Wyatt strolled with us as we walked across Autunno Canal’s bridge. “Tell me,” I asked, still looking at the single dark cloud in the sky, “where are you from, Mr. Castor?”
“Sherah, Medard Tribe-Truinnsear Clan,” he said proudly. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious. I picked up a twinge of an accent, but I didn’t want to guess.”
“Oh!” His accent had the slightest Scotch in it, but it was so slight, you really needed to listen to pick it up. Oh right, I thought to myself, we’re not speaking English, but why does it sound Scotch? “You have a good ear, Madame President! I’ve spent so much time here in Alma, since I was a wee lad, I thought I covered my accent well!” He blushed.
“What brought you out here to Alma? From where, the Medard tribe? That’s deep in Sherah, isn’t it?”
“Why yes it is. My Pa was a construction worker on this here dam. Worked for V, Mr. Angel’s brother, many, many decades ago. Pa was tasked with many construction projects around Alma, workin’ for V. He hires A LOT of his workers from the Medard Tribe, since we have some of the best construction crews, ya know!” He let out a deep laugh, “We may be short, but don’t underestimate our numbers and our strength!”
Angel and I laughed with him while Frank, my ever-silent and faithful secret serviceman, continued to follow from a distance behind us. “So V hired your dad?” Angel continued. “My brother…always working…”
“Oh, he is! But he’s a great boss, when you show him you’re just as hard-working as he is. Show one ounce of laziness and you’ll get the boot…quite literally!” Wyatt rubbed his rear end as he reminisced. “Oh, I have stories for days!”
“Wait, you worked for V too?”
“Did I? Who do you think put in the recommendation that I should manage this magnificent Dam? V was bold about it to. He walked right up to the DOE’s office in Alma. Mr. Voltaire wasn’t the Head of the Department at that time. It was someone else… who was it?” Wyatt looked up toward the tall evergreens surrounding us, and then shook his head. “Oh, it’ll come to me. Anyway, V says to the director, ‘This here’s your man! He’s worked for me with every ounce of life he’s got. He’ll give the same amount of effort. Hire him to manage it and it’ll never run dry…’”
At that, Wyatt trailed off in deep emotion and contemplation. We neared a white open-topped Jeep marked for the Department of Energy and the USAR flag at the end of the bridge. “Oh, look at me, you got me nearly tearin’ up here.” He opened the back passenger and front passenger doors to the Jeep and then climbed in the driver’s side. Both Angel and I climbed into the back while Frank took the front seat next to Wyatt.
“Alright Madame President, I want to show you one of the cracks at the bottom of the waterfall, but it’s best to drive there. It would be a hike otherwise.” Wyatt started the car. The Jeep rumbled a little louder than I imagined a car to sound.
“Wyatt? Has this car been modded?” I asked in amusement. “It’s so loud!”
“Oh no, Madame President! That wasn’t me. Looks like one of those random storms from offshore in the south is blowing in.” Great…just as I was about to do something Presidential for once… I thought to myself.
“Would you like to reschedule this for another time, Madame President?” Wyatt asked while looking directly at me through the rearview mirror. “It may come down hard, and I didn’t close the top of this Jeep.”
I was less than thrilled at either decision to make. I looked up at the sky. The single dark cloud now had a whole family of dark clouds around it. The wind started to pick up. “How long do you think we have until it comes down?”
“Who knows? It’s random. Five, maybe ten, minutes?”
“Can we get there before it comes down?”
“Oh yes! It’s maybe two minutes away by car.”
“Then let’s go!” I prodded. With that, Wyatt pulled the Jeep into gear and sped up the dirt path. Within a minute, we reached the Primavera River’s footbridge, which Wyatt floored right over. We bounced and bobbled over sedimented rocks as we drove closer to the waterfall. Each bobble made me acutely aware of the continuous headache I still felt and was about to scream for a break, when Wyatt suddenly stopped.
“We’re here, Madame President!” He opened the rear driver’s side door. “Right this way.” I slid out onto a large mound of bare, smooth river rocks. Angel waited for me and offered his arm for me to lean on. Frank followed behind as usual and Wyatt led the way.
“Watch your step, but if you stand…right…here…” Wyatt stood near the edge of the lake and looked directly up. Even though we were still a ways away from the waterfall, it was thunderous. It also didn’t help that its mist made it difficult to tell if it was raining or not. I stood closer to Wyatt so I could hear him, my foot nearly on the sloping edge of the reservoir. I looked up. “I don’t see it!” I shouted against the Fall. Angel bent down to my level and said in my ear so I could hear him, “If you turn your glasses back on, you can zoom in on the crack. Swipe up and down on the right rim of the frames. It’s on the underbelly of the fourth tower.”
I double-tapped the frames and the saturated color of the world came back on. Looking back up with the infrared now visible, I swiped up on the right side of my glasses frames, and wiped away the waterfall mist on my lenses. Wouldn’t ya know… I thought to myself as the crack became clear as day. I zoomed in further until it was truly visible to see what happened.
“The water’s seeping through the crack in the tower?” I continued to shout.
“That’s right, Madame President. The water is passing over the fall, but it’s not enough water. In order for the water to intake properly, the intake tower needs to be properly sealed…and it needs to have enough water passing through it. That turbine’s at less than half the amount of rotations it should be at.”
“And how would we fix that again?” I asked, still looking up at the tower.
“Easy!” Wyatt shouted up at me. “You’d just—”
Suddenly, I saw all white. That all-familiar but no less shocking lightning strike ran down my eye; down my right arm. My left leg buckled and before I knew it…the reservoir was all around me.
She continued to look away from me. I looked at my hand and realized I was gripping her arm tightly. Suddenly self-conscious about her scars, I let go. Defeated, I looked across at the divorce papers on the coffee table. I turned back to face her back and asked again with a softened voice, “Why? Why don’t you want to live anymore? What did I do? I’ll fix it… I know I’m a screw-up. K? But if we break up… I— no, we—won’t exist anymore. Do you get it?!?” I looked down at the coffee table in the office once again. The divorce papers glared back at me. I picked them up in desperation and shook them in her face. She still did not face me. “Don’t you know what this means?!? Are you sure? Do you REALLY want to go through with this?!? What’s your actual gripe with life???”
At that question, she turned to face me. Eyes puffy. Tears streaming down her face. “I—” she choked. “I—just…want…air…” As she began to convulse, the room filled with water. Before I knew it, the whole room was submerged in her tears. I tried to hold my breath for as long as I could but I was drowning with her.
Without any command or prompting, my body took over instinctually. As it started to convulse, my legs kicked and my arms flailed…up. There was no air inside. Yet, my body miraculously floated back up to the surface. As I broke the water’s plane, I gagged, coughed, and sucked in the cool air around me. It burned. I laughed at the irony of it all as I felt my lungs refill with the air around me again. The pain…I wanted it. I wanted the pain. The coolness of the air. I wanted that too. My tired limbs splashed their way over toward the edge of the pool. I barely had the strength to pull myself up. I wanted the pain of the exertion to pull my weight out of the pool and onto the prickly concrete surface. I wanted all of it.
With that realization, I walked…nearly skipped with joy back to my hotel room. I wanted to shout from the rooftops, “HEY, EVERYONE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! I WANT TO LIVE!” But instead, to celebrate, I filled a bathtub halfway with the coldest water the hotel could offer. It was still warmer than the pool, but I didn’t care. It was what I needed to remind myself that I do, in fact, want to live. As I washed off the chlorine, I hugged myself, and said through a sob, “Silly self. You’re not suicidal. Just massively uncomfortable. And we can work with uncomfortable. I promise I won’t put you through that again. You’re worth every breath you can take.”
Words: 1,626
Total Word Count: 39,358
Just Brittany 