Die or Battle God

The reality of my situation hit me hard that night. I had given up on life.

I was out of money, out of work, out of home, and out of luck. All I had left in the

world was my boat. I was living, (if you wish to call it such), out of my thirty-two foot

sloop, Hijinx. I was anchored in the Mosquito River Lagoon because I couldn't even

scrounge up the fifteen freakin' bones to rent a boat slip in Cocoa Beach for the night.

I was down under in the cabin where it was hot, muggy, and cramped. The rain had

been steady for four hours now. It pelted and echoed through the boat in a somber

chorus with my swirling thoughts. The cabin was black save for the eerie red glow of

my marine radio. It bathed the space in a haze reminiscent of a claustrophbic old

submarine. The ship-to-shore transmission gave no comfort. The voice was not even

human. It was some static filled, robotic-drone monotone. It was confusing my

thoughts so I had to turn it off. I needed to save that battery anyway in case I

had to start my engine before I sailed out of this god forsaken shit-hole. No power,

no lights, no hope. I sat alone, the micro-flashes of lightning shattered the utter

darkness, creating hallucinations upon the bulkheads. there I sat for hours...listening to

the faroff thunder and the incessant drone of a dirge in my brain.

My life was fucked. I was awash in a storm of conflicting sentiment. I screwed

everything up! God hated me! I was born with such opportunity, only to squander my

talents in search of intangible hedonism. No! It's not me! God did this shit. He is

punishing me for my sinful ways. But I am really a good person, right? Yes..he is only

testing my faith and resolve like he did Job. No, I just fuck everything up, every time,

on a consistant basis...it's my nature. I was born with all the necessary tools; brains,

braun, looks, talent...I just use them unwisely. Didn't God provide you with these

traits? Well yes..I mean no...maybe it's just programed deep within my genetic

code somewhere? Maybe I just make shitty choices...the lure of a romantic

idealist...easy come easy go...women, money,etc.? Maybe God is real and he's

punishing me, testing me, judging me? Who the hell knows. I hadn't known at the time

that I was insane. It just sort of creeps into your mind like a thief when your not

looking, waiting to take it and have it's way with you.

Eventually, my beleagered brain could take no more. The world was shit. My life

was shit. I was shit. I sat quietly in the dark for another hour in depressed catatonia,

watching the flashes of lightning dance macabrely in my tomb, listening to the

ominous growls of thunder, creeping steadily toward me like stalking death. Tomorrow,

tomorrow I would pull up anchor and sail outta here. Tomorrow I would head east

through the St. Lucie cut into the emptiness and forgiveness of the vast Atlantic.

I'll point myself south and just wander off into the deep.

At the moment I had resigned myself to my questionable fate, the wind turned. It

gathered strength and began to howl. The pelting of the rain turned violent, now sheeting

onto the cabin roof. From fifteen miles-per-hour, suddenly the wind opened and roared

to a gale-force eighty miles-per-hour. Shocked out of my stupor I climbed the

companionway to have a peek through the door into the cockpit of my craft. I

poked my head above the companionway to see the squall rolling over me like a

giant black wave in the night sky that streched from horizon to horizon. The rain now

rode upon the gale horizontally, it pelted my face so hard it felt like a thousand

needles pricking my face. The steel cable stays of the mast whistled and whined

so loudly it sounded like an air-raid siren above. The heavy nylon ropes holding the

boom tightly in it's center position groaned and creaked, threatening to rend the boat

apart. The sea churned and roiled, the waves in the large lagoon swelled to ten feet

high. The boat now began to sway and pitch violently, at odds with the anchor straining

to hold her steady. I marked my position in relation to the distant shore and hoped the

anchor would hold. Hijinx's nose was pointed into the wind so I ducked back inside the

cabin. I had my head out for only ten seconds yet It was soaked and rain-scoured. At

least the lightning was off to the west. I would sit and just ride it out.