Lila was on a little boat that capsized. How she got on the boat is anyone's guess. She has vague memories of being seduced from the shore onto the craft by some raw and wild power and of regretting her compliance as the seas grew choppy. Who or what was that thing that convinced her to take the ride? She thinks she heard some kind of deep growling as the boat rocked ever more wildly, then a pathetic mewling as the bilge filled with cold and salty water. Suddenly, over the gunwale she flew and into the dark deep, barely flailing, too shocked to even try to stay afloat. She was drowning, and that confused her sense of order, of rightness. Who could have convinced her onto that shabby little boat in the first place? Here was her end and she had no justification for it. Her lungs began to burst and a sense of the ridiculousness of it all almost made her laugh out her last breath. Then something bumped her, a shark, a whale, god, or a slowly sinking survival kit with the strap of a life vest fortuitously stuck on its clasp. Lila reached for the vest with her last ounce of hope and freeing it, rose like a lotus blossom to the surface of the sea. She nudged her neck through the opening as she rose, then gasped with shock when her head broke through the waves into daylight. She could have sworn, though, that it had been deep night, starless and void moon when the storm had hit. Time was as lost as she was, but at least she was alive.
Maria Alva Roff 2003
Maria Alva Roff 2003
