“Eva? I’ve been trying
to talk to you for a solid two minutes, but you’ve just been staring out into
space. Are you okay?” Harry asked. His eyebrows wrinkled in concern as he
examined my nervous face. I looked away,
hiding behind my curtain of light brown hair, and bit my lip, trying to figure
out what to say. I didn’t want to admit
to him that I truly wasn’t okay, that
I was scared to death. I didn’t want
Harry to worry about me, and I knew this was something that he really wanted to
do; he’d been talking about it for months.
I didn’t want to be a spoilsport.
So, I decided on a balance.
“Um, yeah, sure. I’m
just a little worried is all, but I’ll be fine,” I said.
“You sure? Because we
don’t have to do this if you don’t feel comfortable doi--”
“I’m sure,” I interrupted, “but you’ll hold my hand the whole
time, won’t you? I don’t want to do this
alone.”
“You’ll never be alone, from this moment on,” Harry said,
gesturing dramatically and wrapping his arms around me.
“Oh, wow,” I teased. “That sure is original…..isn’t that from
a Nickelback song?” Harry gave me a
mock-offended look, and then we both laughed.
Our laughter released the tension a bit, but I was still a bit
uncertain, and Harry could tell.
He tried to reassure me.
“Seriously, Eva, everything is going to be okay. We’ve got Michael here to teach us how
everything works, and he’s a professional.
He’s been scuba diving his whole life.”
I could visibly see how excited he was.
His cerulean eyes were bright and his blond hair was adorably
disheveled. I still found myself amazed
that I’d ended up with such an amazing husband, and I couldn’t stop looking at
him.
“What? Is there
something on my face?” he asked, absentmindedly putting a hand to his cheek.
“Oh. No, no…I’m just…never mind,” I said, blushing and
breaking out of his enchantment.
“Ohhhkay…well, let’s get going! We’ve got some scuba diving to do,” Harry
said, taking my hand and jumping to his feet.
Yeah, I thought to myself, God help me.
----
After
we’d gotten all of our scuba gear on (and, believe me, there was a lot of gear), Harry and I sat at the
edge of the boat ladder, dangling our flippered feet above the edge. My whole body was shaking, and my stomach
felt sick. I almost considered taking up
Harry’s offer from earlier, but then I looked over at Harry. I’d never seen him so happy; he looked like a
little kid on Christmas morning.
“Are you ready, Eva?” Harry asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied, with a shaky
smile. Harry smiled at me encouragingly,
taking my hand. I took a deep breath,
closed my eyes, and squeezed his hand as we both plunged into the ocean.
----
The
first thing I felt was the sting of salt water burning my face, and then I felt
something tapping my arm. My heart began
pumping double-time, and my breath grew shallow. Oh my
gosh, I thought, it’s a shark! I’m
going to die! I quickly opened my
eyes, and wildly looked around. There
was no shark; it was just Harry, thankfully, who was now gesturing impatiently. As I took in the surrounding scene, my fears instantly
disappeared. Flashes of color swirled
around me, and my eyes opened wide in awe.
Millions of fish, sea turtles, jellyfish, and countless other sea
creatures swam around me and the towering pillars of coral of every shape and
size that surrounded me. It felt like I
was living in a dream. I tried to
memorize everything I saw, every sensation I felt, so I could keep the memory
forever. A school of little yellow-and-black
striped fish zoomed by, and a jellyfish drifted near my arm. I flinched at first but then realized that it
was a harmless comb jelly. When I went
to Florida
Before
me stood an adorable little house, standing on stilts. It was painted sea green and had large, rounded
windows. Through one of these windows, I
could see a bed and dresser. It was so
surreal, like a secret clubhouse deep beneath the sea. Beside the little house stood a sign that
read: “Jules’ Undersea Lodge: the World’s First Undersea Hotel. Harry met my eye, and we both looked at each
other in wonder. He then took my hand
and led me toward the hotel. I shot him
a questioning look, and he beamed back at me.
I suddenly realized why Harry had been so excited for so long. It wasn’t just the scuba diving, it was the
surprise he’d had in store for me: an undersea honeymoon. I felt like I had entered a different realm
of reality, which in some ways, I actually had.
I had entered the underwater realm, and it was the most enchanting place
I’d ever known. Harry gave me a look that said “Shall we?”
and I nodded. Hand-in-hand, we began to
make our way down to the bottom, to Jules’ Undersea Lodge.
----
Shivering
but full of excitement, I emerged out of the water, and into the Lodge, through
a hole in the bottom of the building. It
was like emerging from out of the ocean and into a tiny swimming pool. I swam to the deck of the pool and climbed
out, curiously looking around me. The
room we had entered was very small, with a shower in the corner and a door on
the back wall.
“How
does this place not fill up with water?
I mean, it’s completely open to the ocean,” I said. “What if the place starts filling up with
water while we’re sleeping? We’d
drown!”
Harry
chuckled, gaining an incredulous look from me.
“Don’t worry, dear. It’s not
going to fill up with water, and we’re certainly not going to drown. The place is filled with compressed air. There’s a cable hooked up to the hotel that
brings fresh air and cable from land.”
“If
you’re sure…” I answered.
“I’m
very sure. I read all about the place before we came,”
Harry said, his head held high in pride.
I
laughed at his self-satisfaction, releasing a bit of the tension, but the fear
still lingered in the back of my mind. I
decided to try to forget about it though; no sense in ruining our honeymoon by
worrying the whole time. Continuing to
look around, I suddenly realized just how cold I was; I was shaking and had
goose bumps up-and-down my whole body.
Also, my eyes and face stung. I
scratched at my face and felt flakes of hardened salt rub off onto my fingers. Harry wrapped his arm around me, pulling me
toward him.
“Oh, dear, you’re chilled….and sticky.” He laughed. “Why
don’t we take a nice, hot shower?”
“Th-that sounds w-wonderful,” I chattered, smiling back.
----
“Um, now what? I have
no clothes, except for my swimsuit, and I don’t want to put my swimsuit back
on. It’s so wet!”
Harry snorted and burst into laughter at this. I glared at him. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
He gazed back at me, mischievously. “Well, why don’t you just go naked then? That would be completely okay with me.”
I slapped his arm playfully and rolled my eyes. “Ha ha, very funny,” I said.
We
had already finished showering and had begun to dry off before we had finally
realized that we didn’t have our clothes with us (a couple of the Jules’
Undersea Lodge employees were going to bring our luggage down in special,
water-proof cases).
“Well, hello! Y’all must
be Harry and Eva.”
Harry
and I jumped in surprise, seeing two teenagers rising out of the water. They both had shiny, black hair and sun-kissed
skin and were sharing looks of amusement, holding back huge grins. Harry and I both blushed beet red and
snatched up a couple of towels, wrapping them around us as quickly as possible.
“We’ve
got your clothes now, in case y’all want them,” the girl joked, as both her and
the boy plopped down our suitcases. “My
name is Jenny, and this is Jerry. We’ll
be staying in the other end of the building.
If y’all need anything, we’ll be happy to help. We’ll show y’all your room in a bit, but
we’ll give y’all a…um…moment first.”
Harry and I blushed but thanked them, scrambling for our clothes.
----
Going
through that door was like entering into my own piece of heaven. I breathed in a sharp intake of air, and my mouth
dropped. Inside our room was a large,
King-sized bed, decorated with fish pillows on a bedspread of dolphins. There was a hot tub in one corner, and a TV
and a dresser in the other, but the most striking aspects of this room were the
walls and ceiling; they were entirely made of glass. I kept turning around and around, gazing
around at the beautiful sea life drifting above and beside me in the ocean surrounding
me.
“So, do you like it?” Jerry asked, smiling.
“No,” I said, my eyes glued on the room before me. “…I love it.
This is…indescribable.”
----
I
opened my eyes, and a dolphin swam by above me, in the bright blue water. Wow,
what a vivid dream, I thought to myself, but then I remembered where I
was. I was lying in bed, with Harry’s
arms wrapped gently around me, in a structure twenty feet below the ocean. I rested my head on Harry’s chest, and he
automatically wrapped his arms around me.
I smiled blissfully and continued to gaze up at the sea above me, like a
sky filled with sea life. In that place,
in that moment…I’d never felt so at home.
----
I woke up to
blinding, white light. What is going on? I thought. My head was filled with a ringing but it was
oddly pleasant, and all I could see was brightness all around me. I tried to move, but I couldn’t; my body was
paralyzed.
“HARRY!”
I yelled, but no sound escaped my lips.
I was trapped in my own body.
Suddenly the light disappeared, and what I saw before me took my very
breath away. I was standing on shore
before an immense boat. The most unreal
aspect of the scene was the color of the sea that this boat was floating on; it
was the exact shape of a blue crayon, yet it looked completely natural. I’d never seen anything look that blue
without it being fake, dyed that way. Wait a second, I thought to myself. The word “dyed” brought a startling
possibility to my mind. Have I died?
An abrupt vision then filled my mind, and my life literally flashed
before me. Every sight, sound, smell,
and feeling of every moment in my life somehow flickered through my head in a
span of time that seemed like merely a few minutes. The last scene I saw was Harry and I,
sleeping soundly in our bed in Jules’ Undersea Lodge, unaware of the water that
began to seep in all around us.
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