Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Lock (04/16/26)
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TITLE: A Different Combination | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
04/20/26 -
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“You’re my Destiny,” he had whispered after prom. He’d given her his lock, saying, “Everything I am and have is open to you.” The combination to that lock had burned its way into her brain and heart.
Against all advice, she and Craig had eloped after an intense summer romance. They had celebrated their union with a cruise through this very set of locks. “We’ll do it again on our 25th,” he said.
Neither one of them had expected the war, or the cost. Every morning, she had dialled the combination and left it open on the counter. Every night, she had snapped it shut. Now, it stayed shut. Their 25th had come and gone.
His flag still sat on the mantel above their fireplace, folded in a tight triangle. 13 folds. Faith, sacrifice, honor… one had been enough. The physical expression of gratitude from a nation didn’t bring back a life. It didn’t feel the emptiness at Christmas, at birthdays, on their anniversary.
The ceremony had been soul-numbing. Gut-wrenching. The military tradition, symbolism, and deep cultural desire to honour sacrifice in a visible, tangible way hardly touched the storm in her heart. He was a chaplain and a medic. Someone who was not supposed to be in the line of fire.
Ten years had passed, and still the emptiness remained. Now, she was on this cruise alone. The air hung thick and warm against her skin. The jungles pressed in from both sides in dense, green layers. Scents of wet earth, leaves, and distant rain drifted by her nostrils. The light felt heavier. Concrete walls rose like cliffs. Gray. Stained. Towering. An oily sheen rested on the ripples below.
The Canal locks were shadows at the corner of her memory. His face, his dreamy eyes, his mischievous grin. That was firm as she gripped the railing harder. A deep metallic groan reverberated through the ship’s hull, a living vibration. Steel cables tightened with a sharp twang, connecting to “mules” - the powerful locomotives crawling along the lock’s edges. Whining engines centered the Cruise ship, asserting control.
Water surged in. The subtle lift, the shifting pressure, the turbulence, swirling and churning like her stomach that first night alone with him. The walls sank away as the ship rose – forty, fifty, eighty feet. Another gate opens, and the ship glides into Gatun Lake. The water stretched wide.
Why had she still come? Alone. Remembering. Trying to recapture memories locked away in an impenetrable vault of grief. Clouds drifted overhead, watching her stream of tears, but withholding their own. Insects buzzed, monkeys howled, birds called, and flitted through the canopy. Flowers released their faint sweetness. Heat deepened.
At the Gaillard Cut, steep rock walls rise scarred by excavation - reds, browns, grays. The ship is slow and deliberate. Like the Navy Chaplain arriving to share the news. In the final locks, the ship shudders as the water drains away. The subtle sinking feeling, so much like the anticipation as the Chaplain looked her in the eye.
The water rushes away – like the feelings of letting the words unlock the denial of what the Chaplain’s knock could mean. The gates open and beyond them is a different light. Vast. Open. With only Ocean ahead. Salt and wind fill the space. The horizon stretches wide and blue. The squeezing of the locks is done. The transformation is complete.
Destiny examined the name on the back of the Master Lock one more time. Craig Bartholomew Harrington. She allowed the memories to arise and fly, saying a prayer of thanks. She brought the lock to her lips, stretched out her arm, and dropped it. It was time for a different combination.
She opened her Bible and slipped out the letter. The carefully printed script had infiltrated her dreams and idle moments over the past months. “See, I am doing a new thing… do you not perceive it? {Isaiah 43:19.” Did she dare to unlock her heart again? Time was passing.
She nodded and turned toward her room. She had dropped the lock outside the Panama locks for a reason. It was time to move on.
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This entry grabbed my attention right away and I liked how creative you used the topic lock in your story.
I liked how you gently and compassionately showed how important it is to move forward from our past.
Good or bad, it is easy to remain stuck in our past and not see all the exciting plans that God has for our future.
Congratulations on your 3rd place finish in EC this week.