Castaway

Authors Note: I wrote this very short little story for a friend on his birthday. I hope you all enjoy reading it.

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A sun-bronzed man walks the edge of the water on a deserted beach of the tropical island that is his prison. His ragged trews hinting at his port of origin as he scans the far horizon for the chance passing of a ship.

"Son of a syphilitic puppy killin', slimy, biastich!" He roared as his toe battered against a large piece of dross sticking out of the smooth sand. Bending his sun-baked naked torso, he dug at the misty glass cylinder pulling it free of the shores golden clutches, hoping for wine or better yet rum.

Seeing only parchment, he thought to throw it back into the briny waves only to pause and wonder at such a thing. Sitting beneath the fronds of a date palm, he unstopped the cork and gently coerced the pristine parchment from its home.

The hand was highly decorative and flowery, and he struggled to make sense of the words. Scratching his beard he narrowed his eyes and read...

"To my pirate love so far away:

In my dreams and because of my dreams, I write because I must. I write because the silence slowly kills me. I write to be free of this unrequited love and to embrace it because it is my burden. I write simply because I love you.

Again you are gone from this land to sail the turbulent sea in search of the riches. Riches, not for wealth, but to make your name renowned throughout our lands as well as the lands of those from whom you liberate from the burden of their wealth, no doubt. I find myself searching the docks for your face or seeking out your companions in the hopes they tell tales of your exploits. Alas, those companions closest to you have followed you yet again into the unknown seas to the west.

I feel bereft and alone. I am homeless without a place to seek out your face and the smile that seems, at least to my mind, reserved just for me. Of course, this is mere foolishness. One such as you could hardly know that I existed. I am not one of the bawdy wenches who sit on your knee and stroke your beard. I am not one of the flighty girls who swoon in your path as you walk the streets and lanes of our settlement. I am much more and yet nothing in your eyes. I am the sister, the cousin, the friend so often overlooked and accepted as part of the landscape of your world. How I wish to be more. How I wish to be bawdy or pretty and frail instead of invisible to your eyes.

It is at night that I can make believe that you are here, and you can see me, not just as a part of the village but as you see the other women to whom you give your time. It's at night I can fool myself as I walk the docks alone, believing that you also think of me. That we see the same stars and that the sweet lady moon watches over us both. I smile and let my mind wander to my wishes and dreams, ignoring the reality of my situation.

Inside my foolish mind, I can believe you are here beside me. In my desires, I can believe that you smile just for me. In my dreaming, we can walk together in the moonlight with the sound of soft waves lapping at the timber docks. I am happy in my mind with thoughts of you and can walk until the morning brightens the horizon with you beside me... but dawn's early light serves to remind me that it's only in my mind, and I do not enter your thoughts at all as you sail so far from here.

I close my eyes against that truth, and I can feel your arms around me. If I lose my way in that darkness, I know that you will find me. I close my eyes tighter and see your face and smile that you have found me... if only in my mind. I turn west forcing my back to the rising sun. I look up to the same moon you see and know we are merely heart beats away, and I pray you return safely to our village so that I can see you once more. In that moon, I can see you and I as we move from our village of fading starlight.

As the dawn brightens, I know it's only in my mind. I know that I talk to myself and not to you. The disappearing moon reflects upon the water and shows the way to the distant horizon that took you away yet again. Is it the glory, the riches or the pure exhilaration of the hunt and battle that takes you from here, from me?

In the full early morning light, the mists still give me hope that you will return and see me there, waiting and watching that distant horizon. That you will recognise the love and adoration in my eyes rather than dismissing me for the cheering crowds who welcome the riches you have brought to this cold and snowy village.

Are you so blind that you can't see that my eyes shine like silver in the light you radiate? Are you so unaware of those that surround you that you cannot see... me? Still I love you and, when the sun rises to dispel the night and the morning mist to show the empty ocean, I pray for your safe return. That you come home to a world full of happiness that others will give you, for your blindness robs you of what I would willingly give should you look to me for something more.

A tear touches my cheek as I realise yet again that I have only been pretending, that your life will go on and be full of riches I can never know. How I want you to see this letter and know the riches opening your eyes could bring to a man such as you. Still this too will be ashes in the wind as I send it to you across the seas. Be safe my unrequited love and come home to the village so that I may gaze upon your face again and lament the blindness of your eyes.

X."

Carefully rolling the parchment and stoppering it once more the castaway stood and walked back to the edge of the shore. With what little energy he had, he cast the bottle as far as he could to travel once again on the briny blue sea. "Every man should have a love such as this that waits for him. Every man should know that girl waits with a full heart for his return. Every man should continue to try to return home to his life and his village and that girl who would tempt him to be the marrying kind." He turned and scanned the horizon once more for a ship that could take him home. Closing his eyes, he let himself believe his love walked once again beside him, and he smiled.