As tears go by

Day 1// 1 North-eastern Italy, Dead's beach.

Trunks, branches, bottles, plastic balls, unmatched slippers, chunks of fishnets, stranded buoys, pools of seawater covered the beach. Remo Nascimben, a retired sailor, came there to walk every morning, regardless of the weather. That day he was there. Looking at that wasteland, he felt part of it. A cold furious wind was swirling the sand around his feet. Retirement wasn't his piece of cake; walking by the waters was the only thing that made him happy. Breathe in the raw saline air. The squeaks of seabirds. He looked at the grey ships stationary at cold distance. They looked like ghosts. He stumbled against something. He lowered his eyes. He couldn't believe it. It was a ISO 9650 Eurovinil life raft. He screamed in terror as ten years before. His mind raced back. Ten miles off the French coast. A sudden wave, a wall of water hit the tanker broadside. The worst thing that could happen to a ship. He was a Chief Engineer, and he liked his job a lot. He was good at it. Then the nightmare began. The tanker capsized in a split-second. Remo found himself yelling, and kicking in complete darkness. The ship dragged him down. He tried to fight, but he could not hold anymore air in his lungs. The last bubbles of air exited his mouth, and he started to drink salted water. He thought he was going to drown. Death was coming in the form of something he loved. Something that used to be his life, his job and that was an out-of-the-blue shock. Love was killing him. Unaware of his bearings, he gave up and sank into the abyss. A cord whipped him right in the face. He jerked. He pulled it. It looked like it was never ending. He thought, "I am out of my mind". Suddenly, he heard a loud sound. An incredible pull tore him out from the depths. It ripped off his shoes, sockets, trousers and pants. Being half-naked was a petty price to pay, because he recognized the blaring sound of the self-inflating system of the life raft shooting him to the surface as fast as a rocket. Out of breath, he kicked amok as climbing the last meters to the surface.

To be able to breathe again was something he would have never forgotten. To see the sparse lights of the faraway coast burning in the black night like fires made him cry of elation. After a few hours adrift, he washed up to an unknown beach. Then he recognized the falaise towering him. It was in Normandy. Under Le Pointe d'Hoc. He ran to the shore in the shallow waters. He hit the terra firma and the world started to spin. He fell to the ground. He clawed his fingers in the sand and stuffed it into his mouth. He cried tears of joy and despair. He was the only survivor.

A couple of weeks later, he woke up, soaked in sweat, screaming and fumbling the sheets. The nightmare was always the same: he opened a door or turned a corner of a corridor and a wall of water was in front of him ready to flood and drag him away, but he did not wait, he ran. He never waited to see what was going to happen.

The hard freezing wind on the beach took Remo back to the world. He sighed and checked the sea. There was no sign of the disaster, no shipwreck, no oil slick or corpses. Only waves ran toward him making white-caps. Little gentle waves. He turned toward the life raft, and unzipped the orange tent sheltering the inside. He could not believe his five senses. On the bottom, there was a human body in a pool of seawater. The curled up body was a blond woman.

Remo took her out.

She jerked off and shrieked in terror.

"Povera ragazza, non aver paura, ora sei al sicuro." He yelled in Italian and held her tightly.

Instantly she calmed down.

He smiled and cried; he filled his lungs with the fresh air and lugged the woman on his shoulder, holding her with the firefighter's grip. He started walking towards his car. Two minutes later he felt his heart beating hard and his chest heaving. He stepped on. Fuck. After ten meters walking he was dead tired. To chase away the effort and keep going on, he wondered what had happened to her, what was her name, which was the name of her boat. Deep in thought, he didn't notice she gripped a plastic bag which swayed in the wind. Finally, he saw his 67' Land Rover on the top of the sand dune. The last steps were the harder. He slipped twice into the sand. Heaving, he helped her in the passenger seat. She sat there motionless, eyes and mouth wide open, dripping sea water on the car floor. Suddenly she ducked towards the ground and started to vomit, bracing herself against the door.