Member-only story
WISHFUL THINKING — DAY 21 WRITING PROMPT
To Dream the Impossible Dream
What would you wish for?
My seventh grade class on “Basic Rescue and Water Safety” hadn’t prepared me for long hours spent bobbing up and down on twenty-foot swells, trying to breathe and stay awake while keeping salt water out of my nose and mouth. Trying not to panic. Because one lesson ingrained in us above all others: Panic kills.
Don’t panic. That’s easier said than done while imagining yourself trying to curl your ice-cold, waterlogged claw of a hand into a fist, wondering if you could punch a shark in the nose or if you’d just be spoon-feeding him your arm. Fortunately, I never saw a shark.
Eventually, I let the cold and dark embrace me, lull me into acceptance of imminent death. I’d stopped shivering. Just drifted, dreamlessly, bonelessly, on the waves like sargassum.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on a rocky beach, sand in my hair, eyes, ears, and unmentionable, uncomfortable places. I coughed. My teeth felt gritty, and my lips were salty. Cracked, too, from hours in the sun and seawater. I tasted blood. But I wasn’t dead.
Might as well be. You know that question people ask, sometimes — “If you were marooned on a deserted island, what one thing would you want to have…
