(This is a fictional story of a fireman who lost everything during the terrible bushfire on Black Saturday in Victoria 2009. I haven't completed it yet.)
Phoenix Fire thy beauty inspire
Mortal Men to accomplish immortal things,
Through heat and molten rain
Thy Birth is borne in utter pain
A man stands alone on a pristine beautiful beach. He is tall, handsome, well built, rugged. A perfect specimen of Australian manhood. Once he was offered a spot on the Collingwood football team. He rejected it, he hated Collingwood. :)
He is alone. Early morning. The air is bitingly cold. But the man does not notice even though he’s wearing just a pair of board shorts.
The beach is immense; the white sandy shoreline stretches for miles. There is absolutely no sign of human habitation. No cigarette butts, no broken bottles, just white fine sand washed for eons in the cold salt oceanic waters.
It was as beautiful as it was since the first day of creation.
He has been staring out into the vast ocean for a long time, it seems to have a hypnotic hold on him. Suddenly, he breaks into a jog, crashed into the roaring surf and dives into the foaming sea and starts swimming straight towards the horizon.
His name is Jack Brown and he's going to kill himself today.
He swam through that cold sea. The frigid current from the Antarctic met the South Australian Ocean here. His breaths were measured. His movements calm. Jack looked quite relaxed for someone who was planning to commit suicide by drowning. He planned to just swim until he ran out of strength and the ocean consumes him.
Jack was quite calm. Ridiculously serene actually. Everything seemed matter of fact. He didn't want to live any more. And today was a good day to die. He would just continue swimming pacing himself. Be the first man to swim to the South Pole, he thought to himself, and added “and then to be eaten by a Polar Bear”, and laughed.
Yet his strong sinewy muscles grew cold in the waters. Hypothermia was setting in. After a few more hours, he would get muscle cramps, he would struggle in the open sea. The dark waves would swallow him and he would finally drown.
All kinds of thoughts and past events were swirling around in his head like a merry go round. But it was too painful, too horrible for him to remember. He struggled with the haunting images in his mind and failed to overcome them. And so retreated into the physical world and concentrated on his swimming. Crafting every stroke. Measuring each breath. Perfecting the motion. Onwards he swam boldly in the blue sea. Alone and unafraid of its cold dark depths, yet paradoxically fearful of the monsters that slumbered inside his own mind.
After several hours of swimming, he heard a voice. He paused, incredulous. He was by now miles out into the open sea. He kept on swimming and the voice grew more louder and desperate. He stopped swimming again and started looking around. Was he going crazy? It was a woman's voice. Insane, out here??? And she was crying for help.
3
Jack swam towards the sound of her cries for help and found the drowning woman. She was struggling in the current, exhausted and desperately trying to keep her head above water.
He reached her just as she was about to disappear beneath the grey sea.
"What the hell are you doing out here?"
She spluttered: "Who are .... I'm fucking drowning. What the hell do you think??".
His eyes was still clouded in disbelief and then she snapped, "The boat!"
He turned and looked - and saw the yacht a few miles away.
The current was strong - and it was a tough struggle to reach the boat. There was a loud party that was going on - plenty of alcohol. Pretty women in colorful bikinis. It didn't seem as if anyone would have noticed them. Fortunately, someone spotted their cries for help and a small dingy was launched to help Jack.
4
By this time everyone on the ship stopped whatever they were doing and watched the dingy rescue.
Jack felt very self conscious as they were both helped onto the deck. He felt uneasy with all the attention, especially the young women whose eyes wandered over his body sinfully.
A tall large man came forward and put out his hand.
"Mate, thanks for saving my wife."
"Yeah, no worries."
"My name with Kerry Wever. My mates call me "Weave". And this is my boat. Make yourself at home. Can I get you a beer mate?"
Jack shrugged. But Weave pushed a bottle into his hands.
"Here have this. Its great stuff – it’s a boutique Tasmanian lager." I liked it so much I bought the brewery.
The tall man eyed Jack inquisitively and rolled, "So where's your boat?"
Jack stared stone faced not knowing what to say. A few of the beautiful young girls crowded around Kerry, staring at the stranger with cat like femininity.
He stammered, the effects of the hypothermia still clogging his brain cells, "I don't have one... I err... I was out for a swim."
"You were out for a WHAT?!!!" a bemused Kerry barked, almost choking on his words.
The girls started giggling.
"A Swim." muttered Jack defensively.
"Out here?"
"@#k mate. You've come out a @#king long way for a @#$king swim mate." Kerry said with a mocking tone.
A grizzly looking man from the boat's bridge - leaned over the railing and said,
"Boss, if you're trying to swim to Tasmania you're a bit late mate."
"Tasmania???" Jack startled, feeling very foolishly. He had this image of himself running aground into a Tasmania beach and screwing up his suicide attempt.
"A sheila's done it already. Swam there in 14 hours across the Bass. But you're going the wrong way mate, you're heading to the South Pacific Ocean."
At this stage, Jack angrily gritted his teeth and wanted to jump back into the ocean and carry on his swim the moment their backs were turned.
Kerry, having had a good laugh, and seeing the pain in Jack's face, slapped him on his back.
"Sorry son. We're just having some fun."
"Sit down. You must be exhausted. You're 100km out at sea."
"Come join us - we've got some great sausages on the barbie."
The aroma of fresh barbecued steak and sausages drifted through the air. But to Jack it was a stench. The smell of burnt meat nauseated him.
When he saw the BBQ machine, his face turned pale. On that grill instead of sausages lay the body parts of a child sizzling in the flames.
(to be continued...)
YaummingChiam Copyright 2009
