Worse than a broken heart (by Eve)

The raft sailed roughly on the mid-tide jerking forward towards the shore on a wickedly hard wind, until smacking up on the sandy beach.

A too-long, harsh, windy summer day on white-capped waters had finally got him to this little bay that he hoped would shelter him just on dusk.

He thought to catch some bream for his tea, false hope now, as the wind whipped up, whirring like a gargantuan lawn mower, and accompanied by pelting rain. He knew he would barely have enough time to batten down against the gathering storm he could smell forming. The hairs on his neck were erect with the impending danger, a thing that he knew as an old acquaintance, the kind one crosses the road not to meet again.

How could he possibly have got into this situation?

He was on the run. A vicious argument had propelled him into the night. Feeling agitated, unstrung, he packed his raft for what he imagined would be just a short trip and hit the water at daybreak.

This therapy had worked for him before; the sea was always soul-cleansing. It might even crack open the barricades around his heart, unlikely as that seemed.

After a day of sailing, he found a beach that seemed safe enough for camping overnight, apart from the king tides this time of year – tides that could bring in the crocs. But these primal beasts reeked so badly that a good nose could pick them a mile off, so he wasn’t too worried about them. There were bigger monsters to fend off in his psyche.

Last night’s half moon was chalk on a blackboard at first. But then, sitting by his campfire, he saw the moon gradually take on a sort of premonitory red vapour. He knew right then that the next day, when he hit the water again, he wouldn’t, couldn’t out run the thing running towards him and he would have to face it.

And now, it hit him that the stars had been right, maybe he’d even read his horoscope in them. Smelling the electrified rain, feeling the charged wind vexing his skin, he needed to find a hole to climb down, a cave to hollow into. The escalating wind and the slashing rain foretold the hurricane. Petrified, paralysed, he had almost nothing on him: his clothes and some matches and cigs in a miraculously still dry pocket. Oh, and a flashlight that he wished could light some hope in him.

The weather dreadfully bad now, he felt there would soon be nothing left on earth. And what did it matter? His heart was boarded up as tight as he would have sealed up his windows at home.

A monstrous wind picked up his raft, hurled it down again and smashed it into toothpicks. He was swept up against a tree and felt the huge force of the gale sucking on the marrow of his bones.

He saw his whole life, just exactly like this hurricane, out of control, blown up now like a balloon.

If he ever lived through this night, he might just do something differently, but, for the life of him, he didn’t know what.