Author: Adella Herron
Just another lonely, gray morning by the bounding main. But that is alright because that is the way he likes it.
Another serene evening with only the wide, rippling ocean for company, and the small ginger cat he calls Jones at his side. Always do the heavy sighs of the brine bring the salty, sweeping winds; the same winds that would ruffle the long, gray hairs peeking out from under the rim of the man's big hat. The little twinkling-twinkle-jingling of the bell hanging from the cat's leather collar is like the song of a wind chime. The twinkling sings in perfect harmony with the soft laps of water against the white sands. Just another day.
Every morning before the sun even has a chance to yawn a big, bright yawn, the man is out setting up his little fishing boat. On the side of the boat the word SunDogs can be read, having been crudely painted in white long ago.
“One of these days,” he would think to himself as he carried his supplies from his shack to the slow-bouncing boat; his back held down by the hand of many years, but his eyes bright gray with a determination as boundless as the sea. “Imma gonna get me a real boat with an engine and all. One of 'em boats that has a cabin where I can carry all my books and my fishing stuff.” The ocean would be his new “land,” he would think. Alone and out adrift without direction and without any need for returning to the pearly dunes of the warm beach.
“I'd get my food from the depths.” He threw the fishing rod into the boat. “And that will be my supper. I'd float out in the ocean forever,” he placed his bait bucket of dead fish next to the rod. “And I'll have the moon in place for my reading lamp.” Finally, he grabbed little Jones and then he set out on a pathless blue journey. Just another day out in the ocean, he would think.
The boat was riding the waves, but at the same time it remained stationary in the midst of the beautiful vastness; UP-n'down-UP-n'down-Up-n' so forth. The rays of the hot sun shined down on the printed words – the words on the pages of one of his old but beloved books. Like he would always do when he waited for the rod to catch a bite, he curled up by the fishing pole with his eyes cascading the many printed lines of fantastic legends; how his mind blissfully went off on the soft wings of fanciful reveries! How he loved to ride the waves of fantasy as much as the waves of the ocean. UP-n'down-UP-UP-UP – another day in a story.
“MEW!” cried Jones quickly from the nose of the boat. The man suddenly was thrown from his fantasy when he shot a surprised glance towards the cat; curiosity glittered in his exulted gray eyes. The creature looked at him from a turned head with its wide eyes yellow and regarding. Its slender, long tail was gently rocking, tapping gingerly one of its flanks then tapping the other in a perpetual rhythm. “MEW!” It called again. The two held a glance for a moment, expecting the other to make a move but both expectations ending fruitlessly.
The man produced a wrinkled grin at the innocence of cats, then returned his attention back to the fiction laid out in a bundle of ink and paper. This did not surprise the cat (the man's short-lived attention), but the tiny beast nonetheless kept its fixed gaze on him. Then the creature's pointy ears must have detected a singularity, for they perked up and twitched sideways. Something surely called the attention of its innate instincts. Probably something behind the blue, trembling line of the horizon? It turned its head. It had to have a look.
A moment of peace held the calmness of the ocean. The equilibrium of watery tranquility remained unbroken save for the sighing of the waving water. The fishing rod was asleep with its bait still fresh and beckoning in the seemingly sapphire emptiness.
“Mew! MEW!” The calls of the cat were louder. It certainly sounded as if the beast demanded a form of stronger attention this time. Its tail was held high, swiping the air, and its little head was peering over the nose of the boat. It continued to cry.
“Well,” the aged man grumbled. His rusty joints creaking as he hauled himself up after having hid the old book in his inner coat pocket. “You sure are vocal today, aint'cha?” Turning to the sleeping rod, he decided he would expire it and go back to the shore without bearing any supper for the day. “The fish are not biting, I wonder.” he said, plucking the little, untouched fish body from the hook and flinging it out into the vast blue. It landed with a small whispering splash, exciting the ocean but only for a second. “Let's go. We will try again tomorrow.” As he grabbed for the oars, the cat let out a yowl and hurried under the center thwart. The startled eyes of a cat can never go unnoticed. “Well!” the man exclaimed with is hands on his hips. “Well! What is it with you? Acting all like that!” He got up, guessing that the cause for the cat's excitement was something it had found in the water. He searched the waters to the south of him but saw nothing queer. The sides were just as quiet and without life. Then, turning to the north of the boat where the cat had been perched, he soon found that he could barely maintain his footing. Fright and surprise pinched his stability, forcing the boat to rock with his switching weight as he stumbled forward a little. His petrified eyes were glued to something in the ocean.
There, unmoving and wholly silent under the fathoms of aqua, was an incredible black-blue hole. The dark-blue edges melted into the surrounding teal light, but the singularity of the circle was of a pure blackness. An abyssal entryway to somewhere far below the depths?
“In goodness' name?” The poor man has sailed these familiar waters since he was a child, and never before had he seen such a spectacle. He clutched his hat tightly just in case an unexpected wind where to steal it from his head. After what he saw, any other surprises, let alone a sudden gust of wind, would surely seem trivial. He marveled at it, this strange hole-like thing, as he frantically tried to come up with some sort of wild explanation, but succeeding with nothing.
“Wh-what is this?” His gray eyes squinted from under his bushy, brown eyebrows. His hands clutched the rims of the boat as he leaned forward over the water. Near the maw of the great hole was a struggling form, a thrashing gray thing with its massive head swinging violently in agony.
“A shark?!” The breath of the man was blown out from his dusty, old lungs. He watched in silence as the terrified shark so far below was being pulled further and further into the hole, thrashing harder and harder with every passing second as if trying to free itself from an invisible pull. Finally, its pointy head was engulfed in darkness, and all had returned to stillness....
The man waited as the trickling of the ocean's surface gossiped all around him and the boat gently rocking from underneath his feet. He waited for something to come out of the hole be it the shark in triumph or something else. But the hole only stared back at him with a big, black, centered eye. In his still musing, he began to feel that if he were to wait long enough he would see two massive claws grip the sides of the hole and Cerberus himself would suddenly propel forward from the dark, chasmal cavity – the many heads of supernatural idiosyncrasy coming at him from under his tiny boat only to consume him in perplexity. He waited. And waited. Waited. … Nothing. Nothing came out from the dark maw. Nothing was seen coming near. The sun was about to set.
The water glowed a delicate orange-purple, and the many shades of the amber sun mirage sitting just above the horizon made the sky appear reddish-orange; a faint shade of pink descended into the opposite horizon of the sun. The man was still looming over the side. His lips parted with utter confusion and with the particular sort of fear produced from the usual ignorance of new things. Until the sky was dimming: he sat. Until he was sure that nothing would come out of the hole if he were to turn his back: he sat. Finally, breaking his fixation he hastily grabbed the oars and made way to the distant shore. In his silence was he truly horrified.
The cat was still under the center thwart sniffing the floor with its wiggling, button nose. Though a bit tired, it kept open a vigilant eye because its innate instincts told it so. And because it found the anomalistic humming from under its paws to be deviant. For, under its paws, below the layer of wood and in the water, came an irregular, pulsating strum that even the acute cat had to actively listen out for. It scraped its claw across the wood in wonder, sniffed the little cracks before abruptly becoming bored with it all. It slumped on its side with laziness as the troubled man continued to lead the boat through the twilight.
Just another day in the lonely, blue ocean.