Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: INSOUCIANT (06/02/16)
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TITLE: What happened? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
06/06/16 -
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“Simon,” yelled a fisherman, “south. It doesn’t look good.”
A burly, bearded colleague wrestled his own net back over the side of the small ship and glanced at the dark bellied clouds racing toward the small crew. “Take down the sail, hurry!”
“The seas were so calm,” said a third sailor. “There was no wind in the palms at all when we left.”
Three men huddled around crates of dates, figs and olives in the middle of the boat. They pulled their cloaks tighter as the first splashes of water spit over the side. “We need to get these crates to the other side,” a young man urged as he watched distant white caps on the surface.
Simon surveyed the scene in the middle before taking command.
“Thomas, tie them to the mast!”
“Sail’s down,” the first fisherman yelled. “James, fold it and store it up front.”
James grabbed the sail and expertly folded it into a triangle, wrestling into a storage compartment notched into the cedar planking. The water was splashing freely over the side and leaving large sloshing puddles in the bottom. The wind and the waves arrived with strength.
Simon braced himself into one of the four rowing stations on the low sided vessel. “John, James, Andrew, grab an oar. Everyone else hang on.”
One of the trio holding on mid-ship called out. “What’s happening?”
Simon pulled hard on his oar and replied. “Kinneret is a shallow lake.” He stroked again. “When that desert wind pours down the hills and meets the cool air on the lake…” stroke “it stirs it up like your mother making flax-seed porridge.”
The ship began to buck up and down in the wave troughs and water gushed over the sides. “He can’t be still sleeping can he?” Andrew asked. “Should we wake him?”
Simon pulled hard on his oar. “We’ve been through these before.” Stroke. “If he can sleep calmly let him.”
James synchronized his stroke with the other three fishermen. “Simon, we’ve been through a lot of these storms but this is among the worst.”
“May the Almighty have mercy on us,” Thomas howled.
Andrew pulled hard and felt the oar snap like a toothpick. “Simon, switch with me. My oar broke.”
Simon forced his oar out of the throat of the raging sea and pulled it across to where Andrew had vacated.
“We’re not going to beat it,” James shouted above the howling wind. “We need everyone bailing water. Simon, you’ve got to wake him.”
“Let me do it,” Andrew called. “You keep rowing.”
“There’s no point,” James responded. “Without the four oars we’ll end up in circles. We’re going to be swamped. Throw out the cargo!”
“No!” Thomas shouted, hugging the crates. “I promised that we’d deliver.”
“Are you insane?” James yelled. “We’re going to drown. If you don’t throw those over the side you’ll end up like Jonah – now throw them.”
One of the figures clutching onto the mast released his hold and bolted for the side of the ship. He almost hurtled into the sea as his stomach emptied.
The other member of the mid-ship trio called out. “I need something to bail with.”
A torrential downpour added to the chaos and helped fill the ship. One of the tilapia slipped free from under the net and rode a flow of water up and over the side of the boat, back into the lake.
Andrew crawled back from the stern of the boat followed by another figure drenched in the rain and lake water.
“Save us. Don’t you care if we drown?” Thomas yelled.
The new arrival shook his head, as if to shake off the water. “Where’s your faith? Why so much fear?”
He caught the rhythm of the lurching boat and reached the bow where he stood in defiance of the elements. “Stop it!” he commanded the wind. “Shhhh, be still,” he urged the waves.
Simon almost missed his stroke as the waves disappeared around him. The glassy surface sat like a mirror under an absolutely breathless sky.
No one spoke as they stared in unison at their smiling Messiah. A tilapia flopped into the shallow pool still in the bottom of the boat.
“Did you see that?” Thomas whispered.
“Who is he that even the wind and waves go calm under his command?” James answered.
“Amazing,” Simon said.
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