

Tai blinked quickly, then turned back to the snake-carrying man, but he’d already disappeared into the hospital.

“What’s he doing? What the shit?” Slava whispered and pinched himself.

The pinched spot hurt. The sun was already high in the sky, baking the asphalt and suffocating Tai with heat, a strong thirst reminding him of all the water he’d lost with sweat. I must be seeing things through dehydration, Slava thought as he came up to a vehicle.

“Water, please. I need some water to drink,” he asked in English.

His burned nose and cheeks were such a sorry sight that one carrier stopped and took a bottle out of the pack. “Here you are.”

“Thanks,” Slava said and walked away to hide in a palm tree’s shadow.

The hospital grounds were extremely crowded, becoming some semblance of a refugee camp: a sprawl of ambulance cars, vehicles, trolleys, and tents. But the worst were the black bags forming long lines—and then being put up on top of each other as there were just too many of them.

Slava was old enough to guess there were dead bodies inside those bags. Some dropping bottles were dragged outside to treat the survivors. On the faces of some, Tai could read they were breathing their last. Their half-transparent doubles were dried and thin, almost drained of glow and color.

Tai wished he couldn’t see any of that, but he could. He could even tell how many minutes each man or woman had to live.

The injured were treated right in the open air. All trolleys, benches, and lawns were occupied by bodies of those struggling for their life, locals and tourists alike. No one was asked about their medical insurance. No one kept count of the medicines being spent. In the disaster aftermaths, the hospital opened its doors to everyone.

Slava took a gulp of water, looking around. Next to the main gate, a field headquarters was organized in a NATO military tent. It was where the newcomers were asked for their names and the deceased were identified.

Across the headquarters, a field canteen was cooking hot food for the frozen survivors, its pipe belching smoke.

There will be fire and smoke for the dead, too, Tai realized suddenly. For the weeks coming, the local crematoria would be working overtime to burn all the bodies.

“Poor things,” he whispered, tears running down his cheeks. He wiped them with a burned hand, never minding the tingling sensation. Cold was spreading inside his chest—and a thought about parents gave him an instant lump in the throat.

“No. No. They must be alive. They could’ve been away to the mall. They could take a tour. At night. Why not? Just… just don’t stay in the hotel. Please. Please,” he muttered as his mind struggled for sanity through denial.

Next to the hospital entrance, another vehicle was unloaded. One box got dropped, and Slava saw the smaller, elongated boxes inside: field rations. As he stared at their bright wrappings inscribed in Thai, he finally realized that the whole thing was very real. It happened to him in the real world.

But there was another world pulling itself over the real one.

Among the bustling hospital staff, victims, and volunteers, he could see large, brightly colored animals.

Why are they even here? Have they run away from a zoo?

He probably needed to see a shrink. Just like everyone in the affected location.

“I just need some sleep. When I wake, everything will be fine,” Tai told himself as he sat down on a free patch of grass, taking small sips of water to contain an urge to vomit.

His whole body was limp. He could barely stand, let alone walk. And where would he go, anyway? His parents had died by the wave. He was alone. Alone in this world. Half-crazy from everything he’d been through. All those animals—they just had no place here, among the busy crowd. And those life-indicating doubles of human bodies? Like in some stupid video game.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he realized just how lone and helpless he now was.

All those disaster-struck people with pain on their faces—they couldn’t help. In this world, he could only rely on himself. And this realization somehow kept him together.

I must be strong. I’m not a baby like Alyona.

As his sister’s image came to mind, the dam of his composure broke. He dropped the bottle and wailed. “Mom! Mommie!”

An elderly Thai woman put her box down and came up to Slava to put her arm around his shoulders. The touch was painful, but Slava made no sound. With the void spreading inside, he craved every little bit of human warmth, even from a stranger.

“Poor thing. He’s gone all gray,” she said in Thai at seeing the boy’s hair as his cap slipped off.

Slava didn’t understand a word. He swallowed, but the lump in his throat just wouldn’t go away. Forcing himself away from her arm, he put his hands together in the wai gesture used by the Thai people to mean “hi”, “thanks” and “goodbye” alike.

“Thank you,” he said in English.

“What’s your name?” she asked back in English, with a strong accent.

“Tai,” he said and looked away. He didn’t want to abuse the kindness of this elderly woman who found a moment to comfort him, a complete stranger, putting her own grief aside.

Pulling the cap back over his eyes, he hurried toward the gate. No one stopped him. Too many people were coming in and out at the same time; several sections of the hospital fence had been removed to prevent jamming. The fence was light in weight and easy to dismantle, just as the nearby buildings: mainly wood, very little concrete or stonework. In this hot climate, no one needed thick, strong walls.