Sunday, October 10, 2010

A Sea Story

The sea was rough, and the tiny rowboat was being thrown up on the crest of each wave, and there was almost an elegance to the arc it defined. The clouds were a dark iron, and the thunder rolled almost continuously. The sky was an anvil against which anything could be tempered. Nearly lost in the expanse, the boat was flung forward on each wave, and rocked considerably, but never tipped to expel it's cargo.
     Huddled beneath the sides of the tiny craft, soaking wet, cold, and frightened, two sisters clung to one another, hoarse from weeping, shivering and sobbing. Neither knew how long the storm had been ravaging, it was all they had ever known. The seas were empty, void of any limit, but against a solid, charcoal black rock, jutting up from the waves. The rock stood in the path of the boat, and like an arrow, the tiny craft shot strait for it. The screams of the two sisters were barely audible as the boat splintered against the stone, but neither was hurt. One of the two had been flung directly atop the rock, and the other was clutching what she could of the rocks side, half of her body beneath the waves.She looked up, desperate for the other girl to save her, screaming above the waves and thunder. she went unheard. Her sister, perched atop the black stone, was terrified, feeling exposed, and overwhelmed. She narrowed her eyes to one horizon: Was that the way they'd come? she slowly turned her head, to peer in the opposite direction...did she spy land? She was deaf to her sisters cries as she reasoned through it. If that's land, best to try her luck with the sea...if not, would she just be heading back the way she came? No helping it, the current would take her where it would, and better to die in the water than here, alone on the rock. Inch by inch, she pulled her self closer to the edge of the rock, and slowly turned her body, to slip off feet first. As suddenly as her body was in the water, a wave threw her back against the rock. Pain coursed through her bones, as another impact followed. she managed to grab hold, and slowly, laboriously pulled her self around the rock, until the current grabbed her and she was lead away from it forever.
     While all of this was taking place, half in the water herself, the other sister was shivering and panicked. She soon began, hand over hand, with slips, and bruises, and falls, pulling herself up the side of the rock. As one girl made her way atop the black rock, her sister willfully floated away from it.
     When the girl finally made it out of the water, and had collapsed where her sister had landed, the thunder stopped, and the seas began to calm.

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