This is a short excerpt from a story in progress. I wrote it many months ago.
Sea date log, March 21, 2132, I think. Day eighteen at sea. Some days I almost forget to mark the blue painted wood of the diminutive boat. Keeping track of dates has become mundane and at times oddly humorous. I wonder why I continue. I’ve lost track of the days of the week. It could be Monday or Saturday for all I know. In truth, it doesn’t really matter anymore. Maybe days of the week never mattered. Maybe dates don’t matter. Time continues to slip away from me, becoming less and less important. I keep a log only for the person who might find me starved and dead. They may want to know how long I was afloat. My family might want to know. So I keep this diary for them and carve the wood for reasons I still question. In some ways, carving the wood feels ancestral, raw and primitive. It reminds me that at any moment, all else could be lost. So much has been lost already.
The sun is making its descent from the highest point in the sky. Night will come as quickly as it left. I will soon for a short while sleep so I can keep watch over the boat at dusk. Strange things surface from the sea at night. It is like a jungle with wild things waiting for the sun to go down so they can easily capture their next meal. I have become like those wild things, a prey that will fight for life, even in the midst of the lions of the sea.
The ocean undulates beneath my ailing boat. The sails took a proper beating from the storm that cast me into the vast ocean. To be the only survivor on a boat that once brimmed with the life of seven souls is difficult. To keep me sane, I began making diary entries. I was on deck writing yesterday when a strong wind blew away the pages of my first seventeen days. It was then I realized that I needed to continue making the carvings. If I lost more diary entries, or I died, someone would know how long I was at sea. My only hope was that the boat didn’t sink. All would be lost if I went under. No one would know my fate.
© zaji
This is developing well. I’d like to hear the backstory of how he would up stranded or abandoned. How is he surviving in terms of food and fresh water. I would guess the life boat, regular boat is bigger than a dingy. Makes me wonder if at one point he was part of a larger group and they tossed or dumped him.
My attempt at a sea story within the Horror genre. http://dancingpalmtrees.com/2013/12/13/maelstrom-devolution-realm-of-the-abortinates/
There is already a semi twist. It is a woman stranded at sea.