Eleven Minutes in the Sea

Susie Gordon loved the beach. The soothing sounds and scents of the sea always calmed her, so she considered it one of her favorite places to be. As a matter of fact, she was sitting seaside that very day, relaxing on her comfortable lounge after driving there with her newly acquired license. She reached into a cooler for a juice box when she felt the sudden urge to put her toes in the water.

Slowly rising from her tilted chair and shading her pretty blue eyes with one hand, Susie headed towards the foamy swirls nearby.

As she approached the shore, whirling water kissed her feet; it was cold yet thrilling to her senses. Fragments of broken seashells peeked out from under the wet sand. Susie decided to start looking for whole ones for her small collection at home.

Maybe she could even find a hermit crab and release it. Much as she’d like to keep one, Susie was a sensible seventeen-year-old and respected all forms of life.

She went in a little deeper and watched all the beach-goers frolicking in the waves. Well, why not? she asked herself. She wasn’t a strong swimmer, but she knew the basics and everyone looked like they were having so much fun.

The sun was beating down on Susie’s head and back. Beads of sweat were starting to form. It felt so hot that the water started to feel refreshing the more she got used to its chilly temperature. Susie turned towards the sun, tilted her face up and allowed it to penetrate her skin as she stood knee-deep in the ocean.

Crashing waves lulled the girl into a near trance-like state, salt spraying her as they overcame her small frame.

Suddenly, Susie felt herself being pulled into the sea, her knees buckling under as the water pulled her out. Figuring she’d simply stand up when the undertow passed, she let the revitalizing seawater carry her off.

There; it stopped. Susie went to stand up and soon realized that her feet weren’t touching the ocean floor. In confusion, she looked around. Where were all the people? It was only when she saw that the crowd of frolickers were now considerably far behind her that she started to panic. She’d been taken out too far; a wave crashed over her head and Susie fell into a full-blown panic.

“Help!” she cried. But no one could hear her over the ocean’s roar. She tried to use her basic swimming skills, but didn’t know not to swim against the current. She was being taken further out! “Help!” she yelled again. And, once more, to no avail.

Suddenly remembering reading that one should swim parallel to the shore in situations such as this one, Susie tried to figure out which way that’d actually be. Another literal wave washed over her as did a second one of the panic variety.

Suddenly, everything went black.

* * * * * * * * *

Slowly opening her eyes, Susie squinted in confusion as the blurry hospital lights came into focus. A man dressed in cornflower blue stood over her. A doctor? Maybe a nurse?

Trying to form a sentence, Susie could only utter a garbled, “Whooo’re youuu?”

The man smiled down gently at her and said, “You’re going to be okay, Ms. Gordon,” kind brown eyes crinkled at the corners as he assured his patient. “I’m Gerald, your ER nurse.” Gerald hesitated a moment before asking, “What type of skin condition have you been previously diagnosed with?”

Susie stared blankly at her nurse, her feeling of confusion growing with each word he spoke.

“Would you prefer I call you Susie or Ms. Gordon?” Gerald asked now.

“Uhh, Susie,” at least she could talk. “How did you know my name?”

“When the lifeguard pulled you out of the water, he took you back to your spot on the beach. Your beach bag had your license in it, Miss. You also told the EMTs your name when you came to. Do you remember?”

Susie didn’t remember, although the word water created a queasy sensation throughout her body. Water, she thought now. I was drowning.

“I was drowning!” the yellow-haired girl cried out in a panic. “The waves! The water! Help!”

Gerald the nurse gave Susie a pill and a small cup of water. “This’ll calm you down. But we do have some questions for you.”

Susie took the capsule and the water, noticing a blatant green hue coloring her hand. “Why am I green?” once again, panic began to rise in the teenager’s voice.

“We’re working on that. Does this…discoloration occur often?” Just then, another hospital staff member dressed in blue told Gerald in a stage whisper, “We have an initial hypothesis, if not a diagnosis. We may have traced her back to the Green Children of Woolpit.”

Water flew out of the cup as Susie cried out, “WHAT?! Who are the Green Children of Woolpit? What are you talking about!” the seventeen-year-old pinched herself to ensure she wasn’t dreaming or dead. Which was when she noticed that her arm was green, too.

Just then, a tall blond man with an official looking badge came over to Susie. “Hello there. I’m Doctor Hanley,” he said in a low voice. “I need to ask you some questions before we can discharge you from the hospital.”

Susie nodded and the doctor continued, “We’ve conducted some tests and it appears you have an extremely rare condition. In fact…” Doctor Hanley looked slightly uncomfortable as he spoke, “it appears that you have a condition that hasn’t been noted since twelfth century England.” The doctor’s discomfort seemed to rise as his patient absorbed his words.

“Did I drown?” she asked simply.

“You nearly did, Ms. Gordon, but the lifeguard pulled you out of the water and resuscitated you. That’s when you started your journey here.”

“So I’m okay?” looking uneasily at her green skin, Susie found that hard to believe.

“You’re fine,” Doctor Hanley reassured the distressed patient. “But we do have some concerns with your skin turning green like this. We’ve never seen this happen in a patient, which is why we’re running tests. So far, it appears that your DNA is…a bit different from what we’ve seen before. How often do you turn green? We know you aren’t always this tone; your license picture demonstrates that clearly enough.”

“I…I have never been green before. Am I going to die?”

“No. Of course not,” the doctor looked less confident than he sounded. “We believe that you may be a descendant of the Green Children of Woolpit. Not much is known about them. Some believe their story to be folklore, but seeing you, well…I’m not so sure about that.”

Susie tried to take the information in, but appeared to be having difficulty doing so.

“We have very little knowledge of these green children from so long ago. It was believed that they came from a land where the sun never shone; it was believed they were malnourished. They were said to have spoken a language that no one else recognized. The part about the sun, I question. You were at the beach in direct sunlight. The seawater seemed to bring out this green we’re seeing now.”

Susie looked as if she were debating something and then slowly offered, “I do know another language, Doctor. My mother told me it wasn’t real and ordered me to stop speaking it as a child. So I did.”

“I see…” Doctor Hanley looked disbelieving at this entire situation. “We can release you, but strongly encourage that you see some specialists that can help you sort out what’s going on. You could be of historical significance, so I do strongly advise you to keep this on the down low.”

“I will,” Susie Gordon told her emergency doctor now. I never really learned to swim, you know, Doctor Hanley. I had forgotten, but my mother forbade it. When I was little, I took swimming lessons at the beach. I must’ve blocked it out, but I’m starting to remember the day my mom pulled me out of the group. My skin had started turning and she quickly covered me up with a beach towel and drove me home. I was told never to speak of that incident. Just like I was instructed to not speak my secret language.”

The doctor looked fascinated as the incredible story unfolded. He asked Susie to kindly keep in touch with hospital staff as she researched her roots.

“Susie Gordon,” Doctor Hanley told her seriously, “history often gets distorted. The more it’s repeated, the more twisted and wrong it becomes. Much like a game of Telephone Tag. We have so much to learn. And you might just be a missing link to one of those distorted tales.”

Susie sat up on the hospital cot. She noticed her green tinge was beginning to fade, “I don’t know what to say about all this.”

Doctor Hanley nodded and said, “Nor do I. But the estimated eleven minutes you spent in the sea may have altered history and the way we view it forever.”