The demon had been awoken. I could feel it in my submerged wooden hull before I could see it. I knew the ocean like an old friend. How its beautiful water ebbs, flows, torments and breaks.
But what happened was not beautiful.
I turned my motor o well before the shore came into view but they still did not turn back. The people were persistent, they wanted a new home so badly, even when my hull begun to leak, they pushed on. I remember the cheer as the shore came into view. I knew those screams would not end in smiles, but in tears.
My old friend had an ugly demon that would possess his rolling waves and turn them into crashing walls of death. I knew the signs, how the wind would change and the sky turn dark.
My poor friend had been battling it for the past week.
Yet these people were persistent in traveling these waters. I could not help them, I can only tell our story.
I heard the whispering of mothers to their children, telling them not to cry, telling the young that they would be safe soon.
But as the water licked over my deck and filled my hull, the children were not the only ones crying.
The ocean was too strong, too powerful for my little wooden body. I could not help these people further.
I went with the ocean in peace.
Men assumed positions of prayer and I, too, prayed with them. My ending was not gentle but neither was my life.
As my weak body was picked up in the thrashing swell, I felt lighter as people jumped to the depths.
Then came the pain. The numbing pain of being smashed into the rocky cli s. My injuries were fatal and parts of me thrashed among the waves. Children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, families, clung to my floating body.
As they looked around, their faces of fear turned to ghostly dread as they saw other ruined bodies float with mine.
Again and again the demonic waves picked me up and buried me against the rocks.
I remember seeing local people at the edge of the cli face trying to help us.
But it was too late for me, too late for us.
I had been torn apart and families had been torn apart. We looked death in the eye.
There was no going back for me.
I slipped under the chaotic surface and reached a place of calm.
This is my home now in my old friend’s gentle arms.
Words by Pippin Ellis
You might also like
More from Edition 8
The U-Bahn
The train announces Orianenplatz and a worn-out Oma stirs her head. Between the shoulder pads of her winter coat she …
Confessions From The Bottle-O
Working in a bottle shop can be a lot of fun. You get a sweet discount on booze, you get …