Interview, Atonement ending part three

John is back at home.

Edward is flipping through local channels in his small hospital room.

His brain feels like it’s stuffed with something heavy, a pressure he cannot alleviate, and the growing headache cannot be fixed with pain reliever or even the hospital’s strong “migraine cocktail,” as they call it—because Edward realizes it is more than physical pain that is building up in his head. It’s mind-numbing confusion, stoked with a whirlwind of static images and stranger stories to go with it.

All he remembers is going to a small burger chain, and picking up food. It was night, late. He was singing along to Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on the radio.

There is nothing after that.

And that man. The man that fell on top of the chair as he spoke to the nurse, with that incredibly sad yet shocked look on his face.

With those huge, big, mirror like amber eyes, and the waterfall brown hair that tumbled over his face.

Edward felt his heart leaking out a hot stream of instantaneous warmth at that moment when their eyes met, but he couldn’t place why.

“Oh, Ch-Charlie? Charlie! You’re awake! Oh my God! Oh Thank God!” The man cried in a relieved shout and fell on top of him, laughing sadly with obvious tears.

But he didn’t recognize him.

“Post-traumatic amnesia,” the doctor told them both, trying to explain how severe brain injuries(traumatic brain injury) during severe impacts or accidents can cause these temporary problems when it comes to the severity of the actual injury. He explained the short term memory was closed off and could come back as soon as in a few minutes or within a few hours. It didn’t seem to calm down the man. It only made him seem to go into a different state of shock, a silent stupor that made his amber eyes go glassy and faraway.

He felt bad. He didn’t want that man to feel so alone and upset, but he didn’t know how to react or what to say.

The doctor advised the man, “Avery,” to go home and get some personal things to remind Charlie of something of their life and of their memories.

Avery barely nodded, and waved them off, leaving in a quiet and slumped posture.

Defeated, Edward felt was a better word to describe the way the man looked.

Utterly and totally defeated.

Finally he flipped to something that caught his eye.

It is of a smooth animated, water color fin. The fin is multicolored, splashing in a sparkling, twinkling sea. The camera pans up and opens on a delicate looking mermaid and her seaweed jade curls. The hair looks very sopping wet and as she squeezes it out, finally the shot reveals her face. Human-like, soft, blue skin, clear, large blue eyes.

She gulps the air near the reef and looks up at the sky longingly. Suddenly, she senses trouble. The waves of the sea give her a signal she can feel, and her body trembles. She dives deftly in the water, and the sea below is a shimmering, slightly trash filled, animal and fish filled wonder. She finally sees the danger.

A seal is stuck on a fisherman’s net and is crying for help.

Edward can’t help but feel something strangely warm and familiar about the mermaid as she helps untangle the net and free the seal, especially when she sees a sea lass on the ship that has dark skinned and with choppy black hair, staring at the mermaid in awe—Edward feels a twisted warmth shake his whole being.

Their eyes meet and everything in the background goes soft and pink and blue and yellow.

Suddenly, there is a yellow shot of a lightning and a black night—as the other fishermen on the ship see her in the choppy waters.

They start to attack, but the one with the choppy black hair tries to stop them, when suddenly, she’s pushed all the way down into the water over the hilt of the ship. The mermaid frantically watches on as the maiden falls.

The scene suddenly stops and fades to a interview like session.

“Thank you for watching this small clip of my new and upcoming anime series, “The Watcherwallow’s Cove,” and thank you for having me on the show, Mr. Saquoy.”

Edward blinks and squints and rubs his eyes. This woman is familiar.

“And thank you for showcasing that gorgeous spot for our audiences to enjoy and get pumped up for, Ms. Alvarez.”

“Absolutely. This has been a work in progress for me since my early days even when I had my sketch book and I had just drawn up very basic models of these characters. This was all the way back in my high school and beginning college days.” She softly sighed. “To have it picked up by a huge network like this is a dream.”

“I can see the hand drawn precision of each frame. This style must be inspired by the one and only Hayao Miyazaki. We only see such devotion to the craft in small and painstaking doses, and this is an excellent example.”

The woman put up her hand, her brown eyes looking down as her expression turned into a somber and shy frown, her body turned tightening toward her chest in a closed off manner.

“I would never attribute my work to anything as brilliant or wonderful as Hayao Miyazaki. His work was absolutely the pioneer in animation and the expression of-”

Edward flipped the channel, feeling more uncomfortable by the moment.

He flipped the channels in a quick and uneasy fashion, but closed his eyes. He kept thinking of that amber eyed man that had grasped onto him so tightly as if his life depended on it.

That man was something important to him, he knew that, and it was painfully obvious that he needed a good kick in the head or pants to just wake up fully and remember him again.

It was then, he got a few soft knocks on the door and going it was Avery, he was disappointed to see it was not only not him, but a lone officer.

Edward flipped it back to the animation interview, and kept it there, dropping the remote near the side rail.

“Good evening, sir, I am so sorry to intrude. I just had a few things to ask you. I understand you were just in a head on collision accident involving a drunk driver, and I needed your information and just a few minutes of your time, is that alright?”

He nodded as the officer came over and sat down next to him, scooting the chair over with a gentle screech on the linoleum floor.

“This debut anime is a full tribute and memoriam to my late childhood best friend and later in life girlfriend, Barbara Vernita Jones. The mermaid is based on her. Our romance is loosely based on the romance in the story,” the animator said in the interview.

“That’s a poignant and special tribute, indeed, Connie,” the man said in return, smiling.

Edward’s eyes widened and suddenly something clicked. Those names. Connie. Barbara.

It clicked horribly like a crack to the skull, relieving all the pressure, letting all the bad liquid that was making the pressure build up pour out.

And then another name came to his mind, along with a flood of a million words, pictures, ideas, memories and sounds.

John.

The officer's words were like in a silent movie. He couldn’t hear them.

Only the breaking of the clock as time slowly wore on, as he felt John was in dire need of some sort of saving—-it wasn’t based on fact, only a strong sort of feeling.

He just hoped that this interview would be over by the time John got back.

——

Catch up on John & Edward’s story Atonement click here.