Being of Two Minds

The sails were full and the boat was cutting a straight furrow through the rising swells in the direction of the south shore, but the shoreline remained out of view in the waning light of a November afternoon. Racing away from the nearing stack of dark gray clouds to the northwest, buffeted by wind gusts of increasing velocity and pelted by cold, heavy rain, the sailboat appeared to be under the control of a less than able sailor.

At the helm was a yellow figure gripping the wheel hard as much to stay in the boat as to guide it. Twisting and contorting itself this way and that as if it were a demon frantically trying to keep from being sucked into the maw of hell. Waves crested and broke over the stern and starboard flooding the open-hatched cabin space below deck. The figure was losing its footing as the water rushed across the deck and then a towering wave swallowed the little boat momentarily but tossed it back up. When righted and back on course, the boat had lost its helmsman. He'd disappeared in the surge and froth of the storm's fury.

The sailboat pitched in the powerful swells, rolling and yawing at will and miraculously not capsizing as the bow continued to be more or less perpendicular to the waves. Through the dense rain of darkening day, the forest silhouette could just be picked out, but the nearness of shore brought other dangers—underwater rocks that could shred the keel of a boat into strips of timber.

Remarkably, the little boat rode a wave almost completely across the rocky ridge that paralleled the beach, but an untimely roll tilted the boat to port where a craggy outcropping stabbed into the side of the vessel but then released it sending it bobbing back upright. Having passed over the danger of the rock reef, the boat got dragged ashore by the short, fast breaking waves.

The next morning was calm. The sailboat lay on its side deep in the sand of the shallows. There were no patrols out on the lake. The boat had left from a private dock, leaving no message in town, and no one in their right mind would have taken a boat out in that weather, so it was unlikely there would be a search. Secondly, the area to be searched would be vast, and thirdly, this was a remote area where small aircraft were hard to come by.

On the beach, just above the high tide mark, was the yellow slicker and the body of the helmsman, inert. The sun rose to a clear blue sky, birds were flying overhead and singing in the colourful woods another 20 feet inland, and the air was crisp and still. An otherwise perfect fall day. Around midday, the radiant heat from the sun was beating down on the white beach sand and the yellow slicker that was so out of place.

A skunk walking along the edge of the woods must have been startled, because it sprayed and sent something running through the underbrush. On the beach, the yellow slicker stirred. The head was raised, the nose took a deep sniff, and the coughing and choking set in—signs that the helmsman had survived. Scrambling away from the scent, he ended up back in the water, and the cold of the lake water brought him fully round.

His hair was matted and stuck to his head with dried blood. He'd hit his head on something—maybe that had knocked him unconscious—but his vision was clear and his thinking, once awake, seemed lucid. There was no fresh blood, and there didn't seem to be a puncture. It was just a scrape. And a lucky escape.

Crawling back up out of the water and onto the dry sand, he rolled over on his butt and surveyed the shoreline where the waves were placidly pushing up the slight incline of the beach, and there 50 feet down the beach about 20 feet out in the water was the sailboat, lying on its side, with what appeared to be a gouge portside.

"What in the hell did you get us into? How stupid can you be to go out on the lake with a storm front moving in so fast?"

"I got us here safely though, didn't I?"

Getting to his feet was not easy. The first couple of times he stumbled and fell, but on the third try, he was able to shed his slicker and make his way, albeit with an awkward, bandy-legged gait, to the partially submerged boat.

"We can repair this. It isn't such a large hole and it's high enough that it might even be above the waterline if the lake is calm like today."

"You're in luck then. If we get out of this alive, we—no, make that I—will have to do something about it. This kinda shit's been happening too often, and you're gonna get us both killed."

"If it were up to you, we'd never have taken up sailing or skydiving or race car driving ... we'd never have done anything except watch others live ... and read thick books ... and listen to piped-in music from Seattle or Paris or wherever. What's the point in being alive if you're not living?"

"But—fool—you've got to be alive to live, and I'm quite content to stay alive, which means you're gonna have to give."

"Give? Give what?"

"Give up on living on the edge. Those meds—well, I'm filling the prescription as soon as we get back to the city, and we'll just see which one of us survives. Capiche?"