Surfacing for Fresh Air and Freedom

Author’s Note: This is the tenth (wow!) part of a series about Farren’s journey through a limbo world where everyone is trying to reach the peak of a mountain but have a rope tied to their ankle. Catch up by reading Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, and Part 9

Gesa slept across the boat from Farren. He didn’t blame her, she had just returned from the dead and coughed up at least a lung full of air. Farren made a small rope pillow for her the same as the first night they’d met.
When she looked comfortable, although Farren suspected she was exhausted enough to sleep through anything, he began to reel in the balls of rope from the bottom of the ocean. Gesa had left two on the ocean floor in an attempt to retrieve her rock. She had made many more trips than that. However, she and Farren were worried that the balls would knot around something, increasing their inability to reach the shore.
Farren pulled up Gesa’s first ball with ease. It was tied tight enough that he was able to get the whole thing up in one pull. Unfortunately, the second one felt lighter, and quickly Farren realized that this was because the ball had become unraveled on its journey up. He pulled the rope up slow praying to something that he didn’t get it caught on the ocean floor.
Soon he had the whole sopping wet unraveled rope ball on the deck. He began to wrap it back together to pass the time and add some organization to the cluttered rope boat that they were living on.
Halfway through the chore, Gesa began to stir on the other side of the deck. As Farren finished the task, Gesa was sitting next to him leaning her head on his shoulder. Neither of them had said a word to each other since her waking up.
Farren tied a knot around the rope ball to keep it tight for whatever situation was in its future. Then he tied a second knot for good luck. He figured if they brought her rock onboard soon it was likely Gesa would never need to unravel this rope.

“How did you sleep?” He finally asked.
“Would it be morose to say I slept like the dead?” She replied with a grin.
Farren gave her a frown at the joke and her smile faded. Thinking back to his time being drowned he realized that she had seen his body dead multiple times. She’d even spent a month without him. If she can make a joke then the least I can offer is a smile, he thought. “Being dead is hard work,” he said as he threw a smile back at her.
“You know what I realized on the other side? In that black void thingy you were talking about.”
“That staring into a black void with just your thoughts is no way to spend eternity.” He gave a light chuckle at his joke, but when she didn’t return it, he realized the time for joking was over. “What did you realize?”
Gesa made her mouth crooked as she found the right words, “I realized what I guess you were trying to explain to me. I finally just experienced it. The void contained me and nothing and no one else. When I got back and fell asleep, I dreamed that everyone around me was just me. Then they morphed into others and became more like themselves, individuals. But I realize they were still just me but with different experiences.”
“You with different experiences?” Farren gave her a puzzled look betraying how lost he was.
“Well, I got mad at you for messing up my rock last time by pulling it in too soon. Then I got mad that you were telling me it was my fault that you moved the rock.”
“I never…” Farren started.
“It doesn’t matter either way. It’s how I took it, and now I’m saying you’re right. If I had all the experiences you’ve had in this world, I would have made the same decision. It’s not your fault, or my fault that things don’t work out. Things just work out, or they don’t. I used to think that it was the gods who run this place that decide our fate in one way or another. But they’re just another form of me. Or, more likely, I’m another form of them.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I shouldn’t be taking everything so personal. There are millions if not billions of people in this world, and the gods aren’t sitting up there to spite just me. And if they are, well there’s nothing I can do about it,” with this sentiment she gave a light shrug. “I should take things as they come and move on. Unfortunately, I had to die and face the void in this life to realize this, and I can only imagine how hopeless I was in my last life. It’s probably a blessing that I don’t remember most of it.” She gave him a hug and then a kiss to celebrate her realization.

They sat there thinking together then Farren finally broached the subject he was too worried to ask. “How far did you get on loosening your rock?”
Gesa thought for a minute. “Maybe three-quarters of the way there. I’m close. I couldn’t quite get the right grip on it though because the harness was limiting the movement of my shoulders and I couldn’t get the leverage I wanted.”
“You think we can move how the harness holds you?” Farren asked trying to engineer a knot in his mind that would bring Gesa up by the waist instead.
“I was thinking I’d just not use it.”
“Not use it?!”
“Sure,” She stated as a matter of fact. “I already died once. I know what I’ll face. I’ll wind up above water eventually. And I’m close, so I’ll probably only need to face the void one or two more times.”
“Are you sure we were facing the same void?” Farren asked.
“I assume so. It was a big black place with nothing that stretched your mind and consciousness to fill it.”
“That’s the place.”
“And it’s absolute hell because you experience all of time in an instant but over and over again. And it makes you sound like a buffoon to talk about it because it’s so hard to explain in this world.”
“Yes, definitely the same void. I’d never think you’d be eager to face it again.”
“I guess I just would rather get my rock up here. This death and the black void thing isn’t a punishment for dying, just like the rock and rope isn’t a punishment either. When we face it the right way we can make progress, I think we can and should use death as a tool. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck here for months or longer.”
Farren was surprised by her new outlook, “When do you want to dive again then?”
“I’m ready when you are.”

They quickly got ready for the dive, Gesa grabbed the two balls of rope she had taken down in the previous trips verifying that they were both tied tight and wouldn’t unravel on the way back up. With one in each hand and gripped tightly Gesa stood at the edge of the boat. “I hope this works.”
Despite her composed attitude, as she stood on the edge of the boat, Farren could tell she wasn’t eager to face the void again. “Me too. I won’t be able to tell how far along you are either.”
“I’ll be back in less than a month, so you’ll be luckier than me,” her lips cracked into a faint smile.
Farren smiled back, knowing that he’d never know what it was like for her on the boat for the month he had been drowned and trying to untie the knot at the bottom of the ocean. “Gesa, I love you. I hope you can loosen your rock to find freedom.” Then he gave her a deep kiss feeling the warmth of her lips. They were as warm as the noonday sun on the ocean.
“I love you too,” she said when they finished their kiss. She turned, took a deep breath, and jumped off the side of the boat.
As Farren leaned over the side of the boat, he watched her figure fade from a dark, blurry spot to non-existent in the blue of the ocean water. The only thing Farren could do was watch her rope fly off the deck as she sank.
In only a few seconds it stopped being pulled off the deck. Farren knew she had reached the bottom. He counted the time that passed in uneven and anxious seconds not knowing how long Gesa might be able to hold her breath. When Farren reached 140, he figured she would have to start swimming up now. She hadn’t pulled on the rope through and even if she did his help would likely do more harm than good. Pulling in the line in its current configuration would bring her in by her ankle like a mishooked fish.
When Farren counted past 200, he stood up and began pacing around the spot where she had jumped from looking into the blue water to see if her figure would appear. His anxiety was making him count faster than he should have. At the count of 250, he figured she had run out of breath regardless of the speed he was counting.
He picked up her rope, stopped counting and began to pull back in. It was light, and when a meter or so had landed on deck, a blurry figure appeared under the water. An instant later Gesa broke the surface gasping for air.

Farren squatted down to offer his hand out to Gesa, and she swam over to him. With the help of the rope ladder, she quickly got on board. She lay prone on the deck with her white linen’s soaked breathing heavily.
“I never,” Gesa gasped. “Knew air,” she took a deep breath. “Could feel so,” Gesa quickly exhaled and inhaled deeply again, “good.” Her chest moved up and down pumping oxygen into her deprived lungs. After a few moments of rest, she was still breathing heavy but could talk without stopping for a deep breath, “Let’s try the rock. I think I got it this time.”
Gesa stood up first, and Farren followed if only to make sure she didn’t hurt herself in exhaustion. “It was wedged under another rock, a bigger one that wasn’t tied to anything. Once I got down there without a harness, I was able to get leverage to move it easily. Honestly, most of the time down there was spent trying to swim back up. I used the tether line as a guide at first, but eventually, it was quicker to just swim.”
She picked up the rope that lead to her rock and tugged at it. She pulled in a meter of slack and fed it back to Farren who held on to it to keep from losing progress. She continued to feed him back slack, and he balled it up in neat loops.
In just over a minute Gesa said, “I think I see something.”
Farren tied the rope he had so far to the deck of the ship, so a mistake didn’t send the rock back down. The two travelers began pulling the line with together. Looking over the edge of the boat he saw a small grey blotch rising to the surface. It broke and was dark grey colored, and the surface was smooth. The two of them heaved it onto the deck of the ship. It came up to her waist and had a big knot around it in a groove that kept it from slipping off one way or the other.
“It’s like it was designed just for me,” Gesa said looking at it.
Farren simply stared and touched it. It was smooth and wet. The boat felt like it was sitting lower in the water thanks to its weight.
“I can’t believe it’s really here next to me,” Gesa said bubbling with excitement.
“It worked,” Farren said as he looked at Gesa. She had tears rolling down her cheeks. He put her arms around her and hugged her. “You’re free to travel wherever you want. You can make it to the top of the mountain without anything getting stuck. If it does get stuck, you can be close enough to unstick it. This is incredible!”
“Yeah,” Gesa said in a quiet tone.
“What’s wrong?” Farren asked pushing away from the hug to look at her face again. She was crying more than before.
“I’m free, more or less, but that means that now I’m going to have to leave you to make it to the top of the mountain. And we don’t even know what’s up there.”
Farren put his arms out wide and gestured to opposite horizons. “Gesa, we’re in the middle of the ocean on a boat made of rope and tree trunks. I’m not going anywhere without you anytime soon. I still have a line to reel in. Eventually, we’ll have to face parting ways but who knows what’s going to be at that other shore. Chances are my rock might just be sitting there waiting for me.” He didn’t mention that if it were waiting on the shore, it would likely be so big that no watercraft they could build would get it across the ocean.
“You think so?” Gesa asked sounding almost hopeful.
“All I know is that it’s a thing I don’t know. Let’s celebrate your newly won freedom. Then we’ll bring in my rope and get to some dry land. I’m sick of rocking back and forth in my sleep. We can figure out what to do from there.”
“Okay,” Gesa said as a small smile flitted across her face.