Sea of Light

Word Count: 3,298

I needed some time alone, some time away from the everyday stress of the busy city. I traveled to a vacation home I owned on the beach in an attempt to get away from the rigors of life, even if it was only for a short while. The sky betrayed the fact that a storm front was pushing into the area. By the time I reached the beach, the sky far over the water was dark and gray, but there were no signs of high winds or even a sheet of rain. 

My father taught me to sail before I was even a teenager. We spent more time during the summers on the water than on land. Now I enjoyed getting out on the water with nothing but me, the sea, and the thoughts in my head.  

My father passed away only days before my eighteenth birthday and left me the beach house and his three sailboats in his will. I spent as much time as I could sailing the ocean. When I was out there, it felt like I was one with the sea. 

On this particular occasion, my wife asked me not to go. She said she had a feeling something bad was going to happen. I did not listen to her though. Her premonitions did not worry me. I wanted to forget the stress of work and the congested life in the city, so I decided to go off on another one of my trips. 

Although all my training told me not to, I sailed beyond the sight of land. I could see the weather front pushing in fast. Lightening flashed out of the sky to strike the foamy waves, but no rain or wind accompanied it. I knew I had to get back to shore, so I turned sail and tried to head on back. The light wind filled the sail and pushed me back toward home. I began to worry when I realized the water was pulling me out faster than the wind was pushing me in. I never caught sight of land before the furious storm reached me and my small boat. 

Waves crashed against my small craft and tossed me about. Lightning struck the water every few seconds, but there was still nothing but a light breeze in the air. I took the sail down anyway and tried to ride the waves using the rudder. Crest after crest pushed the stern of the boat into the air which then slapped hard back down onto the water. 

I knew what to do in this situation, but I never actually did it before. I tried to remember the survival tips my father taught me when I was young. Opening a deck panel, I retrieved four large jugs. I tied each to the boat with a rope, filled them with water, and dropped them over the four sides of the boat. These water anchors kept the boat more stable in the writhing waves. 

Pellets of rain began falling and struck me with such force that it stung my skin. Between this combined with a sudden rush of cold air, I felt like I was on fire. Even with the help of the anchors, the boat thrashed up and down. I strained with the rudder trying to keep myself facing into the waves, but the force of the water was too much. The helm snapped and the boat turned sideways into the wake. There was nothing more I could do. Within minutes the boat capsized. 

The angry sea tossed and threw me about. It was difficult to determine which way was up, and I choked on the salty water as I tried to breathe. The sea churned me about for more than an hour before its wrath finally passed me by on its way to land. When the storm ended exactly, I did not know, but when peace came to the water, I found myself lying on the hull of my overturned craft. 

The rain and wind were gone, but the icy cold remained. My soaking wet clothes clung to my body and chilled me to the bone. One of my legs still hung in the frigid water. It was very numb, and I found it incredibly difficult to pull it back onto the boat. I did finally manage it. I guess I was paying too much attention to my struggle because I did not see the dense fog roll in. 

In air this cold there should not be any fog. I did not give that too much thought as I strained my eyes in an attempt to peer through the heavy mist. Rather than being a single mass of fog, the mist appeared to be layered horizontally like curtains. Each layer of the fog was about a foot thick and rose higher than I could possibly see. The curtains of eerie fog had about two or three inches of clear air in between them. 

It was the strangest fog I ever saw in my life. I heard of such a thing from old sea farer’s stories kept alive from generation to generation through song, poetry, and story. I could only figure that the change in air pressure caused the odd strata in the mist. That must be it. Perhaps it was due to fluctuations in temperature. Whatever caused it, there must be a rational explanation for it. Even so, it scared me to no end. 

A disconcerting stillness lay across the seas surface; the calm after the storm. My heart skipped a beat when I heard a thump against the side of the boat. I struggled to turn myself over and saw that it was a foam buoy bearing the name of my vessel. 

My wife was always on my back about keeping important items in foam floats in the case of occasions such as this. It was not easy, but I managed to grip the strap of the buoy and pulled it out of the water. The sea may have damned me, but something must have been looking out for me. At the end of the strap was a clear plastic bag. The protective pouch contained a box of waterproof matches, a bottle of lighter fluid, and best of all, my flare gun. 

Dripping some of the fluid onto the hull of the boat, I struck one of the wax coated matches and started a small fire. Adding only a few drops at a time, I slowly managed to warm my hands to bring some color back to them. Keeping the fire small, the lighter fluid burned, but the hull did not. 

I knew I would run out of the lighter fluid soon, so I had to figure out something else I could burn. My boots did me no good on my feet. Cold seawater filled them both. With my hands warm enough to function, I removed on of the boots from my feet. Dripping the flammable fluid onto the sole of the boot, I burned the rubber to produce heat. The rubber burned slowly, consuming the sole downward much more so than outward. This just might work. Maybe, just maybe I could keep myself from freezing to death before I was rescued. 

I continued to warm my hands. I did not want to take the chance of dropping the flare gun into the water, so I did not remove it until I regained all feeling to my hands. As my fingers warmed and sensation returned, my knuckles throbbed with agonizing pain. 

I had four flares, one in the chamber and three in the bag. Once I made sure the gun was loaded, I fired a glowing flare into the air. The burning red sphere produced a hellish rainbow effect amongst the layers of fog. I imagined the gateway to hell appeared much the same way. Red, yellow and orange light moved through the misty curtains with a hypnotic fluidity. 

A chill filled my soul and I found myself with my eyes closed tightly as I prayed for the light to fade. When I could hear the sizzling of the flare no more, I fought through my terror and opened my eyes. The red light of the flare was gone, but now the fog seemed to be glowing on its own. The illumination it produced shone with a beautiful, bluish hue. I was not sure if that was some chemical reaction with the flare or if I was only now noticing it. 

I was not sure how long I floated there, but I was sure that the sun should have already risen. I was positive I was out here for hours, at least that is what I thought. The fog did not dissipate at all; it actually seemed thicker. Sunlight should burn away the fog, but the sun did not rise. I floated there for a couple of more hours and decided to launch another flare into the air. Surely there would have to be someone within sight of my beacon. 

I saw something that spared me with the first flare. I squeezed my eyes shut like a frightened child. I knew what I just saw was no more than a figment of my imagination. Perhaps the delusion was caused by the cold. When my flare lit up the dark sky, I saw a ghostly specter hovering in the fog. I found myself reciting the Lord’s Prayer as the ethereal image stared at me with strong intent. 

There was something strikingly familiar about the phantom being I watched drifting weightlessly in the curtains of fog. There was something about it that seemed to scare me more than death itself. Trembling from horror and stabbing cold, I thought the wraith in the mist was trying to reach out to me. It wanted to pull me in. 

The flare burned itself out, and the ghastly rainbow of the hell spawned colors slowly faded. Eventually, when the flare was gone, I again found myself surrounded by the glowing blue fog. I could see the apparition no more. It faded away along with the light of the flare. 

I thought it had to be a product of my imagination. I was a reasonable man, and the most reasonable explanation for what I just saw was that I was delusional. The cold, the fear of death, and the anomalous fog combined in my head making me see things that simply were not there. No other explanation made sense. I knew that, to survive, I had to keep my senses about me. 

Clear mucus dripped from my nostrils, and I realized I was crying. I did not feel this much terror when I thought the sea was going to swallow me to a drowning death. I tried to stifle my tears, but try as I might all I could do was tremble and sob. 

In an instant, my hopes were renewed. Someone must have seen my flare because I could hear a light splashing far out of my range. The sound was one I knew very well. I was listening to oars as they trod their way through the haunting stillness. My head swam with excitement and my heart felt as if it would jump right out of my chest. With my back against the boat, I forced my stiff body up until I was resting on my elbows. Although I still could not see anything, I easily determined the direction of the welcomed noise. 

I parted my stiff lips and tried to scream. My parched throat burned, and I could not produce anything but a faint grunt. Frantically I rubbed my throat with my free hand trying to warm it enough to call for help. At the same time, I brushed my tongue up and down the bottom of my mouth trying to work up enough saliva to lubricate my burning vocal cords. 

The vessel drew closer, but it was not coming toward me. Whoever it was, they were going to pass right by me. A new horror took over my thoughts. I was only inches from rescue, and they were not going to find me. 

I fell to my back, and the impact made a hollow thud against the hull of the boat. That gave me an idea. I removed the hand from my throat and began to pound against the overturned craft. Three short, three long and then three short thumps against the boat. I could not remember much of the Morse code I was taught as I learned to sail. There was the one signal no sailor ever forgot. Three short, three long, three short. S-O-S. 

I paused to listen but did not hear anything. Again, I repeated the pattern three times. For several minutes the silence continued. I thought the captain of the other boat must be trying to figure out where in the fog I was. Someone should call out for me. I know they heard my plea for help. 

To my relief, I heard the oars resume their work. The echo off of the water made it sound like a multitude of oars splashing in perfect synchronization. It brought to mind the Viking ships of centuries past. I would welcome it if they would pull me out of the water. Whatever kind of craft it was, I could hear that their trajectory now pointed them toward me. 

I was sure the ship was just about within my sight. The sound of the oars grew louder and a strange, acoustic echo became apparent. It struck that the odd chorus of oars may only be a product of my convulsively shivering body. My burning hope temporarily distracted my weary mind from the unforgiving cold. 

I pounded the S-O-S one more time on the hull of the boat then focused my energy on getting myself back onto my elbows. The sudden rush of blood made my ears roar with a high-pitched scream as I strained my cold stiffened body upward. It took me several minutes, but I finally mustered up enough will to lift my pruned body up from the hull. I tried to focus, tried to listen through the pain and my ringing ears so I could hear my approaching rescuers. 

When the deafening ring faded enough, I could hear the oars splashing in the water once again. I was sure it would be in sight any second. The next moment, my hopes were dashed. The rowing stopped. I tried to be patient. I must have been in the water for twenty-four hours now, so a few more seconds would not kill me. The crew of the other boat was probably only trying to make sure that they did not ram me. 

That would be a cruel irony, to survive this long in the piercing cold only to be plowed into the water by the very ship attempting to rescue me. When the oars once again resumed, I involuntarily began to chuckle. My throat stung in agony as my dry vocal cords tried to form that universal sign of joy called laughter. It was okay, I tried to tell myself. Soon I would be pulled from the sea and given fresh water to soothe my mouth and throat. 

My hope came to a peak when it occurred to me that something sounded different about the approaching ship. The tone of the splashing…. Oh God in Heaven, the ship was now rowing away from me. Again, I tried to force a scream through my burning throat but coughed up blood instead. Even now the idea of using the flare gun gripped me with fear. That was my only hope. I could not call out, and my potential rescuers were going in the wrong direction. 

Never having left my hand, I raised the flare gun up once again and reluctantly pulled the trigger. I felt no relief when the fog again shimmered and pulsed with lights as red as blood. The grim ghost of the mist was there to greet me and the smell of burning sulfur from the flare stung my nose. I considered throwing myself into the water to drown. I thought that was what the apparition wanted though. It wanted me to die. It wanted to take me through that mist to the hell from which it came. 

Despite my terror, I stared directly at my tormentor until the flare burned away. When only the peaceful blue glow in the fog remained, I could still faintly see the specter of the mist. I knew there was something very familiar about the vision in the fog, but I could not put my finger on it. 

Could I have dreamed it, and the terror of my situation brought it back to mind? Was I hallucinating or was the spirit in the mist real? 

Lost in my thoughts of the haunting wraith, I failed to pay attention to the sound of the other boat. The rowing continued to grow fainter as the ship moved off into the distance. I knew they could not have missed that flare. It illuminated the fog as far as I could see. Why were they not coming back for me? 

Tears trickled down my face dripping into my ears. The other vessel was gone. My rescuer was gone and my nose stung from the smell of burning sulfur. 

A thud sounded against my boat, and I strained to turn my head. I prayed it was another one of my buoys. I pleaded to everything in heaven that it contained my bottled water. Instead of finding lifesaving gear, I turned to look at a bloated dead tuna floating in the water. Its clouded eyes sunk into the head, and soon I saw more lifeless fish. The water was full of them. 

I long ago lost the feeling in my feet. I peered at them and it was just as I feared. My toes were all a dark purple and my toenails were black. I was going to lose my feet. Frostbite damage to my feet was too great. I was going to survive this. I had to. Now I could only hope that I would not lose anymore limbs. 

I pulled the bag containing the matches and lighter fluid up to my side. With a fumbling hand, I first tried to pull out the lighter fluid. As I dug for the matches, I heard a scraping and then a plop. The lighter fluid slid off the hull and into the water. 

That was it. I was ready to give up. I could not take this merciless torture any longer. I let go of the matches and let them fall into the water as well. I was just going to lay there until the cold air showed the warmth of my breath no more. I dropped my hands to my side and allowed the pistol to slip from my grip and into the water. 

My right arm was resting on something. With ever increasing difficulty, I pulled the plastic bag up to my chest. Inside were three flares. I never reloaded the gun. I fired the damn thing three times, but I never reloaded it once. How did I fire one flare three times? 

The ghastly image manifested in the glow of the heavenly blue light and I realized why it seemed so familiar. A surge of warmth washed over me like a wave. I lay there staring at the face of my father. That meant, that meant I must be, I was…. 

I reached my hand up to meet the grip of the specter. The pain was gone; my fear was gone. His strong loving arms pulled me from the agony of the icy water and into that sea of light. 

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