Absence

ABSENCE

We take sleep for granted. We are the charger of our own battery. When running smoothly, we glide on. However, the lack of it can stop us in our tracks. It’s just like trying to swim. You could be swimming with or against the tide.

Team building exercises, not my ideal way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but as I sat on the coach, we were all travelling on, the sun seemed to be peering from behind the clouds. I was exhausted and I’d tried everything on offer. Sleeping pills, lavender, meditation, relaxation music, nothing seemed to make a speck of difference. Each night I would roll inside the duvet, side to side, repeating the same motions. I would mindlessly stare into the night, through my window. I rested my head on the back of the chair in front of me soullessly staring at a piece of chewed gum, left in the corner down the seat.

I kept myself to myself. I was known as the loner at work. People tried to engage me but either I am just too tired to acknowledge them, or I just can’t make the effort to start new relationships. We were going to an adventure site, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hills and lakes, with forests for miles. According to our company, which makes toothpaste, team building in the wildness is the best thing for everyone’s motivation. I struggled at school, barely passed university. All my life I’d seemed to scrape by. Educationally weak, socially declined, there seemed to be little point to me frankly.

I jolted, looking up from the gum, my eyes met with a background of mountains, trees gathered like a meeting. It was cold but the old hoodie I was wearing was more than enough. A group of ten of us stepped from the coach. I watched as the bus disappeared, leaving wheel marks behind, which I looked upon mindlessly. I was startled by a push on my shoulder, I looked up to see everyone was marching ahead into the thick forest.

The moment I stepped into the arms of the trees, it turned icy cold. I had heard that forests were quiet a bit cooler than the temperature outside, but I felt as if I’d reached the Antarctic. Those around me didn’t seem to be complaining. I brushed the thought out of my head, I could now see a lake appearing in front of us. It was an odd feeling as I emerged out into the open once more. The chills from my skin, the goosebumps forming on my forearms were no more.

The size of the hills in the distance reached my eyes first. Tiny speckles of snow on top, the air around the mound, cloudy and foggy. Down below was a completely different picture. The autumn sun rays were bouncing down, shining on the glistening lake. I was memorized by the dancing shapes, swirling like synchronised swimmers, my eyes fixated on the human movements below the water.

“Aye!” I felt a slight slap on my cheek as I was taken out of the moment.

There, next to me, was one of the largest members of the workforce, Chad or Brandon or Douchebag, I forget his name. He stood a few steps away, hand out in front of him ready to slap me again. A typical idiot, slicked back hair, extremely muscular with a slight tan, the type of person that always seems to be getting promotions, even if his compass is morally corrupt.

“Oi, flighty, she asked you a question,” he called out in a demanding tone. The other people began sniggering to themselves or to those they were stood next to.

I looked ahead of me, to our boss, Camila, tall and commanding without being insufferable, the only one I really tolerated every day.

“It doesn’t matter,” she spoke under her breath. “More importantly, let’s all get into two teams of five and build these rafts!”

Everyone around me cheered and rushed to start. I was left in the same spot still staring at the sun hitting the water.

“Hey Spud” the distant call of Camilla brought me back into the world of reality.

“Camilla! I’m sorry, did you see….” I pointedly faced the water.

“Spud, are you doing okay?”

Spud was the name she gave me the first day I entered the canteen, pulling out my own jacket potato I’d cooked at home. That lunch time ritual didn’t last very long, due to my embarrassment at the attention it drew from everyone.

“Did you get any sleep last night? I don’t mean to come across as rude, but you look terrible.”

I nodded “I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”

Not looking too confident she nodded her head and gently pushed me in the direction of the lake and walked beside me. Everyone had gathered on the waters edge. At least we didn’t have to search for the wood planks they were stood ready beside the two teams. Camilla, annoyingly, headed towards Douches team. Grumbling to myself I followed. I’d always stuck with her, ever since that first day, a sort of boss’s pet I suppose but this really didn’t help my representation. I just stood staring at the wooden planks before me. I wasn’t much use; my body was built like a twig. The others on my team, including Camilla and Douche launched straight in, their knees to the ground tying ropes together.

“You can’t just stand there,” Douche called in my direction.

He leapt from the ground tugging me from my safe spot in the mud, and moved me to a more wet uncomfortable place, where I just sat crossed legged, staring at the same stick for what felt like an eternity, moving branches every so often and placing them on the raft so no one else could moan.

“Done!” growled Douche, like a lion hunting for meat.

The other team wasn’t far behind. Although their raft looked as if it was built by inexperienced people, people like me. Our teams raft, which I had entirely no input in whatsoever, floated proudly on the shore.

“And now. you know what I’m going to say don’t you?” Camilla joked.

Everyone joined in the laughter, except for me obviously, it was as though I was living on a different planet to everyone around me with their strange customs that I didn’t recognize.

“We all get on the rafts; everyone just clambers on and we’ll see which one holds.”

The Water dragged around my ankles as I pulled myself up on the wood, I felt my grasp on the wet logs loosen, when Camilla’s hand pulled me on board.

“So, we did it then,” I muttered under my breath.

We were squashed together like a tin of sardines, feeling each other’s breathe on our faces.

“We need to test it. Everyone does one lap around the lake.”

All around us was just vast amounts of water, with just one small island right in the centre. As we left the shore, we all rocked, each raft traveling in opposite directions, we were the ones travelling anti-clockwise around. The water was so vibrant. The sun danced on the blue hues. It was unbelievably clear, I could see all the way down to the sand beds, where pond weed swayed at the bottom. I was being sucked into the mind of the lake, unidentified movements rippling in front of me. I looked down to see my reflection painted just like a mirror, to show myself but in a very different light. I was grinning from ear to ear. I was sucked inside. A being of some sort but not quite human. A siren, I thought as I was being dragged deeper down, not remembering the lake as this deep when I just peered inside. The area felt vaster, more like an ocean than a lake. It felt as if I was being pulled further and further. As I looked up there was nothing but the cloudy waters. Down below just darkness, the depths of its awakening. Even if I could force my way out of its clutches, I didn’t want to, a calming sense filled my body. I had never felt so out of control but peaceful simultaneously. All I could see was many legs wrapping around my throat, I couldn’t move, but I didn’t argue.

Something large from above me leapt out all slimy and wet, I felt the light around me grow as the grasp from the creature lessened. A deep breath out and I was being pulled back onto the raft by Camilla, her face all screwed up, with a rising concern appearing. I lay flat, breathing as if I’d ran a marathon, staring up at the sky above, the clouds settling in front of the sun’s rays.

“Oh, thank God!” She cried, letting out tears of mixed joy and worry.

I smiled weakly at her but I was paying more attention to the shoreline, were the others were now stood in a huddle, in the mud, whispering to each other. I was being pulled onto the grass before I knew it, straight on my back coughing up water. My eyes met with the discolouration of the sky, the clouds drifting through like cars on a road, when her face appeared in view, stabilizing my back as I rose.

“You scared me! How do you feel.” She said heavily breathing.

“I feel fine.” I tried to answer, still spewing water right onto her clothes, luckily the fact I nearly drowned seemed to not let that worry her.

“You don’t seem it, take it easy eh Spud?”

I nodded but I still wasn’t with the world. The water creature was still scorched in my mind. I may have been drowning, but I’d never felt better, being pulled up was like I was plummeting back to reality. I was lifted onto a camp bed, the smell of the freshly washed linen stuck in my head. There were people gathered around me but nobody I knew. A large wooden door was open, revealing an on-site medical bay, beds each side of the room going down in a line. There was a small wooden desk in the corner where an older woman sat reading a magazine and chewing gum.

“Put them there.” She walked across and stood over me, while I was transferred into the bed.

“You put up one hell of a fight,” she announced once the people had left the building and the door was shut.

“They should have left me down there.” I mumbled under the sheet; my entire face covered apart from my eyes.

“Left you down there? What do you mean? Are you telling me this is an attempted suicide?”

“All I’m saying is that I was happier down there, alright?” I pulled the sheet completely over my face, though I could feel her eyes burning into me.

I woke with a start, peering around me I saw the same woman with the magazine by her desk, her face half inside, snoozing. It seemed dark and too cold to be daylight, so I twisted my head to where a window was open above my bed. Light, stringy curtains blew in the wind. The lake was nearly invisible, only the moon’s beams rippling on the water. They must have left me alone to stay the night here just as a precaution. I bounced back on the mattress, lying on my back staring at the wooden fan that was stationary on the ceiling.

Suddenly there was a breeze, but not as I knew it, more of a whisper in the night, a call from outside. The wind from the window blew leaves into the room, swirling around and the whisper became louder. It was as though I was being pulled towards the lake.

The door screeched open, the wood dragging on the floor. The woman behind the desk slept like she was in a coma, which seemed irresponsible considering the only patient in the room was disappearing. The force felt as though I was tied with strong rope around my middle, being tugged into the water, just like cattle to slaughter, except, although I was trapped and being pulled along, it was pleasant. The mud was slimy underfoot and in-between my toes, where they had taken my shoes away. I could feel every body part becoming cooler as the water hit my skin. The top of my head was the only part of me bobbing along but I felt the one last pull and then I was sucked under.

Its claws, giant, like razors, its beautiful scaley skin painted a murky blue, its mouth began to open, revealing its kitchen knife teeth. I felt myself being transfixed into the darkness. There was a tiny speckle of light right in the centre of its throat, a picture, just like a scrapbook becoming clearer. I was staring at a small box room, a bed placed inside and my body, comatose. I screamed but no sound came out. A group of my co-workers gathered around in puddles of tears. I screamed out once more but I felt myself being sucked out and pulled back into the darkness.

I remembered. It all made sense.