When
they found him on the beach
of Paradiso, Mr. Fellows was an emaciated, mostly-dead
shell of a man. He was taken to the healing center and seen by a minimum of
forty-two doctors. At once achieving near-legend status for having survived the
String of Incidents, Mr. Fellows was unprepared for the level of affection and
popularity that found him upon release from the doctors and their tests.
On
his first day out, he walked carefully, slowly down the tidy streets and
marveled at the lines of bright, healthy faces that parted for him and smiled
at him and called to him. He nearly broke then, remembering with sudden,
unwanted clarity the gaunt faces of his family the last time he had seen them.
They had called to him, also.
The crowds could not
understand his weeping.
Mr. Fellows could
not understand anything, and he had once been an intelligent man.
"Mr.
Fellows!" called a man from the door of a house at the end of the street.
Mr.
Fellows followed the familiar voice and found himself in the tall, strong man's
embrace, in a tall, strong type of home.
"How are you adjusting?" asked the
man, who looked to be in his twenties with thick black hair and a dazzling
smile.
He
was one of Mr. Fellows' doctors, or perhaps the one who had found him on the
beach. He couldn't remember specifically; everyone here had a dazzling smile.
The young man bade him sit on the nice furniture and gave him a nice cold
drink, waiting for his reply.
"I'm
not sure I am adjusting," Mr. Fellows admitted, finding something
companionable in the young man's dark eyes. "I feel distinctly
maladjusted, at that. An abhorrence here. Paradiso is not where I am from," he continued,
wanting to add: "Or where I belong," but the other man had grown
still, setting down his glass of iced tea and folding his hands very carefully
in front of him.
"Mr.
Fellows..." he started, but seemed unable to form further words.
Mr.
Fellows studied the man, his square jaw, tanned skin, muscular build and
soulful eyes. The familiarity from before was surfacing once again, but he was
now sure that this was not one of his doctors.
"Where
did I meet you?" Mr. Fellows asked, sitting forward and resting his glass
on his knee.
The
young man smiled brilliantly, saying, "On the beach, of course! I was
there the day they found you, Mr. Fellows. I was looking for seashells with my
sister."
Isabel and I are
going to the beach. We're going to look for seashells!
Mr.
Fellows froze, the iced tea slipped from his fingers and off his knee, sending
ice cubes glittering across the hardwood floor.
��
"Mr.
Fellows?" asked the concerned man, reaching over to touch him on the
shoulder. His touch sent a current through him. It's
memory tore like flesh.
"Come on,
buddy, let's find your mom," he said, hoisting the young boy up on his
hip. His son's eyes searched his, dark as his shiny hair and round as coins.
Mr.
Fellows got up, shakily, unable to look a the other
man. "Sorry.." he muttered, stepping over
the mess and walking to the door. He had to leave, had to find some air, find
some peace, lose the stinging cavalcade of memories.
"Daddeeee!" his daughter squealed, squirming and
reaching from her laughing mother's arms.
Mr.
Fellows was weeping in the streets again, someone said that night. He returned
to the healing center, locking himself in his small room and sitting on the
bed. Head in hands he took deep, even breaths and tried not to see his son on
the beach. His daughter. His wife.
"Oh,
God..Mariana..."
The
sun went down on Paradiso; he still sat that way on
his bed. His mind was full. Mr. Fellows had been an intelligent man.
The
next day found him knocking quietly on the door of the young man's home. He was
greeted with shy warmth and invited in. Mr. Fellows declined, saying, "If..If you don't mind, I'd like to
meet your sister."
If
this seemed at all odd to the other, it was not shown. They walked together
over a few streets to a little house with big windows and a wonderful smell
that was wafting towards them.
"Isabel!"
cried the young man happily, peeking his head in the door.
Mr.
Fellows did not even flinch at the name.
She
was delighted to see them, hugging both Mr. Fellows and her brother, smelling
of bread. If Mr. Fellows held on a moment too long, or
a bit too strongly, it was not shown. She smiled, dazzling as her brother.
"Mr.
Fellows, will you have some?" she asked sweetly, holding out a steaming
hunk of fresh baked bread.
He
took it from her, felt it's real, hot warmth on his
fingers, and nearly cried when he asked, "And where is your mother?"
"She's
at the beach," Isabel replied, smiling and ruffling her brother's black
hair.
"And your father?" Mr. Fellows asked, his voice a whisper,
expecting a healthy, happy, older version of himself to appear at any moment.
The
siblings looked at each other with large eyes, their expressions no longer
bright, no longer of Paradiso.
"He's
finding seashells," the young man answered, his voice that of Mr. Fellows
five-year-old son.
He
found himself at the beach next, scanning the startling vastness of sandy
shoreline for a figure. For a body he knew better than his own, for the gently
sway and dip of her skirt around her ankles. He looked for her long black hair,
and the small smile her lips always wore, even when passing him the lifeless
body of one of their children, even when her eyes were aged and dead to him. A
certain String of Incidents had taken his treasures, and he was left to find
this Paradiso, this cruel island of what wasn't his.
He
found her by water so sharply aqua and vivid it almost hurt. She turned to
him, shielding her eyes, the eyes of his children, from the sun so she could
see him. The wind blew her hair, whipped her skirts. He knew she was wearing a
smile.� Mariana...
But
Mr. Fellows was, or had been, at least, an intelligent man. He knew that she
was not his Mariana, or couldn't be, as long as he was on Paradiso.
His children, though he wished them healthy, dazzling, vibrant, were not. He
longed for the little boy with round eyes and shiny black hair. The young man
here, the beautiful, sweet Isabel - he was not their father. Their father was
looking for seashells.
�
Mr.
Fellows closed his eyes to the striking blue and walked a bit farther down the
beach, away from the achingly familiarity of the woman. If she called, he did
not hear. He turned with deliberate slowness, then
sped up a bit as he walked towards the water. His bare feet touched the thick,
wet sand and he continued.� Waist-deep,
he plunged and began swimming furiously, a dizzying hope telling him that
maybe, just maybe...
Mr.
Fellows stopped suddenly, the hope still spinning in his head. He had not gone
far, and could still almost reach the sand below his feet. He took a deep
breath and swam down, his hands running frantically through the cold sand in
the dark waters below him. Something solid found his fingers and he clasped it
tightly, returning to the surface and gasping for breath. He held up the object
to the sunlight that was starting to fade, sand and
water dripping away from the small, perfect seashell. He barked out a short,
hysterical laugh and didn't glance back towards the shore.
With
a smile, Mr. Fellows resumed swimming away from Paradiso,
clutching the treasure firmly in his hand. He would still be holding the shell
tightly in his fist when they found him on the beach much later. He was comatose
for days, nearly dead and muttering strange things about islands and a certain
String of Incidents in his delirium. They weren't sure how he had survived so
long at sea; they wondered if he had family to contact. One of the dozens of
doctors finally located a small family who had filed a missing-persons report;
it simply stated that their father was finding seashells.
Mr. Fellows was an
intelligent man.
