Saved Barely: 1964

by Dave Stern

After surrendering to the rhythms of the sea, challenging my courage, after declaring myself
captain of our sailing dingy and talking my brother and two friends into coming along to test
our skills, after the wind dying and the boat drifting, the storm clouds gathering and surging
towards us, after flashes of lightning piercing the sky and the heavens about to burst, my heart
beating hard with fear—

After light obliterated by blackness, the wind jerking awake from its slumber and gusting to gale
force, the sails flapping and ripping to shreds and the boat pitching front-to-back, side-to-side,
after water cascading over the leeward beam and over the bow and stern, after the mast and boom
groaning and the hull straining to cut through heavy seas towards a too-distant dock, after we are
overwhelmed by wind and boiling water and we secure our life vests and abandon ship, watching
our empty craft smash to bits on the rocks, the debris sinking and vanishing in the maelstrom, our
hope sinking and vanishing and we realize that we could drown within sight of shore.

After the sky’s darkness admitting a streak of pale blue, and the motor launch emerging
miraculously from its harbor to pluck us from the sea, after struggling against battering waves
to climb the gangway of the dock, after stumbling across the grass and throwing ourselves on the
still-heaving ground, after looking up at the sky in wonderment for all I can and can’t control,
I do not move for what seems like days.

Then we are saved, though barely, surviving by chance, sitting on the beach and boasting of our
bravery until nobody--not even ourselves--remembers being paralyzed by fear, buoyed by the
smell of salt in the air, the crashing of waves on the beach and the sight of whitecap-crowned
waves, my heart beating again in sync with the cadence of the sea.
 

Author's Bio

Dave Stern is new to the writing community after a career of many decades in medicine. His work is forthcoming or has appeared, respectively, inThe Writer's LaunchandThe Personal Story Publishing Project.