Storm
Getting stuck in a kayak during a storm
What I was doing out here to begin with was a mystery. My mother had begged me not to go. Told me it was going to storm. But as usual, I ignored all warnings from my mother. One more trip before I go, I had insisted. I want to see the clump of trees with all of my perfect shells lined up: one from the day Sadie was born, one from the day I graduated from 5th grade, another from the day grandpa died, and of course the most recent one memorializing the day I graduated from high school. I’d been accepted to Harvard, Yale, and was going to attend MIT. I was supposed to leave tomorrow, but now…
I forced myself to look again. The rock face was even nearer. White capped waves reminded me of how perilous the situation really was. Once, as a child, I had seen a boat that had crashed up on the rocks. It had broken into tiny pieces and there were no survivors. Razor sharp oysters guaranteed that any boat that hit the shore would never leave again. They also guaranteed that a person couldn’t get out of that boat and wak away.
If I could somehow convince my kayak to skip the rocks and go into the cove, I might be able to hit the dock and get out safely. I held on to that, and the blinking light of the lighthouse as my final hope. Seeing my treasures, and touching each one had brought some closure to this part of my life. I knew I would be back for summer vacation in another year when the warm waters had returned.
The storm had turned the waters icy cold, and my fingers and toes were numb with the pain. Holding my paddle became a chore, but hold it I did, and I paddled as hard as I could away from the rocks that loomed just to the right of me. I didn’t dare look again for fear of what I might see. I set my gaze strictly ahead when I suddenly heard that dreaded scratch. My body lurched forward in my seat and a wave came pushing me into a thousand tiny razors. The entire right side of my body was bleeding and the salt water stung like a million bees. Wave after wave crashed around me as I faced certain death by drowning on my left and certain death by being thrown against the rocks on the right. In the middle wasn’t a much better place to be since the threat of death when my plastic kayak broke was immediate. But it wasn’t certain, and so I sit crying to myself and praying against all odds.
What I was doing out here to begin with was a mystery. My mother had begged me not to go. Told me it was going to storm. But as usual, I ignored all warnings from my mother. One more trip before I go, I had insisted. I want to see the clump of trees with all of my perfect shells lined up: one from the day Sadie was born, one from the day I graduated from 5th grade, another from the day grandpa died, and of course the most recent one memorializing the day I graduated from high school. I’d been accepted to Harvard, Yale, and was going to attend MIT. I was supposed to leave tomorrow, but now…
I forced myself to look again. The rock face was even nearer. White capped waves reminded me of how perilous the situation really was. Once, as a child, I had seen a boat that had crashed up on the rocks. It had broken into tiny pieces and there were no survivors. Razor sharp oysters guaranteed that any boat that hit the shore would never leave again. They also guaranteed that a person couldn’t get out of that boat and wak away.
If I could somehow convince my kayak to skip the rocks and go into the cove, I might be able to hit the dock and get out safely. I held on to that, and the blinking light of the lighthouse as my final hope. Seeing my treasures, and touching each one had brought some closure to this part of my life. I knew I would be back for summer vacation in another year when the warm waters had returned.
The storm had turned the waters icy cold, and my fingers and toes were numb with the pain. Holding my paddle became a chore, but hold it I did, and I paddled as hard as I could away from the rocks that loomed just to the right of me. I didn’t dare look again for fear of what I might see. I set my gaze strictly ahead when I suddenly heard that dreaded scratch. My body lurched forward in my seat and a wave came pushing me into a thousand tiny razors. The entire right side of my body was bleeding and the salt water stung like a million bees. Wave after wave crashed around me as I faced certain death by drowning on my left and certain death by being thrown against the rocks on the right. In the middle wasn’t a much better place to be since the threat of death when my plastic kayak broke was immediate. But it wasn’t certain, and so I sit crying to myself and praying against all odds.