Paint With Words

From Sea to Sea (short-story)

Though she drank the Sea, yet would she thirst.

Between endless sky and boundless waters she lay, rolling with the swell on her raft of salt-crusted wood. Eyes closed and breathing slow, she tried to will her body into cooling down. High above, the sun cast rays like spears down into the water around her. Up from the shining silver face of the sea these spears glanced, arching to fall again on her lidded eyes. Each collision of light with nerves pounded in her head with an incessant, mindless drumming. Beat after beat, each swell of pain stole a little light from her mind, and then receded to make way for more.

From over the side of the raft her hands and legs trailed, relieving the bitter heat in a balm of equal bitterness. Dry salt crusted her limbs, hair and her eyes. A few days ago she, in her desperation, had tried to drink the briny waters. Now, she was more thirsty than ever before.

Cooler than her sweat and saltier than her tears, the wave-run waters spread to every horizon. So much water, yet not for drinking! Would it ever end . . .

Ah, that was the question. Which would end first? The sea, or herself? She couldn't know.

Through thick, dark lashes she watched as the sun began to sink lower in the sky. Hours passed, each one timed by the roll of a hundred waves. At last, the sun sank into the sea, first turning the waters fire-orange, then blood-red and then rosy-pink before it disappeared beneath the waves. For a long time, the heat lingered, bathing the darkness in a deliciously humid, tropical warmth.

Then that too vanished, and the cold of night began. Opening her eyes, she gazed upwards into a sea of stars. Faint they glimmered and high they turned as slowly the night wore on. The longer it went, the colder it became, until she was huddled in the center of her raft, gathering fistfuls of rags around her in a futile attempt to keep warm. Then a wind awoke. Catching up her long, black hair, and the blacker waves around her, it dashed little hails of water against the side of her raft. Over and over she was struck by these cruelly cold drops, until her soaked hair was plastered against her arms, face, back and neck. For what seemed like forever, she shivered, licking her lips when the salty drops dug their darts into the cracks in her skin. Always she longed for a cup of clear water.

In the East, the sky began turning gray. Then from gray it turned to pale-blue, at last giving way to the sun's radiant gold. The waters began warming, the wind died down, and another day of deadly heat began.

So the cycle ran, as slowly her life drained into the salty waters beneath. She wondered if perhaps the sea was not mostly darkness because of all the lives it had taken – all the deaths it had wrought.

Ever she was tempted to forget the bitterness of the sea and quench her thirst in its endless waters. But no – she pulled her hands from the swell – she dare not drink that. Certainly, it was draining the life from her, but she would gain no life by draining it back.

Would the sea never end? Would she find land? Would she find water . . . sweet, drinkable water? She had almost give up all hope, until the fourth dawn broke.

At least, it should have broken. The sky had long since turned gray, blue and then gold, before she wondered why the sun's rays were not striking her directly. Perhaps a cloud had obscured the horizon. Pushing herself up on one trembling arm, she looked out towards the East.

There, in the further distance, a great hump of darkness rose from the sea – like the shadow against a wall. She blinked, scrubbing the salt from around her eyes with equally salty hands. Could it be? Was this a cloud, land . . . or hallucination? Glancing down at her arms and legs, she saw no bright rays glancing off her deep brown skin. It could not be a mirage – for she felt no heat from the sun. But then how could it be a cloud? Clouds are not so thick and dense. It must be . . .