Sally NelsonDr. Sally Nelson, author of “Nightwings: A Soulful Dreaming and Writing Practice ” has kept a journal throughout her experience in Thailand that includes her dreams, dreams of family members, and others. She has posted some of her story below.
Her book: Night Wings: "A Soulful Dreaming & Writing Practice" can be ordered from: Publisher: Nicolas-Hays @ 1-800-423-7087 ISBN: 0-89254-088-5 by Sally J. Nelson, Ph.D. When we arrive at Ko Ban Island I can see a few other larger dive boats. We didn’t take a large boat because it takes three hours to get to the islands from Khao Lak on them. Ko Ban is a large rocky protrusion out of the sea. There are no beaches. Our dive masters, Bretta and Thomas, survey the conditions and decide to go around to the other side of the island where they expect the current will be less turbulent. Bretta has a puzzled look on her face. “I’ve never seen this kind of current here before.” Our Captain takes us around to the north west exposure of the island. Bretta briefs us that we must be aware to stay together as there is a strong current. She outlines the path of our dive. We will drop down and proceed back around the island from the north west side to the south side. We jump into the sea. Stu, Shonti and I are buddies. We gather with the other divers on the surface and Bretta asks, “Are you ready?” We are and we begin our descent. We begin with the expectation that we will be dropping down together. But our expectation is soon shattered. Before I reach 20 feet I am alone. I can not see anyone. Stu is gone. Shonti is gone. Bretta is gone. My visibility is about 5 to 10 feet at best. The water is thick with white particles which look to me like rock salt. Much later Stu tells me they are bubbles caused by the churning of the currents. Once I realize I am alone I plan a navigation strategy. I must keep the island to my left. I peer through the turbulent water. I can barely make out the whitish shadow of the island. I drop down to about 45 feet hoping to get below the surge of current that is pushing me backwards. I must swim against the current so I stay on track with the dive plan. The current is pushing me north and I want to go south. The shadow of the island seems like a creature that wants to wrap around in front of me. It is on my left, but it is also in front of me and appears to wrap around me off to the right. I peer into the swirl of white particles hoping to find Stu or Shonti or anyone else. I am alone. The shadow of the island is beginning to feel like a white specter of gloom. I decide I’d best surface since I cannot navigate by keeping that specter on my left. It seems like the island is surrounding me. I will go up so I do not have to worry about underwater navigation and I can get my bearings visually. I also decide I will be okay to surface without a rest stop because I have not gone deep and I have not been down more than a few minutes. I begin to inflate my BC and surface as slowly as possible given the turbulence around me. I rise through a current that is reaching out and grabbing me from all directions. I feel as though a thousand hands are pulling me in as many different directions all at the same time. I break the surface and orient to the island. It is no longer a shadowy specter. It is now a formidable obstacle toward which the 4 to 6 foot waves are tossing me. I realize that I have been carried pretty far north by the current. I am a piece of flotsam caught in a web of currents. My efforts to swim against the current are futile. I inflate my BC completely, turn over on my back. I focus on my breath, center myself to conserve my energy and the air in my tank. I release my regulator and feel it sink beneath the surface. I know how to retrieve it if I need to but I feel a little nervous as I hear it gurgle into the sea, then silence. I do not have my snorkel. I always take my snorkel but in previous dives the days before the water was so calm I found the snorkel cumbersome. None of the other divers been using their snorkels so I decided I would leave mine behind this time. I did not make the connection that the ‘strong current’ that Bretta warned us about would be best encountered with a snorkel on board. Oh, well , I don’t have it so I’ll just have to pay attention to how I breathe as I feel myself riding up the inside of a wave and then falling down its outer curve. I’m glad I didn’t go see that movie “Lost at Sea.” I don’t need the extra aggravation. I don’t know if I am going to survive in this situation, but I manage to stay calm. Although I have not thought about the rule “stop, breathe, think, act’ I do just that. I take action moment by moment. I decide to kick backward away from the island. I’ll try to get out of the waves and swim back around the point to the other side of the island. I peer out to sea and I see a boat is moving in my direction. Then I see an orange diver’s sausage between me and the boat. I assume the owner of the sausage belongs to the boat and the boat is going to pick that person up. For some reason I assume the boat will not pick me up because I am not one of its divers. I turn away from the boat and look toward the island. I see another orange sausage in the eddy close to the island. Perhaps I should head for the eddy? I do not think to inflate my own sausage. Later I will discover I do not have it in my BC pocket and I will think about how ill prepared I was for this event. Then, as though I were dreaming I hear my name: “Sally! Sally! Sally!” I can not tell what direction the call is coming from. I relax though as I am comforted by the sound of my name. It has to be Stu. He has come looking for me. I let go of the small voice that has chided him for not staying close to me when we dropped down. I start to kick toward the sausage in the eddy. I hear several voices yelling, “No! No! No!” I think the people on the boat are yelling ‘No!” at the sausage between me and the boat. In between the up and the down side of each wave I hear the ‘No’s” and I also hear my name. I don’t put the two together and I continue to kick toward the eddy. I don’t know why I change direction. Perhaps I feel the increasing turbulence as I kick toward the eddy. Perhaps at some level I realize the boat is not going away and that getting to the boat would be my best bet. I don’t remember making a decision I just remember reversing my direction and kicking backwards toward the boat. The sound of my name grows louder. Moving in that direction is easier. Before long I reach out and touch Stu. What sheer joy to reconnect with my buddy! I feel reassured that now we will make it. We can make it together. The boat moves away from us. I wonder out loud about that. Stu says our boat will pick us up soon. I’m a little bit skeptical but, sure enough here it comes around the point of the island toward us. What a beautiful sight that little speed boat is! As I haul my almost full air tank and my exhausted self up the flopping ladder on to the bouncing boat, I am embarrassed, ashamed. I believe it is my fault that the dive has been aborted. Once I am on board I see that Shonti and all the other divers are already on board. I feel like a dope. I am an inadequate wimpy diver who could not keep up with the group. I expect the other divers to be upset with me and I prepare myself for sarcastic remarks at the very least. But the other divers are each slumped in their seats. They too are exhausted as they remove their gear. Bretta says, “I have been diving at this island for five years and I have never experienced currents like this. It’s like a washing machine down there.” I feel an odd relief as I realize that I am not the only one who was disoriented during the dive. I let go of any sense of annoyance with Stu for disappearing. Bretta still has that puzzled look on her face as she peers at the water around the island. We all look attentively as she points out the white water waves crashing against the rugged rocky protrusion of the island. “Well, perhaps we can go back to the Similan Islands where we dove yesterday. We will go to our live aboard which is anchored off Tachai Island for lunch and then decide what to do.” We all slump back on the bench and the Captain takes off at a rather fast pace. In the thirty minutes it takes to get to the boat the divers chat with each other about the dive. Apparently, almost every one lost their buddy and most aborted the dive within two minutes from entry. “That current was like a washing machine!” Bretta says. Stu responds, “We should not have dropped down where we did. That was the wrong spot. We should have started the dive on the south side of the island.” Bretta disagrees and they ‘discuss’ their reasons for how the dive should have been executed. Stu is adamant, “We should not have dropped down where we did.” Bretta is adamant that we should not have started the dive on the south shore. They never see each other’s point of view. It takes the speed boat about 20 minutes to arrive at the live aboard. It is considerably higher and bigger than our speed boat so it takes a lot of effort to climb from one to the other. I am tired and the effort is difficult for me. We take seats at the picnic table and Bretta and Thomas serve us lunch. Thai rice and chicken. As we eat I feel uncertain about what is going to happen. I observe the divers who are living on this boat. They are watching a video. That strikes me as odd. Then I feel the boat which was normally flat on the water, rise up and glide along for about 20 seconds and then slip down to settle again, unperturbed by the experience. I have experienced similar sensations sailing my trimaran over a swell in the Pacific Ocean. Usually the swell is only a few feet high and never as wide. Suddenly, I hear a loud crash. I look toward the sound and see the foam climb up the side of the rocky island. The water spreads all the way up to a few trees scattered along the top. The island is about 250 to 300 feet high. Someone shouts pointing toward Tachai Island, “My God what was that!!” As we watch another even bigger wave crashes up against the rocky protrusion. The second wave climbs ferociously up the side of that rock mountain and seems to wrap around its perimeter. Then it is gone. The sea is calm once again. Bretta still seems puzzled when she tells us to relax. She says we will do ‘something’ in about an hour. I sit at the table for a while and then slip along the side of the boat to the front where I plop down in the sun and take out my book. Stu and Shonti join me in a few minutes. We stretch out with our books prepared for a non-diving hanging out period of time. Bretta comes up to us and says, “I have something to tell you. I want you to remain calm. It is important for you to remain calm. We just heard that there has been an earthquake near Phuket. We do not know yet how big it is but we will not be diving anymore today. We will go to shore when the water is calmer. That may take an hour or two. Despite the turbulent experience at Ko Bon, I am disappointed that we will not dive again today. I don’t want to sit on the boat. I’d rather be on shore. But I can’t control the situation so I settle back to read my book. Less than ten minutes later Bretta returns and says, “We must leave. Now!” I’m surprised. How did we get from two hours to now? But we climb down into the speed boat. The Captain tells us to sit in the back of the boat because he needs our weight back there for maximum speed. We place ourselves along the benches. My head snaps back as the boat hurdles forward. The ride is harsh. My butt is bashed against the seat as we hit a wave, and then another, and another, and another. I try to keep my butt off the seat by holding on to the side of the boat and lifting myself a bit. But the impact of the boat against the water jars my hands loose and my coccyx is bashed repeatedly. I am getting irritated. Why is the Captain speeding like a mad man? I keep adjusting my position in an attempt to prevent or at least lessen the impact on my tail bone. I dare not stand up. The Captain never slows down. The spine jangling ride continues. I am in pain and getting worried that my vulnerable lumbar vertebrae will be re-injured. I try to laugh and take it in stride but it isn’t easy. Just when I think another crunch will surely crack vertebrae the boat slows to a crawl. I hear gasps and moans from the Captains chair. I rise to my knees and peer over the side of the boat. I take a sharp intake of breath at what I see spread out before me. A long stretch of debris extends as far as I can see along the south side of the boat. It continues as far south as I can see and it continues toward the shore as far as I can see. Someone points out a medium sized black dog balancing precariously on a piece of wood that might be a table top. He knows we have spotted him and watches us closely. Bretta says we must rescue him. The Captain, who has maintained a slow speed because of the debris, goes even slower as he makes his way toward the dog. As we make our way toward the dog we see that the debris spreads out in row after row toward the south. As we stare in disbelieve we see movement. It looks like a man waving his arms. It is! We leave the dog and motor slowly toward the man. He grabs the rope the dive master throws and he is hauled through the water and up the ladder onto the boat. Then someone spots another man. Two of the dive masters have put on life jackets. They dive into the water and swim toward the man. One of them grabs him before she realizes he is dead. When she does her hands fly to cover her eyes and she screams “Oh no! Oh my God, he is dead, he is dead!” and she breaks into sobs. The dive master calms herself and turns to the Captain. “What should I do?” ‘Bring him, bring him,’ the Captain shouts. The two women extricate the dead body from the debris. It is floating face down. Another dive master goes into the water and they untangle it from the floating debris and haul the body to the boat. But it is too heavy to pull on to the boat. Stu asks if there is a rope on board and when he gets one he tells the divers to wrap it around the body, under the arms and around the neck. It takes five people on board plus the three in the water to get the body on board. They place him on the bench at the back of the boat. Someone covers him with a towel but his left arm is frozen in the air. Rigor Mortis has taken the body. I feel myself trying to avoid this image. I do not want to admit that the man is dead. A stunned silence settles over all of us. I look around. The debris is suddenly a floating lifeline for the injured and the dead. What has happened here? I still do not recognize the connection between what I am seeing and Britta’s announcement about the earthquake. I have lived in California for so long I have become used to the earth tremoring and settling back into stillness. So, have I just have not tuned into the fact that this earthquake was monstrous? The thought of a Tsunami has not yet entered my imagination. There are no other boats anywhere to be seen. We are the only hope for anyone still alive in the water. Stu is on the top deck of the boat with his binoculars scanning the debris carefully for survivors. Over there! And there! Then we hear more cries and the Captain turns toward them. The dive masters and Stu pull four or five badly battered and shocked people into the boat before the Captain gets the call that another wave is coming in about forty minutes. We turn our attention to heading for shore as fast as the captain can safely move that boat forward. We leave the black dog behind as we inch our way north, through the sea of debris that gets thicker and heavier the closer we get to shore. It suddenly hits me, “Oh my god, it was a Tsunami!” I look closely at the beach for the first time and I am shocked beyond words as I realize that there is nothing left on the beach. There is absolute silence on the boat as I look for the resorts and the dive shop and the restaurants that lined the beach as far as I could see when I departed that same beach only 6 hours earlier. Now all I see is rubble and uprooted trees and no sign of life anywhere. My spine does not complain now. I hear Bretta shout, “When we get to shore, get off the boat and run as fast as you can and climb up the mountain as high as you can. Luckily, I think to get our dive boots out of our dive bags. I pull out mine, then Shonti’s then Stu’s and I hand them theirs. We work efficiently. Shonti will take her back pack and the water proof bag with the passports and wallets and Stu’s backpack. I will take my back pack and Stu will help carry the wounded to shore. The Captain drives the boat right up onto the beach. I jump out into two feet deep water and wade to shore. Shonti is in front of me. Stu is still on the boat. I pause and look back at him. The dive master is waving us on…’run! run! She shouts. I hesitate. Thomas, her husband, has placed two back packs on the beach and he is wading back to the boat. I don’t know why but I pick up the packs. I walk slowly across the beach. Then I turn around and call, “Stu, what are you going to do?” He yells back, “You and Shonti get to high ground. I am going back out for survivors.” We hold each other’s eyes for a long moment and he bends to the task of hauling the dead man off the boat. Reluctantly I turn away. I do not want to leave him but I know I must. Shonti is already pretty far ahead of me. © Sally J. Nelson, Ph.D. 2005
by Dr. Sally J. Nelson As I prepare to continue to move inland from the beach, I take a deep breath, focus my intention to step through this nightmare and activate my ‘bands of power,’ a shamanic practice of protection. I pick my way through uprooted trees, collapsed buildings, furniture, doors, broken glass, washing machines, sinks, clothes, walls of rubble… and then I begin to see the bodies. I make my way though the rubble of things and human bodies struck down, sucked down, stopped in their tracks and frozen in time in running positions as they desperately fled to escape the whiplash of the tsunami. Most of faces I can see have a look of horror, their eyes are bulging and their hands are up in the air as though they are warding off some invisible assailant. I see Shonti in the distance. She is making her way through the debris, the abandoned dogs and dead humans. I am concerned that she will be frightened even horrified. I am toting three back packs. I trudge along under their weight. It never occurs to me to leave those that are not mine. At one point Shonti turns and yells, “Sally, give those packs to that man!” Then she disappears. I guess she is doing just fine, I don’t need to worry about her. And I realize she offers good advice. I hand the man from the boat one of the packs and say, “This belongs to the dive master. Please carry it as far as you can.” He looks puzzled but accepts the pack. I think, “We do not speak the same language.” As I continue to trek inland this jungle of collapsed restaurants, hotels and homes, is intermingled with a collapsed and uprooted jungle of trees, shrubs and vines. I look ahead to get my bearing. I see some trees still standing ahead of me, up higher and closer to the main highway. I stop…look behind… remember another wave is coming… wonder about Stu… my heart is beating a bit fast as I turn back toward high ground and wade through a eerily still, 6 foot wide river of muck. I try to catch up with Shonti. There is no one in front of me to follow so I pick my way through the trampled jungle. There is a man following me. I recognize him as one of the survivors we hauled in from the sea. He is walking slowly as though he is in a dream. He is dazed and as if in slow motion places one foot in front of the other. I check over my shoulder now and then to make sure he is still following me. As I look back over the path I have walked I think, “I could be in a war zone or am I having a nightmare. Will I wake up?” But this war zone is not a product of man’s inhumanity to man. This mass of death and chaos is a gift of Mother Nature and it seems surreal, like something I have experienced in a movie or on the news or perhaps in a dream. I feel that same sense of ‘watching’ from a distance. Except for the fact that I am trudging along, in my black DNKY bathing suit, a blue trekking shirt, and my dive boots with my naked legs exposed to twisted metal [isn’t that a rock band?] and jagged glass misshapen and shattered by a force so inconceivable I do not yet, even as I pick my way through the erratic path carved by the focused force of the tsunami, fully comprehend the reality around me. I hear Shonti call from somewhere above me. I peer up through the jungle of trees that line the road to the highway. I can’t see her but I can hear her voice. “Sally, Sally, take the road!” I see no path leading to the road in front of me. Only a hillside covered with more somewhat dense trees. I look around and see the road up higher through the trees. I’d have to climb up through the uprooted trees to get to it. I decide it is better to back track. I turn to the man who has been shadowing me. He is standing still and staring up at the trees. I yell and motion to him to follow me. He turns slowly toward me and stares at me blankly. “Follow me!” I yell. He nods, turns toward me and wearily begins to move. I wind my way through the endless debris until I reach the road. I step up from the eroded earth and turn once again to survey the path I have walked. The shadow man is close behind now. I move along the road. I want to run up the road to the main highway to find Shonti. I turn on last time to check on the man behind me. When he steps out of the jungle on to the road I step up my pace. The road slopes upward toward Khao Lak. It is solid, oddly clear of debris. I push myself as fast as I can to get up to the main road and catch up with Shonti. I stride by a stout woman lying flat on her back, her skirt is above her knees, her eyes are staring at the sky. I feel pulled back and I glance over her motionless body. Her eyes are open wide, staring up. Her mouth is also wide open caught in the circle of a silent scream. Her stiff arms and hands point up toward the sky as though she is warding off some invisible assailant. So far, I have chosen to not look closely at the dead bodies as I make my way through this devastation. I don’t know why my eyes are drawn to her. I pause in my own tracks as though some invisible force is holding me. I sense a movement out of the corner of my eye. Some essence, perhaps her soul, her life force (?) is poised about three feet above her body. That essence seems confused and desperate to return to the dead woman’s body. I am not afraid. I am awestruck. I clearly sense that essence reaching out to me. I force myself to ignore her and walk on. I am conflicted. I want to help the woman, but she is dead. I am pulled to respond somehow to the call but I feel as though I am incompetent. And then I realize I am a Shaman, must help that spirit move on. I turn and ‘send’ a message toward that essence as I weave an invisible spiral of energy upward with my hand to release her chakras. ‘It is your time to go on. Free yourself and go to the light, to your destiny.” With a wistful glance at the rigid physical form the dead woman’s life force takes flight into the beyond. I watch it disappear. This seems natural to me. I look back over the field of the dead and send them all one similar spiral to help them let go and release their souls. I whisper the same silent message to the collective of dead people whose souls are hovering above their remains. I turn and I walk on toward I know not what. I can hear the silent scream of those innumerable spirits assault my ears. They have been abruptly thrown out of their physical bodies. They are confused and frightened. The only thing they want is to return to their bodies, or to any body. Suddenly, an eerie silence surrounds me. I am alone. I turn toward the future. I step off of the road out of the jungle on to the main two lane highway that runs north and south through Khao Lak. The sea side of the road to the south has been licked by the tongue of the Tsunami. To my left, the sea side to the north is pretty much in tact. The wave was softer here. The other side of the road looks untouched. I peer up and down the road hoping for a glimpse of Shonti. There is a man opening his shop. A few stragglers are staring silently toward the sea. But Shonti has vanished. I see movement on the hill. I cross the highway. Should I continue up the hill? Not yet. Stu is still back at the edge of the ocean. Another wave is predicted. I want to go back for Stu, but where is Shonti? I turn away from the sea and the debris. I must trust that Stu will make his way. I cross the highway to the sign that points to the first aid station. I begin the hike up the mountain path. It is not a steep path but it feels never ending to me. The wave missed this area. A couple of small restaurants and homes on this side path are still in tact. I pass two people sitting at tables at the restaurants. A motor scooter startles me as it zooms past me up the path. There is no other sound. All human being survivors are stunned into silence. I keep climbing until I reach the place high up on the hill where Thai’s and ‘foreigners’ are gathered in clusters. They sit in the back of pickup trucks or on the ground. For the most part they too are silent. I see the 10 year old blonde girl who was on our dive boat sitting on the back of a pick up truck, staring off into space. Did her father survive? I walk up to her and ask how she is. She recognizes me and gives me a weak smile. She does not speak English. ‘Where is your father?’ I ask. She looks uncertain. I repeat, ‘Your father.” Her eyes show she recognizes the word and she points to a cluster of people standing together and talking quietly. This is the first sound of the human voice, other than Shonti’s that I have heard since I left Stu at the boat. I smile at the girl, she stares past me. I walk over to her father. “Have you seen Shonti?” He says, “Yes I saw her come out of the jungle to the road but that is the last time I saw her. She isn’t up here.” I thank him. I walk around the camp looking for my tall, brown eyed girl. She is no where. I begin my hike back down the road. My feet are sweating inside my dive boots. I am happy to have them to protect me even though I can feel the places where the rubber is rubbing my skin raw. When I arrive once again at the main road, the town is still eerily empty and silent. A few people are still standing by the side of the road. The shops are closed and locked. The man who opened his store is standing inside in the dark. I go to the door and ask if he has a phone. “No,” he shakes his head and points over head indicating the power and telephone lines are down. I wonder, “Who would I call anyway?” I walk rapidly north looking for Shonti. I don’t think she would go north but I want to cover a few blocks just in case. There are no people to the immediate north. I turn around and walk south, retracing my steps and calling her name. “Shonti!” “Shonti?” “Shonti!” “Shonti?” I hear myself chanting in this odd contradiction to sane spiritual practice. I turn south again. Ahead of me I see the road upon which I walked out of the jungle. The man with the dive masters pack is standing there. Then I see the happiest sight of my life. Stu walks out of the jungle. He is staring at the buildings. I embrace him. “Oh my God! Tell me this is a nightmare!” he murmurs softly. We hold each other in stunned silence. Then, must tell him I can’t find Shonti. “She went on without me and I don’t know where she is.” Stu says “Don’t worry about Shonti, obviously she will take care of Shonti. Maybe she is waiting down by the restaurant we went to last night.” We join hands and walk toward the restaurant. We get there. No Shonti. As we walk we see more and more that Khao Lak is annihilated. The farther south we walk the more we can see that almost all the buildings behind the main street are collapsed. As we look over the field of destruction, in that moment we realize that the hand of the Tsunami stretched deep into the land and ripped the life that once thrived there, back into itself, into the sea. We come to a side road. A sign tells us it is a survivor camp. We hike high up and up and up this jungle mountainside. People in various stages of injury are camped everywhere along the path. We ask, “Have you seen a tall western girl with long brown hair and brown eyes? Some people shake their heads ‘no.’ Other people point up the mountain. Most of the people are Thai and speak no English. We climb higher along the narrow muddy path. Small clusters of people are gathered together, tending wounds, drinking water, holding each other. I feel uncomfortable invading their privacy but I look into each group for Shonti. We meet a cluster of westerners and they do not remember seeing her. We continue up until there are no more refugees. Then sadly, silently, we begin the return trek back to the main road without her. We walk with silent tears amongst the tears of so many others. When we arrive at the road we stop. We both ‘track’ that Shonti is probably okay. Stu says, “Shonti is very good at taking care of herself. She has always had to do that…all of my kids have had to learn to take care of themselves. They didn’t have any choice. They didn’t have a mother and I couldn’t be with them all the time. I trust Shonti. She is smart and she is strong. I know she has found a safe place to be.” I want to believe Stu but I am still frightened for Shonti. I know she is smart. I know she is strong. I know she is a survivor. Most of me believes’ she will take care of herself. Yet an immobile, small, child like part of me is crying for the child like part of her. Even as we trust that Shonti is alive and we that we will see her again, we must turn her fate over to her karma and to whatever Gods there be. Right now we must continue this nightmarish journey. What has happened to Jai and Kali? Did the tsunami hit the Khao Lak Emerald Resort south of here, where we were staying? Until this moment I have been so absorbed with getting the three of us to safety I had assumed this was the only area that was damaged. Slowly…the reality that this devastation is likely to have snatched the lives of countless others along the shoreline begins to surface into my awareness. Now--I feel a whip of fear. It grabs my heart and tosses it into my throat. Kali? Jai? By foot, we are far from the Emerald Resort although it is not far as the crow flies. What if it was taken by the wave? I clamp my mind shut to keep the horror at bay. The babies, Kali and Jai, were sleeping! The horror breaks through. I stand at the side of the still silent road holding Stu’s warm hand. My mind grasps for possibilities. “Please, God, maybe someone spotted the wave at our beach, warned the kids and they got away. Let them be safe. Don’t bring us such personal suffering.” I muse, “Maybe the angle of the beach was different than here so the wave would not have hit so hard. Look at this street. Some places are wiped out and others, right next to the rubble are still standing. Our babies can’t be dead can they? But then again, how could anyone survive the complete and absolute devastation we just walked through to get to high ground? This has got to be a nightmare.” I feel oddly disconnected from the scene around me. Again I feel as though I am watching from a distance. “This is a very bad mean spirited movie. Isn’t it? I look down the road toward the Emerald Resort. Very few vehicles are heading south. There are no taxis, that’s for sure! Stu and I wonder how we will get to the Emerald. I stick out my thumb. A truck grinds by filled with Thai people. We walk. Both of us stick out our thumb as we continue to walk south. The next truck stops. It too carries Thai’s. Several women and a few children. They squeeze together to make room for us. They hold out a hand to help us climb into the truck bed. Our eyes meet and sadness and compassion leap between us. As we bump along in the back of the truck we witness more and more extensive and massive destruction. A dead woman lies at the edge of the road. A man lies lifeless next to the still body of a child. There is another woman…another man…another child…all dead…dead…dead…people struck down in a myriad of grotesque postures populate the land along the sides of the road. My body is pulled back by gravity as we begin to travel up the steep winding road. I lean forward with some effort. As we pass the jungle along the left side of the winding road the memory of the night before replays in my mind. I am riding in the back of the little white Suzuki jeep. Shonti is between me and Kali. Stu is driving and Jai is in the front left passenger seat. We are heading back to the Emerald on this winding road. It is Christmas night in Thailand. We are having a heated discussion. Jai and Kali wanted to stay late in town and party with their new Thai friends. Stu, Shonti and I wanted to go back to the resort and sleep because we planned to dive in the morning. We had a sort of Mexican stand off for awhile and tempers got a little hot. Jai is irritable. “I was just starting to have a little fun on this trip!” Kali says: “Listen, I thought you guys were having as much fun as we were. I’m sorry if you weren’t. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that you would be upset if we went off with our new Thai friend.” I reiterate, “I’m irritated because I said I was tired and needed to go back several times. I agreed to wait for a while several times. But then I was really tired and I did not have the energy to wait any more. I felt no one was considering my needs. Kali said “I’m sorry, I really am, I had no idea you were so tired. I was just having fun.” I responded “I accept your apology.” Jai apologized for whatever he did that was upsetting to me and also assured me that he had not intended to be inconsiderate. That was the end of the standoff. My attention snaps back to the winding road. What will we find at the Emerald? I suspend speculation. The driver stops at the turn off to the Emerald. We jump out. The road in is blocked by uprooted trees. I look behind me to the other side of the highway. The elephants are gone. The water obviously has crossed the road and knocked down trees at least ¾ mile inland from the beach. This does not look good. We pick our way through the debris of the uprooted trees tossed together like pick up sticks. We find the road that leads to the sea and the Emerald Resort where we had slept peacefully in our bungalows. I begin to feel wary. What once were buildings and the beginnings of shops and restaurants are now rubble. We arrive at the end of the road. The sea is calmly lapping at the sand oblivious of the uprooted trees scattered along its shore. What lies ahead and what is creeping up from behind? © Sally J. Nelson, Ph.D. 2005 |