Chapter 2, Hospital of Memories

The second chapter of "Wilde Horses Couldn't Stop Me!"

III

In a clean white hospital room a healer inspected the three bodies.  Lavuk, Milo and Kida stood by the three unconscious surface dwellers, wondering who they could possibly be.  The healer had been working on reviving them for a long time.  One man had thick black hair and a coarse beard and he wore some ripped blue sailor clothing.  The other man was younger, maybe Milo’s age, and fairly slim with short blond hair.  The young woman had wavy brown hair and a petite physique.  Her skin was unusually pale and her nose was pointed.  Milo felt like he somehow knew that girl or that she at least reminded him of someone he knew.  The surface dwellers were still disheveled; their hair messy and wet, their bodies muddy and their clothes torn.  The healer felt their heartbeats one at a time, pressing her finger to each pale neck.  She paused to take a deep breath.

“It is with complete regret that I proclaim these two men dead.  It seems that the one with the beard died of drowning while the other man died of a combination of drowning and blood loss.  He had a very deep stomach wound which it seems he acquired right before he died.  I’m sorry.  It is very sad, but at least you didn’t know them personally or have to see them die.”

“What about the girl?” Kida asked.

“It looks like she’s still holding on.  She’ll probably be out for a few more days and then she’ll wake up.  At least she survived.”

“That’s good news!” Milo said.

“Indeed,” the doctor said, “Well, I’ll start preparing these men for their funeral.”

IV

“Mr. Harcourt!” Beatrice heard yelling from the front desk in the lobby.  It sounded frantic, and it sounded like Milo, “Wait!  Mr. Harcourt!”

The woman working with her that day, Sheila, grimaced, “Oh, it’s that crazy Thatch again.  He’s going to be fired today, I guarantee it.  Atlantis exists!  Right, and I’m an alien from the moon!  I can’t wait until he’s out of here.  He wasn’t even good at fixing boilers.  You know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“To put it nicely, he’s a dreamer.  To put it not so nicely…”

“And what’s so bad about being a"”

But Beatrice was cut off.  She saw Milo chasing Harcourt out the door, yelling, “Mr. Harcourt!  Wait!  I’m sure of it this time!”

“Oh, he’ll be canned for sure,” Sheila laughed.

When Beatrice came in to work the next day, Sheila ecstatically told her that Milo had quit, because he was “going to find Atlantis.”  Everyone seemed to be laughing all day.  A group of fervent Milo-haters decided to celebrate at a bar after work.

But as soon as Sheila told her the news, Beatrice excused herself.  When she was out of Sheila’s sight, she ran down to the boiler room and peered into the window.  She’d only been there once before, just to deliver a package.  The student remembered the room being full of books and artifacts, more like the office of a professor than a glorified janitor’s room.  

As if by magic, all the clutter had disappeared.  The room was completely empty, save for, well, the boiler.  It broke her heart.  She felt tears fall down her face.  She couldn’t breathe.  He was leaving.  The only man she had ever loved.  It couldn’t be true.

Suddenly she heard footsteps, getting louder and closer.  Beatrice hid around the corner.  It was Milo.  He looked happier than he had ever looked before.  The young man went into his boiler room one last time.

“Wow.  They cleared it all out.  I didn’t know it was possible.  Well, boiler room, I’d say I’ll miss you, but it would be a lie!  Maybe I’ll come here again to meet the new boiler operator, when I have Harcourt’s job!”

He chuckled playfully, “Adieu!”

He skipped down the hallway.  Beatrice wanted to beg him to stay, or to at least show herself to say one final goodbye, but she couldn’t.  This was painful enough already.  Beatrice wished she had talked to him more.  She wished they had gone on a date.  They were still strangers.  Barely acquaintances.  But she loved him, because she was a creep.  Would he miss her?  

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Milo.”

She sat by the room for a few minutes and cried, hoping no one would see her in her sorry state.  When she felt ready to go back to work, she got up and headed back to the front desk, but something caught her eye.  Lying on the ground was a tattered brown briefcase filled with papers.  Curious, Beatrice opened it.

“I wonder who it belongs to.”

All the papers seemed to refer to Atlantis and Iceland.  Many of the documents were in a language Beatrice did not recognize, although it reminded her of Greek.  

“This must be Milo’s!  But he left a few minutes ago at the least.  I’ll never get it to him.”

So she did what a creep would do.  She kept it.  As a keepsake of the few moments she had ever talked to him.  She put it in her room to remind her of the most beautiful, intelligent and non-conformist person she had ever met.

“Maybe if Milo discovers Atlantis, these papers will come in handy.”

V

The unknown girl lay in the infirmary, still unconscious.  It had been three days since they had found her.  Milo came into the room.  He had just spoken at the funeral for the two men found with the girl.

“Has she woken up yet?” he asked the nurse.

“Sorry, Milo.  Sometimes it takes a little longer to recover.”

“It’s ok,” Milo moved closer to the girl, “She just seems so familiar.  I wish I knew who she was, or who she is reminding me of.”

He looked at her for a few more minutes.  The khaki clothing she was wearing three days ago had been replaced by a bland white hospital gown.  It made her look kind of angelic.

“Keep up the good work,” Milo said as he left the infirmary.

VI

Lately, since the summer had begun, Beatrice had been given a lovely schedule.  Monday to Friday, 9-5.  Just like the curators.  It had become a habit of hers to read the Washington Post every morning before work.  She would usually just skim the front section and then head to the Arts section, but as she skimmed the headlines, something caught her attention.  

“Two-hundred and thirty five lost in Atlantis expedition.”

“What?” she gasped.

She skimmed impulsively, frantically for Milo’s name.  She didn’t want to find it, but she had to look.  And she found it.

“Amongst those who went down with the submarine was the cartographer and linguist Milo Thatch.”

It had to be a lie.  A misprint.  For God’s sake!

“Journalism these days!” Beatrice laughed quietly, “They’ll print anything if it’ll get them more readers.”

Her laughter grew louder until her father told her to shut up.  And then she just laughed even louder.  Her laughter was no longer graceful, it was eerie.  And then she started to sob.  She felt the kitchen table shaking, controlled by her trembling hands.

Her father came downstairs, extremely annoyed.  

“If I have to tell you to zip it one more time…  Oh, you’re crying, now?  Your mother has been dead at least seven years.”

“No,” Beatrice wasn’t prepared for this.  She couldn’t tell her father about Milo.  He wouldn’t understand.  He’d probably think she was stupid, “these headlines just really depress me sometimes.  Look!”

She pointed to the article she was reading, “Two-hundred and thirty-five dead!  It’s just too much to take in.”

“Oh, Beatrice.  There’s nothing you can do about these things.  At least it wasn’t you or me, right?”

“It’s still sad, though.”

“Yup, it’s sad.  But you know what’s sadder?”

“What?  I can do with enough depression today,” she wiped her eyes with her hanky.

“That you don’t have a husband yet.  You should start thinking about that soon.”

“Not this again,” she thought to herself.  Her father, Donald, had been on her case about getting married for a few months.  Actually, ever since she had turned nineteen.  

“Shouldn’t I be focusing on my studies?”

“Right.  I need to talk to you about that, too.”

“What?” this was worrying her quite a bit.

“Well, I think you’ve probably learned a lot with elementary school, high school and your three years at Indiana.  So I think you should drop out and focus your energies on finding a wealthy, well-educated husband.”

“Are you serious?” Beatrice was livid, “Do you even know why I was studying at that college?  Not to impress some rich guy, but to become an archeologist.  That’s what I want to do with myself.”

“Are you serious?  You should have been looking for a husband at college.  That’s the only reason I allowed you to attend.”

“All these years wasted.  I should have just skipped college, put on my best lipstick and rouge and walked down Main Street pretending I’d lost an earring.  Father, if I can’t do what I’m passionate about, I’m going to be miserable.”

He scowled, “You think I’m happy?  I work in a cologne factory.  But that’s what normal poor people have to do, and, sorry to break it to you, you’re normal, and you’re poor.  Besides, if you find a rich enough husband, you’ll probably be able to do what you want, as long as you don’t make a career out of it.  You just need to make the best of your situation, okay?  All women go through this.”

Beatrice looked at her dad.  They were poor.  They were ordinary.  And it wasn’t going to change unless they really worked on getting more money.  Maybe she had been selfish, going to college, trying to be one of the first female archeologists.  

“I guess you’re right.  We need to think about money instead of dreams,” she sighed, “So, do you have any idea how I get a rich man to marry me?”

“Hmmmm…. Try complimenting him a lot.  I’m no good at this.  Ask your aunt or one of your lady friends,” he went back upstairs.

She looked out the window, which was stained with dew and bathed in sunlight.  It was a beautiful day.  And time to go to work.  But Beatrice didn’t want to go because for her it wasn’t a beautiful day.  It was the day she would begin to break and crumble inside.

Author's Note

Musical recommendations:

Intuition – Feist

Hello, I’m in Delaware – City and Colour

Creep – Radiohead, especially the awesome version by “Scala and Kolacny Brothers” which was featured in the “Social Network” trailer. Listen to the uncensored version. Come on, I dare you.

These selections are mostly recommended for the flashback scene, but play them for the other stuff if you want…