Anonymous Creativity

Consider this a place to submit your short creative writing anonymously. We will post your pieces and allow others to read, reply, reblog, or offer niceties or constructive criticism. The moderators will not give out the posting authors name or tumblr unless they request us to do so. Think of this as a big writer's workshop where you can test the waters to see what others think or just think of this anonymity as a set of training wheels for your short creative writing pieces that may not be ready for the world quite yet.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

I would follow you, but I literally can't read the font you use! wish you would change it so I could read

If you followed us you wouldn't have that problem because what font is used on the main page wouldn't effect your dashboard. We're in the process of shifting things around and making adjustments as is. Hopefully this complaint will be remedied before we re-launch mid-week.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Temporary Break

Hey Everyone. I am about to have an extremely busy few days so in the event I can't update while I'm out please don't fret. Keep submitting and we'll get those posted as soon as we get back on the usual schedule.

Thanks again for all the support and submissions. Have a great week.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Temporary Break

Hey Everyone. I am about to have an extremely busy few days so in the event I can't update while I'm out please don't fret. Keep submitting and we'll get those posted as soon as we get back on the usual schedule.

Thanks again for all the support and submissions. Have a great week.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 64 // "Too Dark To See" by truthabez

My leg limps as I walk

They do not want to proceed

My arms ache from hanging

They want to write to succeed

My eyes always ponder

They prefer to make you wonder

Away from soft and lonely sighs

My wrist slowly cries

 I watch myself slowly die

* submitted by truthabez 

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 63 // "Untitled" by desuntcetera

There is a morning with an icy note That frowns until all hands efface Again it’s hard to stay afloat Not sad? But still a somber place

And sun—conceived; born for us again to dissolve the binds that hold and plague and  rip and lust away the frost of The Frustrated Generation; too much! too much of the expectation and shaming, unwavering against the wavelike blossom

But still a letter at the door That knocks to bore its way inside For what? For why a chance at more Than ways to sit and wait and hide

For that cringing question;  melting and clawing through  a queasy stomach to the throat—  to the forefront and visions—or just the chance to ask: the prick and sting that steers to and from sense.

* submitted by desuntcetera

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 64 // "Too Dark To See" by truthabez

My leg limps as I walk

They do not want to proceed

My arms ache from hanging

They want to write to succeed

My eyes always ponder

They prefer to make you wonder

Away from soft and lonely sighs

My wrist slowly cries

 I watch myself slowly die

* submitted by truthabez 

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 62 // "Untitled" by Anonymous

Secretly tucked away in my little bruised box Contained by fear Wrapped in tears Bound by unspoken words Secretly suffocated by the burden of silence Dizzied by the labyrinth of contradiction Diluted by spite Weakened by time Whispering winds and suspicious shadows Treacherous storms and mysterious shades Vacuous language and overstepped boundaries Exposed the contents of my little bruised box Harvested by the seeds you planted Nourished by your reservoir of words Nurtured by your touch Destroyed by your vanity Cemented in shame Buried beneath guilt And trapped by insecurity- lies another little bruised box composed of regret.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 63 // "Untitled" by desuntcetera

There is a morning with an icy note That frowns until all hands efface Again it’s hard to stay afloat Not sad? But still a somber place

And sun—conceived; born for us again to dissolve the binds that hold and plague and  rip and lust away the frost of The Frustrated Generation; too much! too much of the expectation and shaming, unwavering against the wavelike blossom

But still a letter at the door That knocks to bore its way inside For what? For why a chance at more Than ways to sit and wait and hide

For that cringing question;  melting and clawing through  a queasy stomach to the throat—  to the forefront and visions—or just the chance to ask: the prick and sting that steers to and from sense.

* submitted by desuntcetera

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 61 // "slice of western pie" by blanchflower

shirtless stud in a tin can locomotive, tired drunk and content in spiritual wastful thoughts. i throw my hat against the dawn sun, shuddering and shaking and i making an old ten gallon shadow, knowing then and so happily there i was in the west. the desert uplifted by the dusty rims, machinery grunting out’a the tailpipe, coughing on occasion, golden planet, headlights dimming the road once fiery, the route abandoned for freedom and company and girls in high shorts. 

the ladies of the west were christian polite, doe eyed and freckled with long wavy hair, but with bodies and a laugh you couldn’t waste on a christian boy. They needed fun, they needed spirits, they needed spirit. they wanted a heart broken once so they could show it to their daughters and teach them a lesson whilst disguising a smile. they wanted to remember when they put on a hat that blurry little night when they’d worn nothing but mine. they wanted a furious father who’d come at them with the strap for being so late and high, and as they stumbled into the woods would catch on the vines and fall, never rising, relieving their mother who’d depart for the horizon, which short days later would blister an outline of lovers on a steed. 

the camaro brakes outside a bar, dirty red and dirty nonetheless, cloudy eyed eying us coy behind their supple hands, lashes fanning midnight hands round their hips.  

* submitted by blanchflower

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 61 // "slice of western pie" by blanchflower

shirtless stud in a tin can locomotive, tired drunk and content in spiritual wastful thoughts. i throw my hat against the dawn sun, shuddering and shaking and i making an old ten gallon shadow, knowing then and so happily there i was in the west. the desert uplifted by the dusty rims, machinery grunting out’a the tailpipe, coughing on occasion, golden planet, headlights dimming the road once fiery, the route abandoned for freedom and company and girls in high shorts. 

the ladies of the west were christian polite, doe eyed and freckled with long wavy hair, but with bodies and a laugh you couldn’t waste on a christian boy. They needed fun, they needed spirits, they needed spirit. they wanted a heart broken once so they could show it to their daughters and teach them a lesson whilst disguising a smile. they wanted to remember when they put on a hat that blurry little night when they’d worn nothing but mine. they wanted a furious father who’d come at them with the strap for being so late and high, and as they stumbled into the woods would catch on the vines and fall, never rising, relieving their mother who’d depart for the horizon, which short days later would blister an outline of lovers on a steed. 

the camaro brakes outside a bar, dirty red and dirty nonetheless, cloudy eyed eying us coy behind their supple hands, lashes fanning midnight hands round their hips.  

* submitted by blanchflower

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 62 // "Untitled" by Anonymous

Secretly tucked away in my little bruised box Contained by fear Wrapped in tears Bound by unspoken words Secretly suffocated by the burden of silence Dizzied by the labyrinth of contradiction Diluted by spite Weakened by time Whispering winds and suspicious shadows Treacherous storms and mysterious shades Vacuous language and overstepped boundaries Exposed the contents of my little bruised box Harvested by the seeds you planted Nourished by your reservoir of words Nurtured by your touch Destroyed by your vanity Cemented in shame Buried beneath guilt And trapped by insecurity- lies another little bruised box composed of regret.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 60 // "Persephone" by desuntcetera

There is always a song that fits—a blanket, it hands us— to disappear beneath.

But also, a a warm breath, rising up into a cloud—For us.  We make time to stare.

Sometimes melting, burning, freezing—opening  honeycomb pores until storybooks fall in and we’re  so full of everything that we stiffen and burst with it all.

Often though, glassy goosebumps, they raise—the ridges pull away, stretching, until we peel and shed  crinkly skins and shells—

More naked than before, and scared—enticed to the flowers left by coal horses.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 60 // "Persephone" by desuntcetera

There is always a song that fits—a blanket, it hands us— to disappear beneath.

But also, a a warm breath, rising up into a cloud—For us.  We make time to stare.

Sometimes melting, burning, freezing—opening  honeycomb pores until storybooks fall in and we’re  so full of everything that we stiffen and burst with it all.

Often though, glassy goosebumps, they raise—the ridges pull away, stretching, until we peel and shed  crinkly skins and shells—

More naked than before, and scared—enticed to the flowers left by coal horses.

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 59 // "Mariner" by Zack M. Evans

Mariner

Zack M. Evans

Every night I see my daughter. Though I see her each of these nights she has not aged a single day. A single moment. Three years and she looks the same. Exactly the same. People rarely do change in dreams. You see them how you left them. You see them at the exact moment you said goodbye; whether you knew what that moment would hold for the rest of your life. Being that this is the only moment I get to see each night I am immensely glad it is a beautiful one. Not only my daughter, but my wife and our home. I miss it all. I miss it from the bottom of my heart.

My Soul.

My entirety.

            I came to the sea in search for so many things. I came to draw my own treasure map and find its reward out on the waves; I came searching for a way out of where I was, not just physically, but in my overall life and in my mind. I came to find answers about myself. I needed to find out exactly what I was made of. I had to stare the unknown in the face and know that I did not blink or turn my head in order to protect my soul from whatever stared back from this vast and wondrous and terrifying space beyond what I have seen and felt on this earth. Most people are immensely frightened by such a proposition of seeing something so terrifying to the normal human psyche; as they should be. As am I. However, I live for this fear, this sense of dread; I cannot completely explain why I feel this way about such a contradictory event but it is part of who I am to the very core. Even as I list my plentiful motivations for my pilgrimage to the vast waves they do not seem to even come close to justifying the events that lead to me only seeing my daughter in my dreams. There is so much more to why I left than those reasons than I even dare to say out loud.

Above all these reasons,

I did it for her.

I did it for them.

            I may only see my daughter at night. In my dreams. I see my wife, however, during the day. I see her eyes in the ocean. I wish I could see her every day in the way I see my daughter every time I sleep and dream; however, I only get to see her when the waves are blue. Most days in the sea where I am, the skies are a silvery gray that makes the water reflect a murky and dark color. The rare moments when the sun comes out and the sky shines blue, I have the chance to look into her eyes again. I have so many precious and dear memories looking into that blue and feeling that there is absolutely nothing in this reality that I am more sure of.

Than those eyes.

I wish that during these few moments I get to spend with her I had more opportunity to enjoy it. These rare moments of clear and beautiful seas are when I have the most work to do. The stormy waters I normally inhabit cause immense damage to my boat. The deck gets worn down and torn away; the mount I use to drop and buoy my nets would get worn down sometimes even need totally replaced. I wish to spend this time staring into her eyes and hoping and pretending her soul stares back but I know it does not. It is only water. The most abundant resource on our earth. I cannot do this though. My boat is the only thing that stands between me and this torrential force. I must repair her. I start with the deck, taking fresh boards and replacing the worn ones after I remove them by laboriously prying out the nails holding them to the subdeck. It usually takes me about two full sunny days to get this done on the entire boat. Considering how long it can be between days like this, as well as the numerous other projects which must be finished, it can take me months to finish this; just in time for the parts I did first to need it again.

A constant and endless process.

            I avoid going to shore.

            I just really feel that the sea is the place for me in this world. However, the very reason I inhabit the ocean requires me to go back to land. There is no point in being a fisherman if you never take a chance to sell and make money off of what you have caught. When I go to land, I do what I can to quickly get back to the sea. It’s not that I don’t enjoy some of the amenities land can provide, it is completely that land is far too stationary for my taste. I like to feel movement underneath me. It is a reminder that we are not stationary beings. We are constantly changing direction and speed and in goal. Not that we should never have a constant goal or destination in mind, but our route should never have to be constant. If you learn that our route to work has a road closure, it would make no sense to take that same route if there is a similar path that would be quicker and keep you from arriving late.

We must change.

We must adapt to our times.

            This is how I feel about being on land. While it is completely possible to live such a life, landlocked. I would never claim that my way of life is the only way that works or is even the correct way to live. I am simply stating that it is how I must live. I must be in constant motion or else I begin to feel so many things from my life before that I cannot take time to feel.

            I used to be one of these stationary people.

            I used to have a day job. I used to have routines and rituals when I woke up each day. These were my methods of self preservation. I would do what I could to keep myself looking as I had each day prior. I felt this immense and insatiable need to keep up appearances.

It was the same with my family; we did whatever we possibly could to be the perfect small American family. This was the beginning for my journey to the sea in reality; this constant search for a completely unattainable perfection. Even at the best moments in our life together, we could never compare this image we had in our minds of how we should look to the outside world.

Imagine how this pressure was during the times that weren’t quite as stellar. Especially starting the day where I showed up at my desk at work to find a small envelope. Inside of this envelope was one of the most difficult things a young, lower middle class father of a newborn could ever read:

“Your services with this company are no longer needed. While we appreciate your dedication to being an effective and dedicated worker, these are simply troubling times that are forcing us to make some hard decisions about personnel and payroll. We would ask that at the end of this week you clean out your desk and turn in your security badge. We will provide you with one month of severance pay as per the employment contract specified for individuals in your particular pay grade. We wish you the best of luck future endeavors.

                                                            Amy McGoyne

                                                            Human Resources

I did my absolute best to deal with this news considering the difficulties it would soon present my family with if I could not find a new job as quickly as the previous one had been taken from me. Like a fish you have on your line but you simply lose. You think you have it for sure until your line goes slack and it is simply gone. I did my absolute best to find a job but it wasn’t exactly a great time to be on the job hunt, especially considering my youth and comparative inexperience against large portions of the unemployed and looking for work population at that point. It is difficult for me to explain the mounting feeling of dread that pours in each day as you realize you are one day closer to that day when you run out of severance pay.

            This grew more and more difficult each day. My wife was supportive of me the whole time; something that made the fact that I was continuously letting her and my daughter down an even tougher fact to accept. I needed to support them. I needed them to live the life they deserved to live. One with all the comfort and ease that could ever be possible in this world.

            They supported me when there was no reason to. They stood next to me when the checks stopped coming and they even stood by me when I came back from the unemployment office. They stood next to me at every damn turn and I continuously failed them.

            I could no longer let them stand next to me while I continue to fail to provide what they absolutely need.

Comfort.

            This is why I left for the ocean. I had worked during the summers of college for a fishing company owned by family friends up in a small town in British Columbia. Since it took me seven years to graduate college, I had racked up a quite extensive knowledge of the trade and was even in charge of one of their boats my last summer up there. I knew that I would have a job if I went there and the money would be enough to support my wife and daughter until the economy became more favorable.

            My wife disagreed with my decision to do this, but she wasn’t going to stop me and she knew it. We couldn’t afford to move them with me and I couldn’t afford the pain I knew it would cause my wife to leave her family. This truly only left the option I ended up choosing. I gathered the essentials I would need and kissed my wife and my sleeping daughter goodbye.

            I quickly got back in contact with the family friends who still owned the fishing company. They told me they could have a job working on a boat as a deckhand to get my sea legs back under me and that if I picked it back up quickly, I would have my own boat quite quickly. It was tougher than I remember at first, which I would jokingly say was because of my old age. I started to suspect that my jokes were slightly more true than I wanted to believe. Most of the men working on the boats reminded me of myself when I originally worked here. Young college students trying to make a quick buck and other young men simply looking for adventure.

            I worked as hard as I possibly could to make up for the extra difficulty in picking it back up. This was most definitely effective and it was not long at all before I was back up to speed and even outworking the younger shipmates.

I needed to outwork them.

What I was working for was far too important not to.

            It wasn’t long before this work paid off and I was back in charge of a boat. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same boat I had been in charge of years prior. That boat had tragically sunk the week after its next captain took control over it. This never would have happened with me in control. I loved that boat too much to ever let anything as serious as it sinking happen to it.

            Business was good in the early days of doing this. Fish were plentiful, weather was mostly favorable and I had a hard working crew. We would bring in good hauls every time we went to port. Out of each haul I got a significant percentage of the money earned as the captain of the boat.

            I lived as meagerly as possible. I needed to send the majority of the money I earned away to support my family. I had a small shack of an apartment I rented at first until I was put in charge of the ship. At that point, I moved all of my stuff into the captain’s quarters on the boat. This was a place with free rent, making it more possible to send a larger percent of my pay to my family.

            There is no cell phone reception in this small town. It is surrounded by tall mountains and is only accessible through a small, winding road through a small gap that is the end of a valley on the other side of the range. Because of this, the only way to get in contact with the outside world was through landlines, which there were very few of and was impossible to have on the boat, or through mail, which took quite some time because of the seclusion of the town.

            I wrote with my wife as much as I could and she would write me back. I would go to the post office each time I came to port and check my P.O. Box for letters from her. Each time I did receive one of these; it would simultaneously brighten my spirits and make me realize how much I dearly missed her and my daughter.

            It was about the time that I really started missing them that the sea changed. Everyone from town knew something was changing when we woke up the morning it all started. The sun was missing in the sky; hidden behind a thick layer of clouds, the likes of which no inhabitant of the town could remember ever seeing.

            It was not only heavier than normal, but lasted in a completely different way than any storm of the past. Quickly it became more than just an overcast sky, but torrential rain and wind as well. This intense weather quickly put an end to our ability to take the boats out to catch fish.

            Not being able to do this meant that quickly the fishing business began to lose money. At first we all figured it would not be long before the weather would break and we would be able to go back out on the sea again.

This was incorrect, however.

It simply did not go away.

            It was a surprisingly short amount of time before the company was forced to shut down. Without catching fish, there was no way to make any money and the owners of the business had made enough to retire comfortably. They sold away all the parts of the company including the boats.

Except for one.

            They knew I needed to make the money to support my family and knew I had no way of doing this without the boat. They offered me the boat I had been captaining as a gift for all my service to the company. With this, I could go catch my own fish and sell them so I could continue to support the girls.

            The weather began to break slightly after a couple weeks. It was not back to the clear, easily sailable seas of before, but it never would get back to that on any kind of permanent basis. I took this chance to get back out on the waves. I would have to completely change how I would conduct my fishing now that I would be out there alone. I decided that I would not hire even one deckhand to help me. I knew that I could pull in at least close to the same numbers that we were with a fully crewed boat if I just changed my tactics and worked myself to the wire.

I needed to do this.

I needed them to know I could support them.

I needed them to know how much I love them.

            Every day out on the waves it seemed like the storm was a challenge to me. It would mirror my thoughts. My feelings. My state of being. A darkness would grow inside me and seep out of heart and fill the sky with a impending shadow of storm. I missed them so much. I still do. Every single moment of my life is filled with a sorrow that is impossible to even bear. I don’t know how to keep going without them here except to overwhelm everything else in my life with my work. With the routine that filled each moment on the boat.

It is the routine that keeps you alive.

            Without it you fall victim to the endless possibilities that the sea presents you with. You let things slide by your attention. It starts with small repairs that you let go. There are some things that come up; things that don’t need to get done for some time still, so you let them go for now. Those small things get worse and worse as you continue to let them slide.

I only made this mistake once.

            It was about a month after I brought the boat out on the water alone for the first time. The weather began to escalate yet again; moving back to the conditions that had originally stranded us all on land. I refused to let this weather force me away from what I needed to do. I would stay out here on the waves this time.

            I will do whatever it takes to provide for them. I know that I can navigate the seas in this weather by myself. I wouldn’t take the boat out with the men that used to serve as my crew because I could not be sure that they could survive in those conditions.

I can survive.

I will survive. I will provide for them.

            I thought all this, but I truly did was not as prepared as I thought. I had the physical skills to survive in the conditions presented to me; mentally, however, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

            I did not let myself find time to keep up on maintaining my boat. I was too concentrated on what I needed to do to bring in money and neglected what I needed to do to keep my boat in condition to make that money for very long.

            I was about as far as I ever ventured off shore. The storm was worsening but I needed to bring in my nets so that I could bring in a full load when I went to port next. I could not afford to use two trips to bring in my nets; also, the prospect of losing these nets or risking any of the fish dying in them while I was at port.

I worked furiously to beat the storm.

            Rain had started to come in torrential sheets that stung the exposed skin on my face and even my body through my heavy water proof clothing. It came down in the way that a car wash sprays water. It hurt, but I knew if I could withstand this, there was no reason I couldn’t beat this storm and bring in a full ship of fish to port for trade.

            While I did this work I had to look down constantly in order to keep the small bullets of rain from hitting my face. I was able to concentrate heavily on my work that was right in front of me but this left me exposed to the occasional wave crash that would reach over from the side of the boat and knock me off balance. Because of this, I tied a line to the middle of the deck and attached the other end to myself. This way, no matter how hard the wave hit, I would not go overboard. This slowed my work somewhat because I had to make sure to maneuver around this large rope attached to me but it was a tradeoff that I was willing to accept.

If I die, then I can’t provide for them.

            The storm continued to worsen by the hour. I was working as hard as possible to retrieve all my lines on the way back to shore quickly. I made the best time I could with each line I came to in my string, hauling it in as well as, if I was lucky, any fish attached to it and throwing them through the hatch in the deck to the storage below deck.

            I brought in one of the lines with a large catch on it. It took the majority of my strength to lift it into the boat, even with the assistance of the crane my ship was equipped with. Once I got it up on the deck, I had to lift it across the deck to the hatch and drop it in. As I went to do this, a large swell in the ocean came upon the boat, throwing me off balance. This threw me off to the side of the boat, clinging onto the side guardrail of the boat. I may have been attached to the boat with the rope tied to my waist, but if I let go there was a good chance I would still drown or hit my head and lose consciousness.

            I clang to the side of that boat for god knows how long. The ocean continued to beat me into submission while I held on. At a moment of break from this barrage from the water I managed to pull myself up onto the side of the deck, still clinging to the guardrail.

I see my daughter.

            I must have passed out from the exhaustion because next thing I knew I awoke with the sun high in the sky, still clinging to the ship for safety. The skin on my face was badly cracked and bleeding from sun as well as the previous beating it had taken against the side of the ship. I could barely move, still exhausted from all these events that had just happened.

            From the moment I surveyed my ship I knew that I was now in the midst of a frightening situation.

            My boat was not moving whatsoever. I was sitting stationary in the water, waves slowly raising and dropping my ship a few inches; something so miniscule that any man with sea legs would hardly notice. All of my gear on the deck was destroyed, terribly damaged or simply missing altogether. I could only hope that no major damage was done to any of the propulsion systems of the ship. If I could make it back to land then I could easily cash in the fish I had managed to store in the ship already and make the necessary repairs to the boat.

            As soon as I gathered the strength to get myself on my feet and check on the status of the boat, however, it quickly became clear that this was not the case.

            I held my breath as I walked to the stern of the ship. I looked over the side to where the propeller and rudder stuck out from the boat. Looking at these, I simultaneously released this breath and felt my stomach drop. I could see and hear immediately that something was very wrong. A loud clicking and scraping sound was coming from the shaft attached to the propeller. My engine had not stopped, but instead was simply not turning the propeller to move my boat forward. Looking closely at the driveshaft, the problem quickly becomes clear.

            A large crack ran deep through the shaft immediately outside of where it emerged from the hull of the ship. This crack caused the shaft to get stuck and not turn anymore. Without this driveshaft turning, there was nothing to propel the boat anymore. I had noticed that the driveshaft had started to become increasingly worn after each trip to sea but I had neglected to do anything about it. A very harsh realization hit me at this moment.

This was my fault.

I could have prevented this.

            I was stranded out here, far from land unless I could get the shaft repaired enough to limp back to shore. A further example of my neglect and oversight was the fact that I had not reinstalled my emergency radio after I had removed it for repairs during my most recent trip to shore. I was alone out there.

            I immediately knew I had to fix this driveshaft in order to make it back to land. Otherwise, I would simply have to wait until either another ship spotted me and came to my rescue, or I died out here alone. The latter was not an option under any possible circumstances; so I set immediately to work on fixing the damage to the ship.

            It took me a couple days, harnessed to the side of the ship, swinging down and dipping into the stinging salt water, to make the necessary repairs to start on my way back to shore. The cuts all over my body from the ordeal during the storm quickly became infected and sent terrifyingly painful feelings from the exterior of my body towards my spine and up to the base of my neck.

            After the repairs were made I limped my boat back to shore and finished the repairs I needed to make on the rest of the ship. It was at this point that I made the decision to become so devotedly routine in the maintenance of the ship.

I could not let this situation happen ever again.

            Because of the cuts on my face I could no longer shave. My hair had grown long under the hat that I wore every day and now my beard had grown to match this messy and unkempt nature. I took any effort that I would have used in my previous life in suburbia towards taking care of myself and put it entirely into taking care of my boat.

            This devotion to the care of my boat took over my life. If I poured out my soul into this, it was much easier to forget the pain I felt whenever I saw my daughter or my wife.

            A new storm began; this one feeling remarkably similar to the one that had previously stranded me in the ocean and created what I am now. This time I knew I could not afford to spend the time ashore but I must be infinitely more careful and painstaking in the care of my ship if I would survive the onslaught nature was about to unleash on the sea.

I slept one last time.

            I needed to be fully rested and prepared for what I was about to experience. I also wanted to see my daughter one last time before I went out. She is so beautiful. Usually when I see her, she seems far away; impossible to reach. No matter how I strive for her, she moves away from me at the same rate.

Impossible to catch.

            This time, however, I walk toward her and she stays where she is. This is a dreamscape, not a reality and I’m not sure exactly where I am nor does it matter to me as long as she’s here. As I get closer to her I see we are near water. I see her and I see the blue waves behind her.

My wife’s eyes.            

            I’ve never seen them in a dream before. There’s never been this opportunity for me to see both of my girls together. I would see my daughter in dreams and my wife on the waves. I draw my daughter close, feeling her against me for the first time in three years. I know this is not real, but my brain was experiencing it as it would in reality. I didn’t want to let go of my daughter; I feared if I did I would never feel this again.

            I stared into the water, feeling the depth and love I used to see in my wife’s eyes again. When I saw them in the waves I never felt this. I felt memories and regret of leaving those eyes behind. I felt how much I missed and loved her, but never felt the love returned.

Until now.

In this dream.

            I began to hear something. It sounded like it was coming from the back of my mind; not behind me, but inside myself. It was an experience that was different than anything I had experienced in my physical life; something only possible through the bending of reality possible through the warped perception of dreams. It was a sound similar to thunder, with a loud abruptness that shook everything around it. There was a certain familiar nature of the noise, different than thunder, however. There was softness to it.

            It grew louder. The noise started in the back of my mind but was quickly pushed to the forefront; engulfing my entire consciousness. I tried to attend to what this sound was that filled my entire being. I strained my ears and closed my eyes. I needed to know what this sound was; and then I heard it. My wife’s voice.

                                                            “John.”

            I wake up. I always knew this was a dream, but it was still heartbreaking that I woke from it. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost dawn. It was time to get out on my boat before the storm worsened.

I set out upon the sea.

            This storm was different than the one before. It was more dangerous. The seas were even rougher than both the storm that had forced us to be land bound as well as the one that had stranded me in the water. Water frequently swelled higher than the deck of my boat and crashed down upon me. I tied myself to the deck again to keep from going overboard. This was my only hope to survive this.

            Thunder and lightning began to strike over the water. The rain began to fall even harder, pelting my face and beating me down. I remained singly focused on doing the task in front of me; making whatever the next step was to bring in my gear and haul in fish so that I could get back to land and out of this storm quickly. Whenever lightning struck and there was a thunder crash, however, it stalled me. I felt something familiar in this interruption.

            Stalling like this was a mistake. While I was distracted by the thunder, a wave crashed over the deck too quickly for me to brace myself for this impact. The wave knocked me off my feet and slammed me against the outside wall of the cabin. I found myself with my back against this wall, dazed from the blow. I reached up and felt my head where it had hit this wall.

            My hand was covered red with my blood and I quickly felt my life draining from me. My body started to go limp leaning against this wall and the world started to fade around me. It reminded me of my dream the night before; I could see the world around me, but the details were fuzzy. Soon all I could focus on was the light and sound from the lightning and thunder that engulfed my world and was the cause of me being in this position.

            About to die.

            The sound grew louder and felt like it was filling my mind; just like the sound in my dreams. Soon it was the only thing that existed for me. This sound that filled my being was now all I knew. A repeating crash that soon began to change. It became more familiar; until I recognized it.

                                                            “John.”

            I wake up. I look up and see the ceiling of my room on shore. Everything seems fuzzy and my eyes are sensitive to the light pouring in through the window; like they haven’t been used in some time.

                                                            “John.”

            I look up and see her. My wife is sitting in a chair next to my bed. She looks into my eyes and I into hers and I know this is real. She is actually next to me and I am awake; for the first time in a very long time. I have no idea how I got here from my boat out in the water and I need to ask her.

            “How did I get off my boat and into my bed?”

            “John, you haven’t left your room in over a month. After you got grounded by the storm and your old boss was going to sell the business, you went in here and haven’t left since,” she tells me. “Your old boss called me and said I need to come up here because he had family issues that were forcing him to leave, he couldn’t take care of you anymore; so we came up here to take over for him. I haven’t left your side for the last week. I’ve been saying your name trying to wake you up.”

            That’s when I saw my daughter lying asleep on a small cot at my wife’s feet. She is so beautiful. She has started to grow up since I saw her last.

            “I’m so sorry I left you two, I just needed to make sure you were provided for and I felt ashamed that I couldn’t do it.”

            “I know. All that matters is that we’re together; and we are now. I love you John.”

“I love you too.”

            I look outside and see the ocean; it’s blue, but could never rival my wife’s eyes. And now, for the first time in three years I see the ocean for what it is.

The ocean.

Nothing else.

* submitted by zacktainamerica

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 59 // "Mariner" by Zack M. Evans

Mariner

Zack M. Evans

Every night I see my daughter. Though I see her each of these nights she has not aged a single day. A single moment. Three years and she looks the same. Exactly the same. People rarely do change in dreams. You see them how you left them. You see them at the exact moment you said goodbye; whether you knew what that moment would hold for the rest of your life. Being that this is the only moment I get to see each night I am immensely glad it is a beautiful one. Not only my daughter, but my wife and our home. I miss it all. I miss it from the bottom of my heart.

My Soul.

My entirety.

            I came to the sea in search for so many things. I came to draw my own treasure map and find its reward out on the waves; I came searching for a way out of where I was, not just physically, but in my overall life and in my mind. I came to find answers about myself. I needed to find out exactly what I was made of. I had to stare the unknown in the face and know that I did not blink or turn my head in order to protect my soul from whatever stared back from this vast and wondrous and terrifying space beyond what I have seen and felt on this earth. Most people are immensely frightened by such a proposition of seeing something so terrifying to the normal human psyche; as they should be. As am I. However, I live for this fear, this sense of dread; I cannot completely explain why I feel this way about such a contradictory event but it is part of who I am to the very core. Even as I list my plentiful motivations for my pilgrimage to the vast waves they do not seem to even come close to justifying the events that lead to me only seeing my daughter in my dreams. There is so much more to why I left than those reasons than I even dare to say out loud.

Above all these reasons,

I did it for her.

I did it for them.

            I may only see my daughter at night. In my dreams. I see my wife, however, during the day. I see her eyes in the ocean. I wish I could see her every day in the way I see my daughter every time I sleep and dream; however, I only get to see her when the waves are blue. Most days in the sea where I am, the skies are a silvery gray that makes the water reflect a murky and dark color. The rare moments when the sun comes out and the sky shines blue, I have the chance to look into her eyes again. I have so many precious and dear memories looking into that blue and feeling that there is absolutely nothing in this reality that I am more sure of.

Than those eyes.

I wish that during these few moments I get to spend with her I had more opportunity to enjoy it. These rare moments of clear and beautiful seas are when I have the most work to do. The stormy waters I normally inhabit cause immense damage to my boat. The deck gets worn down and torn away; the mount I use to drop and buoy my nets would get worn down sometimes even need totally replaced. I wish to spend this time staring into her eyes and hoping and pretending her soul stares back but I know it does not. It is only water. The most abundant resource on our earth. I cannot do this though. My boat is the only thing that stands between me and this torrential force. I must repair her. I start with the deck, taking fresh boards and replacing the worn ones after I remove them by laboriously prying out the nails holding them to the subdeck. It usually takes me about two full sunny days to get this done on the entire boat. Considering how long it can be between days like this, as well as the numerous other projects which must be finished, it can take me months to finish this; just in time for the parts I did first to need it again.

A constant and endless process.

            I avoid going to shore.

            I just really feel that the sea is the place for me in this world. However, the very reason I inhabit the ocean requires me to go back to land. There is no point in being a fisherman if you never take a chance to sell and make money off of what you have caught. When I go to land, I do what I can to quickly get back to the sea. It’s not that I don’t enjoy some of the amenities land can provide, it is completely that land is far too stationary for my taste. I like to feel movement underneath me. It is a reminder that we are not stationary beings. We are constantly changing direction and speed and in goal. Not that we should never have a constant goal or destination in mind, but our route should never have to be constant. If you learn that our route to work has a road closure, it would make no sense to take that same route if there is a similar path that would be quicker and keep you from arriving late.

We must change.

We must adapt to our times.

            This is how I feel about being on land. While it is completely possible to live such a life, landlocked. I would never claim that my way of life is the only way that works or is even the correct way to live. I am simply stating that it is how I must live. I must be in constant motion or else I begin to feel so many things from my life before that I cannot take time to feel.

            I used to be one of these stationary people.

            I used to have a day job. I used to have routines and rituals when I woke up each day. These were my methods of self preservation. I would do what I could to keep myself looking as I had each day prior. I felt this immense and insatiable need to keep up appearances.

It was the same with my family; we did whatever we possibly could to be the perfect small American family. This was the beginning for my journey to the sea in reality; this constant search for a completely unattainable perfection. Even at the best moments in our life together, we could never compare this image we had in our minds of how we should look to the outside world.

Imagine how this pressure was during the times that weren’t quite as stellar. Especially starting the day where I showed up at my desk at work to find a small envelope. Inside of this envelope was one of the most difficult things a young, lower middle class father of a newborn could ever read:

“Your services with this company are no longer needed. While we appreciate your dedication to being an effective and dedicated worker, these are simply troubling times that are forcing us to make some hard decisions about personnel and payroll. We would ask that at the end of this week you clean out your desk and turn in your security badge. We will provide you with one month of severance pay as per the employment contract specified for individuals in your particular pay grade. We wish you the best of luck future endeavors.

                                                            Amy McGoyne

                                                            Human Resources

I did my absolute best to deal with this news considering the difficulties it would soon present my family with if I could not find a new job as quickly as the previous one had been taken from me. Like a fish you have on your line but you simply lose. You think you have it for sure until your line goes slack and it is simply gone. I did my absolute best to find a job but it wasn’t exactly a great time to be on the job hunt, especially considering my youth and comparative inexperience against large portions of the unemployed and looking for work population at that point. It is difficult for me to explain the mounting feeling of dread that pours in each day as you realize you are one day closer to that day when you run out of severance pay.

            This grew more and more difficult each day. My wife was supportive of me the whole time; something that made the fact that I was continuously letting her and my daughter down an even tougher fact to accept. I needed to support them. I needed them to live the life they deserved to live. One with all the comfort and ease that could ever be possible in this world.

            They supported me when there was no reason to. They stood next to me when the checks stopped coming and they even stood by me when I came back from the unemployment office. They stood next to me at every damn turn and I continuously failed them.

            I could no longer let them stand next to me while I continue to fail to provide what they absolutely need.

Comfort.

            This is why I left for the ocean. I had worked during the summers of college for a fishing company owned by family friends up in a small town in British Columbia. Since it took me seven years to graduate college, I had racked up a quite extensive knowledge of the trade and was even in charge of one of their boats my last summer up there. I knew that I would have a job if I went there and the money would be enough to support my wife and daughter until the economy became more favorable.

            My wife disagreed with my decision to do this, but she wasn’t going to stop me and she knew it. We couldn’t afford to move them with me and I couldn’t afford the pain I knew it would cause my wife to leave her family. This truly only left the option I ended up choosing. I gathered the essentials I would need and kissed my wife and my sleeping daughter goodbye.

            I quickly got back in contact with the family friends who still owned the fishing company. They told me they could have a job working on a boat as a deckhand to get my sea legs back under me and that if I picked it back up quickly, I would have my own boat quite quickly. It was tougher than I remember at first, which I would jokingly say was because of my old age. I started to suspect that my jokes were slightly more true than I wanted to believe. Most of the men working on the boats reminded me of myself when I originally worked here. Young college students trying to make a quick buck and other young men simply looking for adventure.

            I worked as hard as I possibly could to make up for the extra difficulty in picking it back up. This was most definitely effective and it was not long at all before I was back up to speed and even outworking the younger shipmates.

I needed to outwork them.

What I was working for was far too important not to.

            It wasn’t long before this work paid off and I was back in charge of a boat. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same boat I had been in charge of years prior. That boat had tragically sunk the week after its next captain took control over it. This never would have happened with me in control. I loved that boat too much to ever let anything as serious as it sinking happen to it.

            Business was good in the early days of doing this. Fish were plentiful, weather was mostly favorable and I had a hard working crew. We would bring in good hauls every time we went to port. Out of each haul I got a significant percentage of the money earned as the captain of the boat.

            I lived as meagerly as possible. I needed to send the majority of the money I earned away to support my family. I had a small shack of an apartment I rented at first until I was put in charge of the ship. At that point, I moved all of my stuff into the captain’s quarters on the boat. This was a place with free rent, making it more possible to send a larger percent of my pay to my family.

            There is no cell phone reception in this small town. It is surrounded by tall mountains and is only accessible through a small, winding road through a small gap that is the end of a valley on the other side of the range. Because of this, the only way to get in contact with the outside world was through landlines, which there were very few of and was impossible to have on the boat, or through mail, which took quite some time because of the seclusion of the town.

            I wrote with my wife as much as I could and she would write me back. I would go to the post office each time I came to port and check my P.O. Box for letters from her. Each time I did receive one of these; it would simultaneously brighten my spirits and make me realize how much I dearly missed her and my daughter.

            It was about the time that I really started missing them that the sea changed. Everyone from town knew something was changing when we woke up the morning it all started. The sun was missing in the sky; hidden behind a thick layer of clouds, the likes of which no inhabitant of the town could remember ever seeing.

            It was not only heavier than normal, but lasted in a completely different way than any storm of the past. Quickly it became more than just an overcast sky, but torrential rain and wind as well. This intense weather quickly put an end to our ability to take the boats out to catch fish.

            Not being able to do this meant that quickly the fishing business began to lose money. At first we all figured it would not be long before the weather would break and we would be able to go back out on the sea again.

This was incorrect, however.

It simply did not go away.

            It was a surprisingly short amount of time before the company was forced to shut down. Without catching fish, there was no way to make any money and the owners of the business had made enough to retire comfortably. They sold away all the parts of the company including the boats.

Except for one.

            They knew I needed to make the money to support my family and knew I had no way of doing this without the boat. They offered me the boat I had been captaining as a gift for all my service to the company. With this, I could go catch my own fish and sell them so I could continue to support the girls.

            The weather began to break slightly after a couple weeks. It was not back to the clear, easily sailable seas of before, but it never would get back to that on any kind of permanent basis. I took this chance to get back out on the waves. I would have to completely change how I would conduct my fishing now that I would be out there alone. I decided that I would not hire even one deckhand to help me. I knew that I could pull in at least close to the same numbers that we were with a fully crewed boat if I just changed my tactics and worked myself to the wire.

I needed to do this.

I needed them to know I could support them.

I needed them to know how much I love them.

            Every day out on the waves it seemed like the storm was a challenge to me. It would mirror my thoughts. My feelings. My state of being. A darkness would grow inside me and seep out of heart and fill the sky with a impending shadow of storm. I missed them so much. I still do. Every single moment of my life is filled with a sorrow that is impossible to even bear. I don’t know how to keep going without them here except to overwhelm everything else in my life with my work. With the routine that filled each moment on the boat.

It is the routine that keeps you alive.

            Without it you fall victim to the endless possibilities that the sea presents you with. You let things slide by your attention. It starts with small repairs that you let go. There are some things that come up; things that don’t need to get done for some time still, so you let them go for now. Those small things get worse and worse as you continue to let them slide.

I only made this mistake once.

            It was about a month after I brought the boat out on the water alone for the first time. The weather began to escalate yet again; moving back to the conditions that had originally stranded us all on land. I refused to let this weather force me away from what I needed to do. I would stay out here on the waves this time.

            I will do whatever it takes to provide for them. I know that I can navigate the seas in this weather by myself. I wouldn’t take the boat out with the men that used to serve as my crew because I could not be sure that they could survive in those conditions.

I can survive.

I will survive. I will provide for them.

            I thought all this, but I truly did was not as prepared as I thought. I had the physical skills to survive in the conditions presented to me; mentally, however, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

            I did not let myself find time to keep up on maintaining my boat. I was too concentrated on what I needed to do to bring in money and neglected what I needed to do to keep my boat in condition to make that money for very long.

            I was about as far as I ever ventured off shore. The storm was worsening but I needed to bring in my nets so that I could bring in a full load when I went to port next. I could not afford to use two trips to bring in my nets; also, the prospect of losing these nets or risking any of the fish dying in them while I was at port.

I worked furiously to beat the storm.

            Rain had started to come in torrential sheets that stung the exposed skin on my face and even my body through my heavy water proof clothing. It came down in the way that a car wash sprays water. It hurt, but I knew if I could withstand this, there was no reason I couldn’t beat this storm and bring in a full ship of fish to port for trade.

            While I did this work I had to look down constantly in order to keep the small bullets of rain from hitting my face. I was able to concentrate heavily on my work that was right in front of me but this left me exposed to the occasional wave crash that would reach over from the side of the boat and knock me off balance. Because of this, I tied a line to the middle of the deck and attached the other end to myself. This way, no matter how hard the wave hit, I would not go overboard. This slowed my work somewhat because I had to make sure to maneuver around this large rope attached to me but it was a tradeoff that I was willing to accept.

If I die, then I can’t provide for them.

            The storm continued to worsen by the hour. I was working as hard as possible to retrieve all my lines on the way back to shore quickly. I made the best time I could with each line I came to in my string, hauling it in as well as, if I was lucky, any fish attached to it and throwing them through the hatch in the deck to the storage below deck.

            I brought in one of the lines with a large catch on it. It took the majority of my strength to lift it into the boat, even with the assistance of the crane my ship was equipped with. Once I got it up on the deck, I had to lift it across the deck to the hatch and drop it in. As I went to do this, a large swell in the ocean came upon the boat, throwing me off balance. This threw me off to the side of the boat, clinging onto the side guardrail of the boat. I may have been attached to the boat with the rope tied to my waist, but if I let go there was a good chance I would still drown or hit my head and lose consciousness.

            I clang to the side of that boat for god knows how long. The ocean continued to beat me into submission while I held on. At a moment of break from this barrage from the water I managed to pull myself up onto the side of the deck, still clinging to the guardrail.

I see my daughter.

            I must have passed out from the exhaustion because next thing I knew I awoke with the sun high in the sky, still clinging to the ship for safety. The skin on my face was badly cracked and bleeding from sun as well as the previous beating it had taken against the side of the ship. I could barely move, still exhausted from all these events that had just happened.

            From the moment I surveyed my ship I knew that I was now in the midst of a frightening situation.

            My boat was not moving whatsoever. I was sitting stationary in the water, waves slowly raising and dropping my ship a few inches; something so miniscule that any man with sea legs would hardly notice. All of my gear on the deck was destroyed, terribly damaged or simply missing altogether. I could only hope that no major damage was done to any of the propulsion systems of the ship. If I could make it back to land then I could easily cash in the fish I had managed to store in the ship already and make the necessary repairs to the boat.

            As soon as I gathered the strength to get myself on my feet and check on the status of the boat, however, it quickly became clear that this was not the case.

            I held my breath as I walked to the stern of the ship. I looked over the side to where the propeller and rudder stuck out from the boat. Looking at these, I simultaneously released this breath and felt my stomach drop. I could see and hear immediately that something was very wrong. A loud clicking and scraping sound was coming from the shaft attached to the propeller. My engine had not stopped, but instead was simply not turning the propeller to move my boat forward. Looking closely at the driveshaft, the problem quickly becomes clear.

            A large crack ran deep through the shaft immediately outside of where it emerged from the hull of the ship. This crack caused the shaft to get stuck and not turn anymore. Without this driveshaft turning, there was nothing to propel the boat anymore. I had noticed that the driveshaft had started to become increasingly worn after each trip to sea but I had neglected to do anything about it. A very harsh realization hit me at this moment.

This was my fault.

I could have prevented this.

            I was stranded out here, far from land unless I could get the shaft repaired enough to limp back to shore. A further example of my neglect and oversight was the fact that I had not reinstalled my emergency radio after I had removed it for repairs during my most recent trip to shore. I was alone out there.

            I immediately knew I had to fix this driveshaft in order to make it back to land. Otherwise, I would simply have to wait until either another ship spotted me and came to my rescue, or I died out here alone. The latter was not an option under any possible circumstances; so I set immediately to work on fixing the damage to the ship.

            It took me a couple days, harnessed to the side of the ship, swinging down and dipping into the stinging salt water, to make the necessary repairs to start on my way back to shore. The cuts all over my body from the ordeal during the storm quickly became infected and sent terrifyingly painful feelings from the exterior of my body towards my spine and up to the base of my neck.

            After the repairs were made I limped my boat back to shore and finished the repairs I needed to make on the rest of the ship. It was at this point that I made the decision to become so devotedly routine in the maintenance of the ship.

I could not let this situation happen ever again.

            Because of the cuts on my face I could no longer shave. My hair had grown long under the hat that I wore every day and now my beard had grown to match this messy and unkempt nature. I took any effort that I would have used in my previous life in suburbia towards taking care of myself and put it entirely into taking care of my boat.

            This devotion to the care of my boat took over my life. If I poured out my soul into this, it was much easier to forget the pain I felt whenever I saw my daughter or my wife.

            A new storm began; this one feeling remarkably similar to the one that had previously stranded me in the ocean and created what I am now. This time I knew I could not afford to spend the time ashore but I must be infinitely more careful and painstaking in the care of my ship if I would survive the onslaught nature was about to unleash on the sea.

I slept one last time.

            I needed to be fully rested and prepared for what I was about to experience. I also wanted to see my daughter one last time before I went out. She is so beautiful. Usually when I see her, she seems far away; impossible to reach. No matter how I strive for her, she moves away from me at the same rate.

Impossible to catch.

            This time, however, I walk toward her and she stays where she is. This is a dreamscape, not a reality and I’m not sure exactly where I am nor does it matter to me as long as she’s here. As I get closer to her I see we are near water. I see her and I see the blue waves behind her.

My wife’s eyes.            

            I’ve never seen them in a dream before. There’s never been this opportunity for me to see both of my girls together. I would see my daughter in dreams and my wife on the waves. I draw my daughter close, feeling her against me for the first time in three years. I know this is not real, but my brain was experiencing it as it would in reality. I didn’t want to let go of my daughter; I feared if I did I would never feel this again.

            I stared into the water, feeling the depth and love I used to see in my wife’s eyes again. When I saw them in the waves I never felt this. I felt memories and regret of leaving those eyes behind. I felt how much I missed and loved her, but never felt the love returned.

Until now.

In this dream.

            I began to hear something. It sounded like it was coming from the back of my mind; not behind me, but inside myself. It was an experience that was different than anything I had experienced in my physical life; something only possible through the bending of reality possible through the warped perception of dreams. It was a sound similar to thunder, with a loud abruptness that shook everything around it. There was a certain familiar nature of the noise, different than thunder, however. There was softness to it.

            It grew louder. The noise started in the back of my mind but was quickly pushed to the forefront; engulfing my entire consciousness. I tried to attend to what this sound was that filled my entire being. I strained my ears and closed my eyes. I needed to know what this sound was; and then I heard it. My wife’s voice.

                                                            “John.”

            I wake up. I always knew this was a dream, but it was still heartbreaking that I woke from it. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost dawn. It was time to get out on my boat before the storm worsened.

I set out upon the sea.

            This storm was different than the one before. It was more dangerous. The seas were even rougher than both the storm that had forced us to be land bound as well as the one that had stranded me in the water. Water frequently swelled higher than the deck of my boat and crashed down upon me. I tied myself to the deck again to keep from going overboard. This was my only hope to survive this.

            Thunder and lightning began to strike over the water. The rain began to fall even harder, pelting my face and beating me down. I remained singly focused on doing the task in front of me; making whatever the next step was to bring in my gear and haul in fish so that I could get back to land and out of this storm quickly. Whenever lightning struck and there was a thunder crash, however, it stalled me. I felt something familiar in this interruption.

            Stalling like this was a mistake. While I was distracted by the thunder, a wave crashed over the deck too quickly for me to brace myself for this impact. The wave knocked me off my feet and slammed me against the outside wall of the cabin. I found myself with my back against this wall, dazed from the blow. I reached up and felt my head where it had hit this wall.

            My hand was covered red with my blood and I quickly felt my life draining from me. My body started to go limp leaning against this wall and the world started to fade around me. It reminded me of my dream the night before; I could see the world around me, but the details were fuzzy. Soon all I could focus on was the light and sound from the lightning and thunder that engulfed my world and was the cause of me being in this position.

            About to die.

            The sound grew louder and felt like it was filling my mind; just like the sound in my dreams. Soon it was the only thing that existed for me. This sound that filled my being was now all I knew. A repeating crash that soon began to change. It became more familiar; until I recognized it.

                                                            “John.”

            I wake up. I look up and see the ceiling of my room on shore. Everything seems fuzzy and my eyes are sensitive to the light pouring in through the window; like they haven’t been used in some time.

                                                            “John.”

            I look up and see her. My wife is sitting in a chair next to my bed. She looks into my eyes and I into hers and I know this is real. She is actually next to me and I am awake; for the first time in a very long time. I have no idea how I got here from my boat out in the water and I need to ask her.

            “How did I get off my boat and into my bed?”

            “John, you haven’t left your room in over a month. After you got grounded by the storm and your old boss was going to sell the business, you went in here and haven’t left since,” she tells me. “Your old boss called me and said I need to come up here because he had family issues that were forcing him to leave, he couldn’t take care of you anymore; so we came up here to take over for him. I haven’t left your side for the last week. I’ve been saying your name trying to wake you up.”

            That’s when I saw my daughter lying asleep on a small cot at my wife’s feet. She is so beautiful. She has started to grow up since I saw her last.

            “I’m so sorry I left you two, I just needed to make sure you were provided for and I felt ashamed that I couldn’t do it.”

            “I know. All that matters is that we’re together; and we are now. I love you John.”

“I love you too.”

            I look outside and see the ocean; it’s blue, but could never rival my wife’s eyes. And now, for the first time in three years I see the ocean for what it is.

The ocean.

Nothing else.

* submitted by zacktainamerica

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 58 // "The Car Ride" by sanctuarycompromised

It was painfully silent.  The only sounds which played in the background were the quiet ticking of the car’s turning signal as he waited for the traffic light to switch to green, and the muffled reverberations of cars passing by in the lanes next to them, gently nudging the vehicle with their displaced wind as they passed.  She sat next to him, not daring to make a move, even to breathe.  She did not know where he was taking her, and at that point she didn’t really care. She looked up at him; his once warm, inviting blue eyes now shone as cold and unforgiving as icicles as they reflected the headlights of passing cars off their glassy surface.  She was scared, but at the same time she knew this was her own fault.  As she sat there in the deafening silence, she reminisced to herself about the relationship that they once shared.

* submitted by sanctuarycompromised

[anonymouscreativity-blog]

Sub: 58 // "The Car Ride" by sanctuarycompromised

It was painfully silent.  The only sounds which played in the background were the quiet ticking of the car’s turning signal as he waited for the traffic light to switch to green, and the muffled reverberations of cars passing by in the lanes next to them, gently nudging the vehicle with their displaced wind as they passed.  She sat next to him, not daring to make a move, even to breathe.  She did not know where he was taking her, and at that point she didn’t really care. She looked up at him; his once warm, inviting blue eyes now shone as cold and unforgiving as icicles as they reflected the headlights of passing cars off their glassy surface.  She was scared, but at the same time she knew this was her own fault.  As she sat there in the deafening silence, she reminisced to herself about the relationship that they once shared.

* submitted by sanctuarycompromised