the shizzle > the blog pile
Black Hole Sun......
Oldmanmatt:
Where are you?
“Where are you? Where have you been?”
She’s angry, worried, I should have been home hours ago.
“Umm, look... Can you come get me? Ask Anne if she can come with you and call Bill’s wife... We’ve lost our car keys, phones, wallets... everything.”
I’m shaking as I talk.
“There’s been an accident.”
She is four months pregnant, showing.
And I am a selfish, thoughtless, Bastard.........
Six meters....
I switch from twenty one to pure O2. I’m going to be here for forty minutes or so. Sun beams flashing through the water around me.
I watch Dave switch gases, we exchange OK’s. He’s struggling to stay level. A Remora has decided he’s a shark and is trying to latch on.
“More like a whale.” Says the voice.
It’s been a good dive, life is good.
I grab the ladder, pass up the deco tanks, throw my fins in. Climb in.
Behind me Dave passes up his tanks and sticks his face in the water to get his fins.
I bend forward, to take the weight of the twin set as I undo the waist buckle, beside me Ahmed is gearing up. Gentle waves, calm.
Ahmed pulls his re-breather towards him, I slip the buckle.
POP!
A silly, insignificant, sound. Flames leap across the deck, engulfing my feet.
I don’t think, don’t breathe, I just dive. Straight over the ladder, straight over Dave’s submerged head. As my head hits the water, something smacks into my calf. Hot, searing.
I surface, behind me a terrible, howling roar. I turn to see a towering Roman Candle, rising from the middle of the deck.
Phut! Boom!
Shit... The tanks are cooking off. Turn, swim, desperate... All around debris, shrapnel, tearing up the water.
“You have responsibilities.” The voice is chiding, berating. “You should not be here!”......
The years had passed, we had passed them together. Two weeks after that first date, she’d moved in.
There had been mountains, canyons, deserts and jungles.
The mountain girl, who could hardly swim; had become a competent diver. Her quick eye had soon focused on photography, above and below the waves; it was being noticed.
When, after two years of searching, we had finally located the wreck of the U533; she had carefully ferried deco tanks to and from the stops as we slowly crawled up from 120 mtrs (a disorienting tasks in the featureless blue void). She shyly stood with us glory hounds, when we posed for the paper.
There had been the miscarriage.....
There had been pain....
We’d just returned from another adventure, back to work; reality. Not long after Christmas 2005. She said “I’m late.”
We sweat it out, the three months of shadow. Then the dreaded scan, that last time brought such pain.
It was viable, it was strong. She was pregnant.
But I wanted to go back to the Sub. That meant training. So I left her at home, drove the 100k’s to Fujhera. 75 mtr dive, good forecast, good friends; what could go wrong......?
The explosions have subsided.
We are huddled in the water a couple hundred meters away. Quiet, staring.
To the bemusement of Ahmed and Phi (a Vietnamese American), Bill begins to laugh...
“Bloody Flares wer’ in’t ther’” he giggles. “An t' radio” To a Brit, such things are funny...
Suddenly we’re all laughing.
Time passes, we’re not laughing anymore.
“You’re 25 k’s offshore, the boat is burning, you’re alone” says the voice. “You shouldn’t be here”
Time passes, the voice won’t stop.
In the eyes of the others, I can see, they hear the voice too.
Time passes.
There is a fishing boat, attracted by the blasts; it has followed the smoke column.
We laugh, we joke. We slap each other’s backs.
But even when I’m back on land, she is holding me, sobbing....
I can still hear the voice...
Oldmanmatt:
PET day..........
Here it is eleven AM. There it is only ten.
She will be walking into the scanner room right now.
Somewhere in Taunton, (they don’t have one in Exeter).
It was three AM, last night; when I last glanced at my watch and finally slipped into restless sleep.
The voice is getting louder....
I missed my training session yesterday. Friday’s finger strain, was still..........
“An excuse”
The voice does not permit self delusion.
The voice is not a bad thing.
It just is.
There has been fear....
Still limping from the leg wound, (a piece of yellow, plastic, re-breather casing had embedded its' self there a month before). I hold her as we leave the Doctors office.
She smiles at the Nurse behind the desk (but I can feel her shoulders shake) and makes another appointment, one weeks time. From now on it will be a weekly ritual.
Placenta Praevia. Type 4.
We didn’t know what it was. Now we do and wish we didn’t.
There has been joy...
Four weeks early (to avoid any risk of contractions).
It is Dubai, I am not allowed in the theatre. I must wait outside.
There is crying.
A beaming, Bulgarian, Mid-wife is calling me, “Come, Daddy, meet your little girl”.
Now there are two “Shes” and everything has changed.
It’s eleven thirty one. She must be nearly finished.
I’m waiting anxiously for her call. To hear her say she’s home. She wouldn’t let my Father drive her, insisting she do it herself.
Her Demon, her fight...
There has been joy...
She has booked a suite at an expensive hotel, looking out over the warm waters of the Gulf.
She has booked a baby sitter.
It is Valentines’ day and we enjoy a candle lit dinner in the restaurant at the back of the beach.
Gentle music, the surf softly churning in the distance.
Eight months and three weeks later...
“He” arrives.
There has been joy...
Oldmanmatt:
10:13 (BST)
She texts "They're injecting me with the good stuff"
11:30 (BST)
One word "Done"
"Call me whn u get hme. Mxxx" I reply.
"There are hundreds of image frames to be checked" Says the Voice.
It will be Thursday, before we know anything.
I wait...
Oldmanmatt:
Her...
Oldmanmatt:
P1010051 by oldmanmatt, on Flickr
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