Intrepidity

A Story by Skwid

A cool mist settles over the all but calm water as it bores into the face of the cliffs sheer rocky exterior, droning on and on with unnerving repetition, driving me into a fitful sleep and silent insanity.

I lay in my bare and icy cabin staring at the sea trying to understand what its whispering. The chilly mist shifts and churns with muffled distaste and as I peer out my window, glazed with dew, I see my own disdain staring back, urging me to understand.

On the edge of the cliff lays some moss swaying gently with the wind, tickling the mist, drawing it away from the frothy water. The ocean rears up, nipping at the ankles of the mist as it shifts haughtily seemingly entertained by the playful moss.

I step out of my cabin and walk slowly toward the cliffs edge observing the angry ocean, laughing mist and joking moss. The whole spectacle finally piquing my interest I let a small wry grin crack across my face. The moss stops moving as the wind nudging it slows, letting the mist settle once again on the water. The ocean still beating relentlessly, replaying its resilient message recounting the seemingly endless prose of redundant monotony, quietly settling into a timeless routine.

The sound of my feet muffled by the carpeting grass, hobbles towards the edge, in my mind words start to form, sentences grow and paragraphs sprout from the inane cacophony rebounding in my head, there is no turning back once in the public eye and I continue to move forward wringing out the words for meaning and reorganizing them to form better ones and fresh new ideas.

My foot crosses the edge and the chilled air acting as a cushion for but only a fraction of a second finally gives way to what must now be. I plunge through the mist as it shifts in sudden surprise; the ocean seems calm for just a moment, questioning and curious.

The water blinds and stings yet I scream my idea into the dark freezing sea and as I watch in desperation at the uprising bubbles being mangled and reformed while a strangle is imposed upon me by the encroaching darkness forcing me to cling to life for only a few short moments more as my butchered thoughts burst out against the mist and fall back adding to the froth of the mocking sea. I close my eyes against the biting brine sinking slowly and letting the current rip at my body, my last fleeting thoughts turning to tar and weighing me farther down and at last letting me escape to the coming light…