Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Blue (10/08/09)
-
TITLE: Adrift | Previous Challenge Entry
By Graham Starling
10/14/09 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
I trod water gently and stared towards the west at a tiny sail receding in the distance.
What had I done? It had seemed the right thing a few minutes ago, but now… I was going to die!
The miniscule point of white blinked once on the horizon and disappeared.
I looked around me. To the south the storm clouds that had brought about this disaster were breaking up, disappearing even as I watched, and elsewhere there was nothing. Featureless blue sky above and featureless blue sea below. Nothing, except a few barrels and crates that the sailor’s had thrown over the side.
I swam to the nearest one and clung onto it. At least I wouldn’t drown. Not straight away anyway.
No I’d either die of thirst or exposure. I’d lost my robe and sandals in the first minute. Mountainous waves had crashed over me and my clothing had tangled my feet and weighted me down, so I’d stripped off and allowed it to sink into the depths. Now the sea was as calm as a millpond and the sun beat down on me unrelentingly.
It had been the storm of course. It had lasted only a few minutes, but it had been violent like nothing I’d experience before. I’d been asleep in the front of the ship when it hit. One minute we’d been speeding along in a steady breeze, the next we were fighting for our lives with squalling winds backing the sail and heavy swell threatening to swamp the open deck.
The sailors had fought like madmen to keep the ship afloat, and when it had looked like they would ultimately fail they had turned to one another.
“This is unnatural.” One had shouted. “Who has done this? Who has angered the Gods?”
One of them grabbed a handful of straws from somewhere, counted out one for every man onboard, and broke one shorter than the rest. Within seconds the man had past around the crew, and ended up with his hand under my nose. There were only two straws left, one for him and one for…
I picked. It came out short.
“What have you done?” He yelled into my face.
In retrospect it may have been a mistake at this point to admit to an extremely angry and superstitious group of sailors on the verge of drowning that I was running away from God, but in all fairness I wasn’t thinking rationally at that point. They took it pretty well actually, they tried to turn the ship around, but it wasn’t going to work.
Somehow I knew this was my fault, after all I really was running away from God. I told the sailors to throw my overboard. They didn’t want to, but in the end they agreed.
I hit the water and was too busy trying to remove my waterlogged clothing to notice that the wind was easing. The waves settled and the sun broke through the clouds. Not far from me, sails billowed and the ship sped away leaving me treading water in nothing but my breechclout.
“So what do we do now Lord?” The prayer was in my head, I was already too exhausted to speak. “I mean can you really blame me for what I did? You want me, a small town guy, to go to one of the biggest and meanest cities in the known world and tell them they’ve all been very, very naughty! They’re hardly going to listen are they? I’d be lucky to escape with my life!”
The searing sun was blistering the skin from my back, before long I’d welcome death. It didn’t look like I would escape with my life running this way either. Somewhere in my misery a comforting presence entered and thoughts rose unbidden to my mind.
“Yeah, OK, all powerful, all knowing, yada yada yada. I’ve read Job and I know it’s not my place to tell you that you’ve got it wrong. I know you love me, and I guess you would look after me, even in a place like that, wouldn’t you?
“Well I guess it doesn’t matter much now, it’ll all be over in a few hours. Still all the same, I guess even Nineveh wouldn’t be as bad as this. Tell you what, if you get me out of this, I’ll go.”
Deep down in the depths of the sea a dark shadow moved…
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.