Fragments 2/10: Blue horizon
For 10 days (starting October 30th), I am:
- Setting a timer for 15 minutes
- Writing what I can during that time
- Stopping when the time is up
- Posting what is written without editing
For additional context, check out the first post in this series by clicking here.
START
The roar invaded from all directions. Tossed and thrown, upside down, rightside up. Salt on the tongue and in the nostrils. Limbs flailing and kicking, trying to find some solid surface; suddenly weighted by the sog of wet clothes and boots. A sudden plunge and muffling of all sound while pockets of air rippled past the ears. Eyes clenched tight like a submarine hatch.
Everything was still in that moment. It felt like hours. A damp blue hue pierced the black void of my eyelids. Above me, a wrinkled blue sheet quivered as the waves rolled over head. Long, black lines that stretched from east to west (or was it north to south?) advanced in fast succession towards some unknown shore. Gray figures moved according to the rhythm of these lines. Like marionettes dangling from unseen strings, they were lifted upwards as the line rolled by, becoming small specks at their peak, crashing back down and bouncing slowly to a
STOP
I'm not too sure where this was going. At the beginning, I was thinking of the opening scene from the movie "Saving Private Ryan" with its brutal depiction of the troops storming the beach at Normandy. Some shots alternate above and below the water line, giving an eerie, audible contrast between the roaring chaos just above the surface and the muffled stillness beneath.
While writing, I was undecided on the actual scenario that was happening. However, if I had more time this might have become an imagination/reality contrast of sorts. At first glance, the story might seem pretty dark, as though the character (whoever they are) is stranded at sea. But maybe this account is simply the imagination of a child swimming in a wave pool at a water park? What if the first paragraph describes the moment they got knocked off of their inner tube and in the second paragraph, they're simply floating underwater, imagining they've been shipwrecked and that the people bobbing with the waves above are fellow shipmates? The physical surface of the water would serve as a convenient transition between reality and imagination; when the character resurfaces, we as readers would be transported with them back to the reality of a colorful, loud waterpark. And in the manner of children, who know how to do such things so well and so naturally, we would leave the shipwreck and the vast, infinite emptiness of the sea just beneath the rippling surface of a 5-foot-deep swimming pool.