Page 99 of Theta

Rotto Molto Gravemente

Heat. Pain. Dizziness. Confusion. Thirst. So hot.

Then cold.

Darkness.

Nothingness.

Lights—white and artificial.

Movement. Faces, voices. Words I don’t recognize.

Killian.

I wake up briefly. I'm conscious and lucid but weak and drugged—pain is a dull, distant throb, tolerable but annoying.

I peer through hazy, heavy-lidded eyes—a small, dark room. Not a hospital—it looks like a clinic or urgent care exam room, except I'm on a bed instead of an exam table. By bed, I mean a regular bed, like from someone's house, not a complicated and expensive hospital bed, although I see an IV machine on a rolling pole with two clear bags of fluids, a portable oxygen machine, and a heart monitor beep-beep-beeping steadily.

I hear, behind the beeping of the heart monitor, the gentle susurrus of waves breaking on a shore. I hear a horn going BWAAAANNNNHHHHHH in the distance. Seagulls cree-creeing.

Feet on gravel, nearby.

"Tio, eccoti qui."

"Nipote."

Dante and his uncle.

"Dove eravate?"

"Non preoccuparti, Dante."

"Dove eravate?" More insistent, now.

"Dante—"

"Tio. You didn't." This being in English feels…significant, somehow.

"Dovevo. Non avevo scelta."

"I give him my promise, tio."

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Context clues are giving me big-time worry. My window of wakefulness is closing, fast, however.

"I have no choice!" The uncle isn't shouting but hissing. "How he knew, I don' know." The uncle speaks much better English than he let on, back on the boat. "I have no choice." This time it's muttered, as if to reassure himself of the truth of it.

"Quando?"

"Domani. Presto."

"Tio…" Dante sounds tired and pissed. "Cazzo. You make me a liar. Un traditore."

"Salvatore, il numero due, he tell me your tia, your cugina Maria, they are killed. Or I am pay enough money to retire. Andare a pesca per divertimento."

"How do you know sta dicendo la verità?”