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Location: Linda as she catches a glimpse of...???
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: Part 2 of AW ~ The Rewrite |
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Another World ~ October 1995: The Rewrite
Prologue
Part II: The Return
In Room 252 of Bay City General Hospital, he crouched quietly in the dark corner observing Felicia and Isabelle. He was hungry and thought that his grumbling stomach was going to give him away. He knew that the Bay City Police Department was searching for him and that he had few options as to how he was going to slip out of the hospital undetected. That didn’t really concern him right now. What concerned him was the tiny figure in the bed across the room. Despite the doctors’ assurances, he could tell that Felicia was also concerned. His legs were starting to cramp but he didn’t dare move for fear that he would be heard. He began to think back at how he came to be in this corner. The recent turn of events that brought him back to Bay City was still somewhat of a mystery to him. He could still vividly recall the dreams that started his odyssey, particularly the last one…
There was a cool breeze coming in off of the Indian Ocean, but he awoke drenched in sweat. His fingers subconsciously sought the scar just below the hairline over his left eye. His beard hid more scars on his chin and neck. His breath was shallow and he was slightly trembling. It had been the same dream, the same woman. He calls out for her to take his hand and just as she is about to reach it, she falls away from him and he looses her. He awakens and she’s gone. His nights had become restless, the thought of the recurring dream keeping him awake. He always felt as though he had somehow failed her, that had he been able to grab onto her, she would have been saved. Saved from what, he didn’t know. He had to admit that he didn’t know much of anything. His memories were fragmented, the result of the head injury or so he was told by the doctors in the hospital in Nairobi where he spent the better part of a year recovering. They said it was one of the most brutal attacks ever survived. All he knew was it left him with no past and no identity. His memory was only recently beginning to return and so far it was a jumbled mess. He knew he was American but couldn’t remember having been in the States or what circumstances brought him to Kenya. He was surprised to learn he spoke Swahili. He found employment as a bartender in a local restaurant and was certain he had done this type of work before. He also enjoyed taking photographs with a cheap camera he bought at a second-hand store. His employer liked his photos enough to hang them in her restaurant. She liked him enough to let him stay in the little room behind the kitchen. It was in this room as he was dressing for work that he first heard the voices. They were too far away for him to understand what they were saying but the voices sounded vaguely familiar.
“I’m not that hungry, Matthew, but if you want to eat something, I’m sure Izzie will join you. What do you say Isabelle, do you want some pancakes?” Felicia asked her fidgeting daughter.
“Only if Matt does.” Izzie smirked, knowing full well that her habit of copying everything her brother did on this trip annoyed her mother to no end. Matt found it amusing.
“Pancakes sound great to me” Matt replied, mostly as a result of the look Felicia shot him that warned him not to play into his sister’s hands.
“Do you have pancakes?” Felicia asked the patient waitress, not knowing if the restaurant catered to the particular palettes of American tourists.
When she nodded in the affirmative, Felicia said, “Good, those two will have pancakes and I’ll just take a cup of coffee please.”
“So, what time do you think the plane will be ready to take us home?” she asked Matt. Izzie got up from the table and skipped over to look at the photographs that were hanging on the wall by the entrance.
“The pilot said he could be ready by 11 o’clock so we should hurry up and eat and get going,” Matt replied. “I can’t believe we’ve already been here for five days. It really flew by fast. Do you think that Izzie understood why Mitch loved it here so much?”
“I don’t know, Matthew, she’s so young. I hope it gives her some idea. She’s been so curious about him lately. I tried to ask her if her friends at school were talking about their fathers and maybe she felt, I don’t know, left out somehow, but she really wouldn’t tell me. She was even too young when Luke died to remember what a wonderful father he was to her.”
“Yeah, that is hard. At least I have wonderful memories of both dad and Mac. I think coming here has helped me more than I thought it would. And I can’t believe that penthouse you showed us. That was really dad’s?
“Yes, ‘Two thousand square feet of pure heaven’ he used to call it. And that view of the Indian Ocean. He could stand on the balcony and look at it all day.” Felicia’s green eyes saddened for a moment as she looked over at her daughter.
They called Izzie back to the table and ate in haste. He watched with amusement from the kitchen as the little girl picked up her fork and knife and cut her pancakes in the exact same manner as the young man. He was sure he had seen young man before; perhaps he had served him a drink in the past. His amusement changed to surprise however when he glanced over at the woman that was seated with them. Despite the look of exasperation on her face, he was certain he knew her, and not just as a customer. When she smiled at the little girl despite her annoyance, it came to him: She was the woman who kept falling away from him in his dreams. Of that, he had no doubt. He retreated inside the kitchen to catch his breath for a moment. When he looked out again, he saw the trio paying their bill and heading out the door. The woman stopped for a moment to look up at one of the photographs on the wall. She put her hand to her mouth then closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, it can’t be,” she said as they walked out the door. He looked after them and said the only word that came to him: “Felicia.”
Two hours later, the Cory jet would take off from Moi International Airport in Mombasa, Kenya, bound for Bay City, Illinois. On board were the pilot, co-pilot, three passengers and a stowaway.
~ TO BE CONTINUED ~
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"It has been a magnificent journey..." ~ Linda Dano, 1999 Daytime Emmys
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