TWO HEARTBEATS, ONE BODY

I found a beach. I can't remember the last time I saw so much water, but  I found one.

I inhaled it, the air,  it was different too, different from  the stench. I walked tentatively towards it, my feet, my hair, my brow, all feeling sensations they hadn't felt in a while. It was beautiful.

I was standing  in the water now, it pushed out, then pulled back, pulling  me with it. The  waves were hypnotic, they  made me want to forget, they made me want to  drift.

I closed my eyes and let my other senses take it all in.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The breeze was smooth on my skin, my feet were flush in the....the  water! It was thick now, almost to the point of coagulation. With my eyes still closed I lifted my legs up, one after the other; the water didn't drip, instead it seemed to stick to my ankles and the corners of my toes. Then it hit me, right across  the face like a sucker punch. Then  another, and  another, and another.  Till I was engulfed in  a storm of the sea, raining down on me.

I  felt heavy. The water wasn't refreshing, it seemed to drench me then drain me, this torrid rain. I opened my mouth, let loose my tongue to taste  it, it  was blood!

I woke up in it, but  not at the beach,  I awoke on sand-not like the  moist  grainy sand of the beach.  No, forest sand, sand that had dirt, leaves,insects and  a billion  other things. I  woke  up with my face and feet in  a sea of red.

Negan was still chortling and  cleaning Lucille-a baseball bat coated in barbwire.

I was almost drowning  in  it,  the blood, but I couldn't  lift  my head up. I couldn't for the life of me  look  up  and see  what  the  monster had done. He  had paced around, pointing that prickled bat  at  us,  trying  to  decide who would  be on the receiving end of it. Now  he had  done it, he  had killed one  of  us with unabashed cruelty.  He chose then he executed.  Well, I couldn't look then and for  the life  of me, I couldn't look  now.

The  mad man still  chuckled.  I saw him there, looking down amused, his  craft-a caved  in skull, staring up  at  him. I heard it went  it cracked. I  heard as the skull  was  undressed by the  impact of solid  wood  and  barbwire.  I  screamed at  first, but my screams couldn't drown it out. I heard  it all.

Bmf!

Bmf!

Bmf!

Blmp!

Squish!

I heard it all  and  even now I listened.

Listened to Ricks whimpering, Dylans nervous shuffling, Aarons sobs, Rositas even  and Abraham, but  I could  not hear  her. And that's why I didn't want to look  up, I couldn't hear Maggie.

A  cry, not even her voice, that was the  best  I  could hope  for  and I couldn't hear it. I was  waiting for  my ears to nullify something  my eyes  couldn't, shouldn't see.

Suddenly Negan stepped towards  me till he  stood over my  kneeling, humbled  self. My  heightened auditory  senses could  pick up his bat, wafting  through the air, but  I couldn't hear her, my Maggie.

What a shame, Negan  began bemused. She was  a  pretty one too, he trailed and  moved away from  me, then I  heard him kneel.

I heard  him put his  hand in the sea of  red, but I must've  only imagined  it.  He scooped  it up with two  fingers.  He brought the two fingers  to  his nose and sniffed.

It's sad  he  said. I heard the leaves  of trees rustle, the crickets afar off,  but  when he  said his  next words, I went  deaf!

The realy painful thing  is  you'll never  know if  this  is  just her blood or the baby's  too.

I  screamed. 

I  know  I  screamed not  because I heard it,  but  because I saw it,  I  saw myself  bent over,  mouth  agape, wailing. But I couldn't hear it, I was separate  from myself  it  seemed. I was screaming under water, inaudible, drowning in despair.

I  must  have been that way for five minutes, screaming my lungs  out  in  my  one  man  rock band of  grief.

It all came back  to me slowly,  like I stirred from sleep  to  hear her voice over the shouting and  thrashing  of a nightmare. Glenn!  Glenn!! She  said. My name flung out her  mouth with  as much  urgency  in her voice as there was  in  mine.

I looked up to find her, still there, still  kneeling,  still breathing. That  maniac  Negan was  still  laughing at his  own joke, but I  didn't care, my  Maggie  was  still  here  and even though my super sensitivity was gone, I  knew that  if  I  put my ears against her stomach, I  would , maybe, hear  two  heartbeats, my love and my child, alive, at least  for now.

“ There is no illusion greater than fear."
Lao Tzu