The Woman in the Boat

The sea lulled her again and again, like a gentle mother, and she did not resist it.

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I.

It had been a pigeon. Previously. Now it was hard to tell, although there were tiny, plucked feathers scattered all over one side of the bobbing boat.  The feather strewn side was also the bloody side if one observed closely, with trickles and splotches of red having soaked deep into the old wood of the boat. To think she had managed it all with her pocket knife, which was visibly rusty after two weeks of exposure to the naked sun and salty air. At least, it felt like two weeks to me. I can no longer tell time with any certainty.

She’d severed the bird’s head and only the badly de-feathered carcass remained, whatever resistance its life had offered, long ended in the relentless sun.  She’d washed off the blood from the carcass as best she could with seawater, using her thumbs and palms. Finally, having laid it aside, she turned her back to me and got busy trying to start a fire using a few strands of coconut-husk-like fibre from the boat’s insides. She trained the sun’s rays through a single piece of scratched, spectacle glass on to the fibres. It was a hopeful effort but not without promise, since the trick had worked the previous day, only she’d had nothing to cook with on the fire. Today, when the stricken pigeon, circling overhead, desperately hunting for a place to land, dropped exhausted onto the boat, she had pounced upon it, giving the bird no chance.

Having succeeded in starting a fire, she rested her back against the boat’s side, a smile of satisfaction growing on her weather-beaten face like a mad woman’s grin, as white smoke wafted up. She clasped the pigeon’s carcass, forced a make-shift skewer through it and held it over the sputtering fire that was growing stronger, salivating at the imagined taste of the meal to come.

The endless motion of the sea was something that, when she stopped moving around restlessly and when her mind wasn’t pursuing a worry, she found hypnotic. The boat bobbed, as it had done continuously during our time at sea. The rhythm of the boat caused a creaking sound which together with the waves lapping the sides, deepened the effect of drowsiness. The sea lulled her again and again, like a gentle mother, and she did not resist it.

Her hand held the skewered pigeon steadily over the fire while her eyes glazed over. I wondered if she was remembering something. Had she remembered me, for instance? At times like this, her eyes were of no help at all. They looked vacant, as if her soul had departed for someplace else, leaving behind a vessel that was a stranger. Just like me. Well actually, I should say, unlike me. The opposite of me in fact. I only had my soul now and my physical self, my carcass if you will, was somewhere at the bottom of this very same sea, ripped away and tossed off. I recognized a glimmer of her familiar self in her eyes only when she attacked the pigeon and cut its neck off.

Continue reading “The Woman in the Boat”

Deserving a Place in the Known Universe

It turns out, like silent supernovas, lonely planets and sizzling comets, that each book is unique in its execution and purpose, as different as they come.

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms – Muriel Rukeyser

 

It has never been easier in the history of humankind, to write and send out one’s writings to a larger potential audience in the world, than it is today.

The internet has not only opened up the possibility of creating stories to anyone who cares to do so but the technology now exists that has so simplified publishing to enable those stories to be placed in the hands of readers everywhere in as many forms as one can dream of, even going beyond the traditional form of books and their more recent electronic cousins. It’s mightily easier than finding and learning to use a Gutenberg press and sending finished manuscripts out on the backs of mules, taken by monks, to far away lands.

But what type of story works? Is there a type that’s sure to succeed at the expense of others? How different can successful works of fiction be? Continue reading “Deserving a Place in the Known Universe”

Family

She had really missed that. The sounds that reminded her of her family. It was not the same as before the accident but this was close.

I.
Khara was waiting for breakfast, looking at the perfectly maintained backyard through a glass wall that took up the entire west wall of the dining cum kitchen. She was lost in her thoughts, barely noticing her little brother outside, playing with their dog, a mature Labrador. Even though the sliding doors were shut, she could hear faintly the alternating barks and shouting. She lost track momentarily then she heard laughter as the dog leaped onto the boy and both rolled on the perfectly maintained grass.
‘Breakfast is ready,’ a calm female voice sounded on the counter where Khara was seated.
She reached over, softly depressed a circular button that was the same colour as the counter top and a panel slid open where she had been leaning her arms on. Fresh toast and orange juice came up on a white plate and ceramic cup. She picked up the chilled juice and sipped it, feeling as she usually did in the mornings, wistful and a bit lazy.
Mum buzzed into the kitchen with her usual, brisk pace, dressed in a neat pantsuit that matched her nicely plaited hair. She gave Khara a peck on her cheek as she passed.
‘Good morning Punchkin. Where’s Levin?’
The girl lazily pointed with her finger to the glass wall while munching her toast. Mum followed her gaze to the garden.
‘Please call him in. There’s just enough time for an unhurried breakfast before the transport arrives.’
Khara leaned over the same speaker she had used to give instructions for breakfast and said,
‘Get Levin,’
A small screen lit up next to the speaker and the boy’s face came up, moving erratically before going off screen,
‘Levin! Mum wants you to come in. Breakfast!’
The boy came back into view. Khara looked out to the garden and saw the boy now on one knee peering at the dog’s collar. She saw him move his mouth over there and his voice popped out of the speaker beside her,
‘Five more minutes, pleaseee….’
Mum leaned over Khara’s shoulder,
‘Levin, please come inside now! You’ve had your fun.’
Through the glass wall, Khara watched Levin, with a shake of the head, get up and stomp to the door on the side, the dog quickly realizing where he was going and following at his heel. As he came in, mum was already sitting at the counter with both her and Levin’s plates ready, gave another instruction,
‘Put him away please. You have exactly fifteen minutes before the transport arrives.’
Levin went to a rectangular door by the wall and tapped it. The door slid open to reveal a recess with a charging dock.
‘Come on Helium. Here.’
The Labrador went over obediently – no hesitation – and turned around and sat. Levin reached over, ruffled the dog’s fur several times and then, pressed a hidden point on the animal’s neck. The dog became still. He pulled a wire out and attached it into an opening under a flap just along the dog’s backbone. Its eyes closed and it became completely motionless. The wall socket had a series of indicator lights that were running continuously. Levin stepped out and shut the door of the recess. Continue reading “Family”