By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
—T.S. Eliot
I gambled on adventure and won.
Now I'm on a private island with a beautiful woman having escaped the drudgery and boredom of my daily life and the excessive demands of my literary agent, Melody Bride.
Still, heaven isn't always what it's cracked up to be and despite being with an alluring stranger I'm already feeling restless.
It seems like hours have passed and the sun, now below the dark waves, smoulders with the intense glow of a forest fire.
“I should be getting back,” I tell her.
I can barely see her in the gloom—her face a white flower petal with dark stains for mouth and eyes.
“You can’t leave,” she whispers.
At first, I’m flattered, but as I stare into the gloom, the sense of her words sink into me—less a desire than a command.
“I have to go, Chiara,” I firmly repeat, but feel my words flutter to the earth like withered leaves.
“Why do you want to leave? You can stay here with me, Jay. I don’t want you to leave like the others.”
An icy tingle starts at the nape of my neck—I feel the hair on my arms rise up and stand on end. A sudden irrational terror seizes me, as if I were standing at the edge of an abyss.
Her voice is flat and matter of fact. “You can’t go, Jay. You’re here now.”
I sense dark forms around me—dark arms reaching out to grasp me. It’s irrational, but overwhelming. In blind panic I run back to the wharf, but when I reach it, there’s no boat.
A strange musty odour rises up from the island and dark foreboding grips my soul. So, this is hell, I think, and a wave of hopelessness sweeps over me.
I panic, and run directly to the lake and plunge in.
A night wind has come up and the waters are choppy. I’m too distressed to think clearly—I just know I have to get away.
Even the black roiling lake waters are preferable to the suffocating heaviness of the island.
I swim several strokes, and roll onto my back and float.
I swim a few more strokes and float again. I’m determined—I’ll swim the Atlantic if necessary to avoid that horrific sense of doom.
After perhaps a quarter hour, my arms are burning and my limbs feel heavy. I know there’s no way I’m going to be able to swim back across the lake.
In the darkness, I can make out a stormy sky above me, a few flashes of lightning, but can’t see over the crests of rolling waves. I’m totally abandoned and without hope.
It’s then, at my lowest hour, with waves slapping me and making me swallow water, I hear the soft rumble of an approaching motor launch.
I cry for help and see a searchlight sweeping over the water. I claw out in desperation as if to grasp it, but can’t.
I slowly go under.
Next thing I remember is coughing up lake water and staring up bleary-eyed up into a man’s face.
It turns out my car abandoned in the parking lot prompted the restaurant to notify the police and they were about to call off the search for the night, when they heard my cries.
I’m taken to the local hospital where they give me first aid and phone Melody.
She drives out and spends the night by my side.
It’s been a week now and I still haven’t been able to talk about it, or explain to Melody what I was doing in the middle of a lake at night.
I try to tell her, but my throat constricts and I feel the tears well up in my eyes.
She says she understands, and I hope she does, because I sure as hell don’t.
The restaurant sent a nice Get-Well card, along with a gift coupon I won’t be using any time soon. I think I’ll be staying close to home for a while.
She charmed me to sleep, Chiara. She was a shadow across my mind. Everything dark and cold and was in her, and held me in a thrall.
Now I’m back to life with Melody—taking it one day at a time—sober, single and in control, determined to stay within the lines.