Paradox

Paradox is a fictional short story of a tragic boating accident that takes the life of a daughter. A mother willfully gives up her life force, her soul, to bring life back to her daughter. The Paradox is something you will have to read to understand. 


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Chase Daniel stands at his wife's grave and tries to make sense of what weird thing is happening.

Chase lost his daughter Emily and his wife, Trudy, due to a tragic boating accident. Emily didn't die right away.

At the time of the busting accident Trudy was piloting the cabin cruiser too close to the rocks that were hidden in the lake.

Trudy and Emily weren't getting along very well. Emily seemed to hate her mother. She was 17 and she had been doing drugs and partying. Her mother tried to understand her daughter. She was trying to at least get her to the age of 21 so that Emily could have a decent future. Emily on the other hand secretly wished her mother would drop dead.

Chase was a neurosurgeon, had no clue that his wife was fighting a war of wills with their daughter. Chase had suggested they make a day of it on Lake George. They could troll fit bass and Northern Pike.

Chase couldn't go because he was working but suggested his two favorite girls go together.

Trudy had no clue that a terrible accident would soon happen. Trudy let Emily pilot the boat for awhile.

"Emily! Steer to the port side – to the left! You are getting too close to the shoals! There is a sandbar with lots of rocks in the formation." Trudy yelled. That was the last thing she remembered.

The boat had hit the rocks and flipped over. The boat flew into pieces. Trudy and Emily were thrown into the water. Emily was injured badly and going into shock. Slowly she sank beneath the surface.

Trudy was also hurt, but her arms were broken and she was unable to swim over to her; with horror, she was able to see her daughter's head slip beneath the waves.

"Help! Help!" Trudy screamed. There was a sailboat coming toward her. Raymond Jacob was a lawyer on vacation. He had heard the crash from quite a ways away and came to investigate.

"Help! My daughter! My daughter!" Trudy tried to swim toward where Emily had done under the surface, but she couldn’t get her arms to work. She could only tread water to stay afloat. 

Raymond radioed for the coast guard. The closest coast guard unit was in Vermont, but that is not far. He knew it wouldn’t take long for them to arrive. Once he broke contact and was sure emergency help was coming he was close enough to the area to drop anchor and dive in to see if he could help. Raymond swam to where Trudy was. She was treading water quite easily by controlling her breathing and moving her feet in the water. Her arms were useless. 

Raymond dove down and scoured the area where Emily had gone down. He didn't see her. The current could have swept her out away from the actual place she had gone under.

Just as Raymond had widened his search he found her on the bottom of the lake. She was partially enveloped in seaweed. It was a good thing the seaweed caught her or she could have been swept even farther away. 

Out of breath, Raymond cane up for air. He saw the police helicopter and the coast guard boat approaching the area.

"I found her! I had to come up for air. I'm going back down now!

Just then one of the scuba divers from the coast guard boat entered the lake and took over the search and rescue of Emily. The scuba diver gave Raymond a thumbs up signal for him to go up before he drowned from air hunger. 

The Diver, Joe Sanders, brought up Emily's lifeless body. Joe and Raymond helped secure her onto a litter sent down by the helicopter and pulled her into the emergency boat. They started CPR, but she was down too long. The crew didn't think their efforts were doing her any good. The captain of the boat radioed the helicopter to raise the litter up. They thought Emily might be already dead, but it wasn’t for them to determine. She wasn’t dead until the doctors said she was dead. 

All the while Emily was being rescued Trudy was starting to go into shock, herself; however she was still able to stay afloat. The coast guard also placed her into a litter and secured her in it. . She was raised immediately into the helicopter and they were taken to the nearest trauma center from Lake George which was in Glens Falls.

Trudy and Emily were in the same cubicle. All that could be done for Emily had been done. She was pronounced dead at 5:07 in the afternoon.

Trudy screamed "NO!!!!" And just then Trudy willed herself to die so she could bring life back to her daughter.

The emergency room nurse was about to turn off the monitors when a blip started on the cardiac monitor. There was another blip and then there was a weak rhythm. The nurse ran out to the desk and said "the drowning victim that was dead on arrival is alive!"

The doctor looked at the nurse, Tracy, like she was crazy. He had just pronounced her. He didn't move from his seat where he was writing his final notes on Emily's chart.

"I'm telling you she is alive! She has a normal sinus rhythm. She has a pulse!"

The doctor reluctantly got up from his seat and entered the trauma room. It was true. Emily was indeed alive and waking up.

Dr. Jorge Gonzales looked over at Trudy to see how she was doing and suddenly realized she was dead. Resuscitation was started but it was unsuccessful. They had tried to restart her heart with a defibrillator to no avail.

Trudy Daniel was pronounced dead at 5:35 PM. At the same time Dr. Gonzales had to add to Emily’s chart that she had spontaneously sum started breathing again.

"Start routine vital signs every 15 minutes times 4, then every 30 minutes times 4 and we will watch her vitals routinely once every 8 hours. If she starts to code go back to emergency protocol." said Dr.Jorge Gonzales.

Sadly, Trudy's body was unhooked from the IV and the cardiac monitor leads. Her body was prepared for the funeral home to come for her. The doctor and the nurses on duty had never seen such an event where a mother gave up her life to start her daughter’s heart beating again. That was the only explanation they could fathom. 

Emily looked around and saw the commotion that had taken place with her mother, but she was detached. She didn't feel like herself. She felt like her mother had entered her body and was seeing through her eyes.

Emily realized fairly quickly that she was not Emily, but that she was Trudy. She vaguely remembered drowning and then there was nothing. When she woke up she had Trudy's life force inside of her.

Emily cried. She mourned the loss of herself and she mourned the loss of her mother. Emily was no longer Emily. Trudy was looking at herself, dead on the stretcher beside her. She felt she was in a paradox because she had the body of Emily but the mind of herself. She knew she was Trudy in Emily’s body. 
When she was home and on the mend, intellectually she knew that Emily was gone and she inhabited her daughter’s body. However, when Trudy finally looked at herself in the mirror she screamed. She screamed for the loss of her daughter. She screamed at the life she would have to lead in her daughter's body. It dawned on her that her friends were not her friends. Her friends were Emily's friends.

She tried to think how she would explain this paradox, this switching of souls to her husband and friends?

She would deal with that soon, she thought, but not now.

Out on the veranda of their home Trudy stood and saw the beautiful sunset through Emily's eyes and then she decided she would think about that difficult task tomorrow. She will think about revealing the truth tomorrow.