Fleet ‘Choices in the Storm’

Again, he had the choice. And this time he stepped over himself. Flicking off his shoes, tearing his shirt off, releasing his trousers to the sand at his feet he ran and plunged deep into the beckoning waters.

The water was surprisingly warm, but heavy and still. The thickness of it made him struggle at first until he stopped fighting. A crowd of birds had flown into the sky as his dive had cut the sky reflected waters into ribbons and ripples of storm and cloud.

Overhead the wind whipped and whistled as the birds wheeled, arched and fell in the unpredictability of the tattered and torn streams of air. The rain hissed off the surface, the sky darkened still further, in gales and blasts of thunder.

He could see her clamber up the bank, a bedraggled figure as ragged as the ship and sails that towered over her as it came ever closer to the shingle beach.

He was nearly upon the other side. The pull and tug of the waters, heavy, as he balanced his need to get to her as swiftly as possible and yet preserve enough energy for the beaching when it inevitably came.

He chanced a look behind him. He could just see the church in the meadow, so close, so very close to the shore. The sky seemed to press down upon the roof, the island of trees planted to protect both the church and the thinning congregations, flailed in every direction, tossing wildly in a kind of frenzy that made his steady swim into the past even more unreal.

He felt her calling and turned back towards the bar and Emily.

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