Saturday, January 1, 2011
Beyond the Storm
After Jack was awakened by heavy, cold raindrops, it took him a moment to remember where he was and another to realize his predicament. The sun shown on placid waters when he'd gone to sleep while floating on his back too long ago, but now the sky was dark. Whitecaps in the distance marked a storm's approach. When the waves bouyed him high enough to see over the water, he could just make out the beach. He was sure he'd never needed to swim so far, but now his life depended on it. He cursed his stupidity for napping.
In another moment, the storm was upon him. The wind blew froth in his face, lightning danced and thunder bellowed. He feared he was a goner but a part of him believed it was just as well. What did he have to live for since Brooke was gone anyway? Just over a year ago, she'd been driving cross-country to see him when her car crashed over an icy bridge. She tried to swim to safety, but frozen to death before she could reach the shore. The irony of finding himself in a similar predicament did not escape him.
Her death was his fault. If he hadn't been in New York meeting with some high rollers about funding his latest business project, she wouldn't have been driving there to see him. If he hadn't gone on about what a romantic place it was, what a good time they would have together there, she wouldn't have come. She didn't care for cities or crowds, but he'd insisted, and for him she had come. Because of him, she was dead.
He quit his business after that and bought a small house on this isolated beach. Here, he felt close to her in spirit. She would have loved it. He hung her favorite painting above the television that he'd barely turned on in ten months. The painting showed a woman in a wedding dress standing on a rocky pier staring out at a lighthouse on the ocean. Something about the restlessness of the waves and the color of the sky suggested a storm was brewing. The woman's posture struck a chord with Brooke. She said she'd never seen anyone so heartbroken and that whoever painted it must have known that kind of pain themselves. Now Jack knew how the woman in the painting must have felt.
The storm intensified and Jack wondered if a part of him knew it was coming. He remembered hearing something about bad weather being on the way yesterday, but conveniently forgotten this morning. Maybe his nap was an unconscious suicide attempt.
The rain and wind howled and the seas grew angrier. He became disoriented by the churning mass, losing all sense of direction. A monster wave loomed over him, and in the moment before it fell, Jack believed it would be the last thing he ever saw. It crashed down with the force of a sledgehammer driving him underwater so long he thought his lungs would burst. He expected death to follow.
Instead, he found himself squinting against a blinding light. He blinked away saltwater and spotted a lighthouse that shouldn't have been there. He swam in its direction, too desperate to survive to wonder at its existence. But even with the aid of such a concrete goal, he didn't swim far through the rough seas before his shoulders became leaden cramps attacked his legs. His entire body seized with exhaustion and seething with pain, he glanced towards the lighthouse a final time.
He thought he must be already dead or hallucinating because he saw the woman from the painting standing on a rocky pier in front of it. Her back was not turned to him as in the portrait. She glared into his eyes across the stormy sea with a demon's intensity. He knew her face as well as his own.
He called her name as she dove into the ocean, the train of her wedding dress trailing behind her. It was the last thing he saw before sinking beneath the waves.
********************
He opened his eyes on the beach with the sun in his face, amazed to be alive. He lay there for a long time before struggling to his feet. The day was calm now, but evidence of the storm's passing was clear to see. Scattered debris--driftwood, seaweed, and man-made trash littered the beach. The air was still humid and thick in spite of the now cloudless sky. He barely had the energy to walk. He remembered going to sleep and waking in the midst of the storm, but nothing afterward.
His house lay only about a hundred yards away, but it took all his energy to cover the distance. He collapsed on the couch and the painting caught his eye. It brought everything back to him-- seeing the lighthouse and the woman in the wedding dress...but it wasn't the woman in the painting. It was Brooke. She had saved him. He knew it wasn't rational, but how how else could he have survived?
He studied the picture, searching for an explanation. Maybe he'd simply lost consciousness and the ocean saw fit to deposit him on the beach before he drowned. Maybe the lighthouse and the vision of Brooke were only a dream.
But when he went outside again to peer across the sea, he knew she had saved him. She wanted him to live again. She was watching to make sure he did.
Author's note: I wrote this for a contest on fanstory.com. It had to be 1000 words or less and based on the picture they provided. I'm afraid this probably isn't my best work. :(
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