SWIM Book 1 (Complete three-hundred pages)

DAY 58.2

Monday, January 15, 2018

A

s the day died and the world slept, the clouds slowed and the moon sank under them. It was a broken crescent, sad and hollow.

I had driven the boat along the canal of pushed debris for hours before a depression fell over me, and I let go of the motor. The whirr of the engine turned to silence, the boat slowed to a stop, and all I heard was the trickle of water around me, and the soft echo of the wind strolling over the world.

The blanket over George's corpse hid him as only an anonymous darkness under the moonlight. And although I was still scared his body would suddenly jump up and attack me, I was becoming numb to the idea that I would die.

That ship was gone. Its waves for miles were gone. I was in a still lake of spherical silence and ominous beauty. I looked over the moonlit waters, and the debris looked like broken sections of stained glass art, colored gray, and lonely. I lay back against the wall, motionless.

It was so cold, and I wished it was colder.

I had traveled so far in this darkness, and I must have passed Brett and that family by now.

I remembered that story I once heard, about an ancient Jewish group who escaped persecution to Mount Sinai, where they had to decide to either be killed or commit suicide. They drank poison. I don't know if I could have done that. Suicide went against every moral fiber in my body.

As a rich girl, invisible in a world of nature surrounded by white walls lit by golden chandeliers, life was always worth living. But now, I didn't know if it really was. I didn't know what life was anymore. Deep down in my heart, I knew Jack was gone. He had surely left this planet at the realization of our desertion and at the sight of his only remaining pal, Travis, dead.

I laid my head back on the cold edge of the canoe. I stared up at the dim clouds where the moonlight caressed their soft curves. I hadn't the strength to even lift my jaw. If there was anyone in the entire world to see me now, they'd presume I was surely dead.

My life ended before I died. Alone again, I wanted to close my eyes, fall asleep in the darkness, and never wake up.

I wanted to remember what it felt like to love in a little town. I wanted to forget what it felt like to hate in a big, bad world, a world that never cared about me, a world I never cared about, a wailing world I never saw until Time shook my white crib and woke me.

Please, God. . . don't wake me up.