Isan tries his best to wake up, but his eyes simply refuse to stay open. He lies still like a dead man.
“Isan, please wake up,” Savanna pleads, slapping his face left and right. She keeps working on him until she sees his chest starting to rise and fall. With a grunt, Isan opens his eyes, grimacing in pain.
Savanna swims to the shore, paddling with one arm, pushing the wooden board ahead of her with the other.
Several minutes later, Isan starts to lose consciousness again. Savanna rocks the wooden board. “Isan, wake up!" she shouts, trying to bring him back to his senses. He looks at her, but no words come out of his colorless lips. She encourages him, “Keep breathing.” He breathes, but very weakly.
Fighting against the currents, Savanna manages to bring her wounded husband to the shoreline.
Savanna stops swimming and her feet touch the riverbed. Standing in waist-deep water, she pushes the wooden board onto the riverbank.
Isan looks almost lifeless as Savanna kneels beside him. She taps his cheeks left and right, working very hard to wake him. “Isan, can you hear me?" Savanna calls out, shaking his shoulder. “Talk to me. Say something. Anything, please.”
Isan does not move or talk. He lies on his back with his eyes closed.
Savanna squeezes his hand. “I know you’re still in there,” she says. “You’re a strong person. You can fight this. Come back. Talk to me!”
Isan is in so much pain that he cannot speak or move. His abdomen feels like it has been ripped apart and turned inside out. His brain cannot process what she is saying. Whenever he tries to open his eyes, something heavy keeps pressing against them. Whenever he tries to think, a powerful force keeps dragging him into the darkness. Whenever he tries to talk, his tongue cannot move. It is difficult for him to form words. The only thing that seems normal is his hearing.
“Isan, come back!” Savanna screams at him, slapping him hard in the face, crying at the same time, hating herself for hurting him. She does not want to hit him so hard, but she can’t think of any other options to help him. “Fight your way back!” Savanna begs him, but Isan is not processing her command. “You can do it!” she cries out louder and slaps him again.
All that slapping starts to work. Isan gasps and takes a breath. With all his will, he forces himself to open his eyes. As soon as he wakes up, he feels a sharp pain searing through him.
He could normally endure a lot of pain. But this pain is different. His wounds burn and throb as if someone has just poured acid on his skin. It hurts so badly that it makes him want to curl up and die. Part of his brain knows that he needs to stay awake to figure out what he could do to stop the bleeding—the other part of his brain tells him that he should sleep until the pain gets better. A nap right now is the right thing to do, he says to himself.
Isan starts to doze off, except that someone keeps slapping him.“Isan! Don’t go to sleep. Look at me!” Savanna’s voice shrieks right next to his ear, almost blasting his eardrum.
Isan’s eyes pop open. He gasps and coughs harshly. The fires burning in the villages combined with the sweltering heat of the tropical sun nearly suffocate him.
After Isan has taken several shallow breaths, he finally murmurs, “I need tobacco.”
“Tobacco?” Savanna echoes, shooting him a questioning look. Isan nods slightly. The pain inside him makes him wince.
Savanna does not understand why Isan is asking for tobacco at a time like this. He does not smoke nor chew tobacco.
Isan tosses his head restlessly. He tries to tell her something, but his voice falters. Suddenly, a memory of her father flashes in the back of her mind. She remembers seeing him put moist tobacco directly on his wounds and cuts. At the same time, she also recalls an old shaman in her village using tobacco in many healing rituals. Savanna has never asked them how tobacco works on wounds. Whatever healing power it has, she hopes it will help stop the bleeding. Savanna fumbles through his shirt, searching for tobacco. “Where is it?” she asks her husband.
“In my pocket,” Isan manages to tell her.
Savanna unbuttons his shirt pocket. She takes out a handful of shredded tobacco and packs his wounds to stop the flow of blood, but the terrible wounds continue to bleed.
Isan grits his teeth and bears the pain, grunting and panting. “It hurts,” he mutters under his breath and passes out again.
Savanna shakes him. “Isan! Look at me!” she shouts. “Come on, open your eyes.”
The man doesn’t stir. Perhaps he has gone too far this time. She must do her very best to bring him back.
Savanna pumps his chest with her palms. “Come back!" she cries out, desperately. “Please come back!” she pleads louder.
Savanna’s voice seems very far away. Isan cannot respond to her calling. His mind keeps drifting in and out of consciousness.
“Isan, hold on!” he hears Savanna shouting in a frightened voice. “Don’t give up on me and the baby!”
Isan hears the word “baby” ringing in his ears. It makes his heart pump wildly. Isan tries to collect his senses. With a superhuman effort, he strives to bring his foggy mind back to the conscious state.
A moment later, his eyes flutter open. He says something so softly that she can’t hear.
Savanna leans against his lips to listen and encourages him to speak up, “Isan, come on, talk louder."
“I love you,” he repeats.
She kisses him. “I love you too. Please try to be strong.”
Isan feels himself drifting, floating away into trackless space. He closes his eyes and goes limp.
Frightened, she cries out in terror, “No, don’t leave us! Come back and stay with me!”
Isan makes no sound. He looks so still. Savanna cannot tell if he is still breathing. She leans closer and presses her ear to his chest. At first she hears nothing. It seems like something is sucking the life out of him.
A few seconds later, she catches a faint beating sound of his heart. When she looks at his chest, she sees him taking a shallow breath. Savanna straightens and sighs with great relief. “He’s only asleep,” she almost hears herself saying out loud.
Savanna fears if she lets him continue to sleep, he might not wake up again, and death will claim him. Savanna thinks if she can keep him talking, he might have a better chance of surviving, and so she shakes him. “Isan, say something, anything please," she cries out. "Come on, wake up!”
But Isan keeps drifting farther away and slips deeper into a coma.
Meanwhile, thunder rumbles. Savanna turns her gaze toward the open river. She scans in every direction, searching for her friends. She finds no sign of them.
In the far distance she sees dark purple clouds swirling and lightning flashing through the boiling sky. Thunder roars and shakes the earth. A sudden gust of wind from the south blows swiftly across the river. It grows stronger and stronger as time goes by, carrying some of the smog away into the sky.
Overwhelmed with grief she bows and recites a prayer that her father had taught her, “God of our first ancestors, the daughter of Great Moat Village asks for your protection; please have mercy on us and deliver us from this affliction."
Faintly from downstream in the southern direction, she hears the sound of a motorboat engine accelerating. She staggers to her feet. Her body is covered with Isan’s blood. She looks beyond the shoreline and spots a boat. She yells with all her strength, “We need help! Please come ashore!”
The people are not aware of her calling. The motorboat keeps moving northward at the same speed.
Savanna