What Was Lost

It was dark. No moon. The man with the missing eye looked out at the ocean. Never before had he seen it look so impenetrable. He squinted and squinted: nothing, only sound. The omniscient lapping of the incoming tide against the rocks and the cold single-minded western wind made him think of times long past: his mother. He longed to hear her small voice again. It had been twenty years since. Hadn’t it? Yes it had. In the times before, he would stop by her house on the weekends – in San Clemente – spend the day with her and her dog Cal. He would get so bored listening to her talk of a friend she had met at an antique store, or of a "real good discount” she received on a dozen scented candles. If I had the chance to go back I would not be bored listening to her. He knew good-and-well he could never go back.

            It was so dark on the jetty. He had to go in the water now. He had to search for what was lost – what still had the possibility of salvage. The man slowly lowered himself into the cold invisible ocean. He was breathing harder and deeper. Stinging pressure. He swam away from the rocks and towards a small zodiac boat he knew was waiting past the breakers. As he swam he thought about the ever-revolving teeth of sharks. Keep swimming! He could hear the small engine froth and gurgle in the brine blackness before him; a gasoline smell too. He reached the boat, grabbed the side and was mechanically pulled aboard by four strong arms. He was covered with a towel. No one spoke. They sped away into what he imagined as unavoidable misery, but there was a dim hope in finding his brother, and in finding the ten million dollars. Shame and duty struggled for supremacy within the man. The boat did not stop until it emerged on a deep purple Pacific sunrise –a cold glassiness and forever sky. This meant sleep. The men slept.

When the man woke he looked to the two other men in the boat  – burly beards and sunken eyes – a smell of stale whiskey and tobacco. . .

Words by Marcus Bandy