Sam Zwick

The small boat rose and fell at the mercy of the sea. Each plank of wood moaned as the water beat and pounded at the small vessel, fighting to tear its way inside. The boy’s father pulled at one rope and then another, straining against the storm.

The boy sat huddled in the corner, shivering as the cold mist stung his face. He had been to sea with his father before, but had never experienced anything like this.

They’d taken small trips first, just beyond the reef of their tiny island where the boy learned to swim amongst the waves.

As he grew older, his father took him further into the open. The boy would swing his legs off the back of the boat, watching his father dive deep, nothing but a spear in his hand and two lungs full of air to protect him from what lay below.

The boy wished to dive with his father, to explore the depths and master fishing with a spear.

“You must wait,” his father would say. “Your time will come, but you are not of age. Until you are, you won’t be able to bring enough air with you.”

The boy hated to wait. He knew he could dive and conquer the deep. He would prove to his father that he was ready. He would spear a fish of his own.

One day, after his father had disappeared below the surface, the boy grabbed a spear. He slipped into the water, holding the side of the boat. The water was warm. The length of the spear was awkward in his hand, but the boy felt powerful holding it. He adjusted his grip on the boat and began rhythmically breathing just as his father did before each dive.

The boy took his final breath and let his body sink. Calmly, he turned and kicked his feet above his head, staring down into the darkness below. Another kick propelled him deeper.

Kick.

And the darkness came closer.

Kick.

Or was the light drawing away from him?

Kick.

The boy turned his body. The world was blue, bluer, and black. The darkness surrounded him. He could still see the light, but he could no longer tell where the surface lay. He looked left and saw dark and light bleed together. To his right, the same. The darkness was below, but it was also encroaching above.

Something moved close to him. The boy twisted, but saw nothing. To his right, a flash of silver, but again, he missed it.

The boy felt his chest tighten. It was colder here than it was at the surface. The darkness was closing in on him from all sides now. The boy felt small. He kicked his feet, but the effort only propelled him further into the nothing. The darkness was no longer around him, but in him as well. His eyes began to fog over, the spear becoming heavy in his hand.

As the boy dropped his head, he saw another flash of movement and then nothing but the blackness.

He felt a sharp pain in his chest. And then another. He gasped for air, but could find none. His body wretched as he squeezed his lungs, water running from his mouth and nose with a gurgle. Again, he searched for a breath and this time his wish was granted. A flood of warm air filled his chest, burning its way in. He inhaled again and the burn worsened on the way out.

Coughing and sputtering, the boy opened his eyes. The sun was blinding, but as he adjusted, the boy could make out the face of his father. Worry, relief and anger all flowed from the man’s eyes, each emotion hitting the boy like a punch to the gut.

“You were not ready,” his father said.

The boy nodded, tears filling his eyes. He could not control himself and began to weep.

His father brought him close. “You are okay my son. You are alright.”

“I’m sorry, father,” the boy cried. “I did not mean to.”

“No one means to die, my son. Eventually, death comes for us all, but you must not let death find you before it is meant to. You must not make it easy.”

——————————————

A wave smacked the side of the boat, pulling the boy from his memory. He was older now than he was then, but the boy still couldn’t dive like his father. The thought scared him as each crest brought another violent spray, like a hand reaching from the sea to pull him to the deep.

The boy looked up at his father. The man who had always seemed so strong, so in command, was dwarfed by the power of the storm. The darkness the boy remembered from down below had filled the sky, engulfing the boat. Suddenly, the vessel dropped. The boy felt his stomach rise into his throat as he gripped the worn wood for balance. He looked over the edge and saw a wall of water rising before the tiny craft.

“Hold on!” his father shouted, barely audible above the screaming squall.

The boy braced his body and clenched his eyes shut. Time felt slower. He waited for what seemed like minutes, hours even, for the water to reach him. When it had been so long that he thought perhaps the sea had changed its mind, the boy felt the wave crash over him. He was engulfed, torn away from the boat.

The world spun violently. He opened his eyes and felt the familiar sting of salt water. Blackness swirled into itself. The boy kicked his feet, hoping to find the surface. If there still was a surface. The whole world seemed to be nothing but water.

The boy felt his lungs ache and twist inside him. They begged for air, but he couldn’t find any. The darkness began creeping into the corners of his eyes. Like smoke rolling out of a wet log on the fire, it clouded his vision.

Then something grabbed his shoulder, yanking him from above. In an instant, the world was alive again. The wind and rain slapped his face, chasing the cloud of darkness away. Air filled his chest. He gasped for more even before he had exhaled, worried that he wouldn’t get enough.

Another pull on his arm and the boy was thrust into something hard. He looked down and saw the wood of the boat below him. A moment of relief was washed away by what he didn’t see. The rest of the boat. It was gone. He bobbed in the surf on a slab of wood only slightly larger than he was.

The hand grasping his shoulder clenched tight. The boy looked and saw his father in the water next to him. The greatest diver the boy had ever seen was fighting to stay at the surface. His father’s eyes filled with the same worry, relief, and anger the boy had seen the day he had tried to dive.

“Hold tight, my son!” the man shouted.

His eyes widened, fear flashing across them for an instant, but then his expression changed. The boy’s father looked him in the eyes and smiled.

In the same moment, another wall of water collapsed on him from above, sending the slab of wood beneath the surface. The boy felt his father’s hand disappear. The chunk of boat shot back above the surf. The boy held tight, searching left, then right for any sign of his father.

He saw only darkness.

——————————————

The boy clung tight to the board as the sea and the sky fought for control. As his strength began to fade, so did the storm. The sun rose and brought warmth, but little else. The boy scanned the horizon and saw only the vastness of the ocean.

So for a day, he floated. The sun beat down, but the rocking of the sea proved a lullaby too tempting to resist and the boy faded in and out of sleep.

The sleep was reminiscent of the darkness he felt on the day he dove too deep. It was like being wrapped in a blanket, comfortable at first, but then too tight. The boy began to feel lost. He dreamed of his father, reaching down and hauling him from the sea. He woke with a start.

The boy’s father was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he saw a palm leaf float slowly by. He looked up and in the distance, saw the shape of an island backlit by the afternoon sun.

The boy dropped into the water and, holding his raft in front of him, began to kick.

He kicked as the blue in the sky gave way to oranges, reds, and pinks.

He kicked as the brilliant colors faded and the island was nothing more than the darkest spot against a dark sky.

Finally, as the stars began to emerge, the boy felt sand between his toes. He let go of the last piece of his father’s boat and crawled through the small waves of the shore to the cool beach.

He dropped to the sand, this time letting himself fall without fight into the darkness of sleep.

——————————————

Thirst woke the boy after the sun had already risen. He looked up from the beach and surveyed the meager island.

To one side lay a field of large, jagged rocks protruding from the shallows. They reminded the boy of the clams and mollusks his father would collect in a woven bag and then dump on their table. The boy always loved to help pry them open and scrape out the meat inside, but remembered the cuts on his hands from the jagged edges of the shells.

The rest of the island was covered in dense thickets of palm trees and underbrush. A tree or two didn’t mean fresh water, but this many had to mean there was a spring somewhere. The boy felt a pang of sadness as he walked off the beach. His father had taught him that.

You must not let death find you before it is meant to. You must not make it easy.

Another lesson from his father.

And so the boy found water and he drank. He found a coconut and, like his father had taught him, opened it and ate.

He found wood and, just as he had learned, he built a fire. As the light faded from the sky, the boy stared into the flames.

He could try to build a boat, but without the strength of a man, it was impossible.

If he were to stay on the island, he would need more than coconuts. He would need to fish.

The thought sent the boy back to the swirling darkness of the deep. He had never feared learning to fish, but that was always with the belief that his father would be by his side. Now, the boy knew he had to dive with no one there to pull him back if the darkness came too close.

As the night wore on, the fire burned lower and the boy listened. The only sounds were the gentle lapping of the waves against the rocks and the crackling of the fire. No insects buzzed. No birds chirped. The trees swayed in the breeze, but silently, as if underwater.

The boy was alone.

——————————————

As the sun began to warm the morning air, the boy ventured into the trees. He knew he needed a good strong piece of wood just shorter than he was. It took most of the morning, but he found several suitable options.

But the wood was the only thing the boy found. The silence of the island again struck him. Darkness bringing quiet was expected, but in the light of day, the island remained asleep. The birds hadn’t chirped in the night because there were no birds. No lizards scampered through the trees, no insects buzzed by his ears, no crabs shuffled across the sand.

The boy was the only creature on the island.

The idea was unsettling, but the gnawing of his stomach overruled all other thoughts. The boy needed to make a spear and then he needed to fish.

The mountain of sharp rocks offered a workshop. His father had let him help make spears before. The key, the boy remembered, was to sharpen a fine point, but to make sure the wood did not crack and splitter as you worked. A cracked spear would swell in the water and become difficult to control.

The boy set to work rubbing the wood against the rocks. By the time the sun was highest in the sky, the boy had three sharp spears and four new pieces of firewood. He looked at the two piles before him with a mixture of pride and frustration. One represented his failure and the other his success. His father could have made twice as many spears in that time, but his father was not here.

The boy looked to the sea.

His father was there.

Again his empty stomach made a lunge for the boy’s attention. He needed to eat which meant he needed to fish. And that meant he needed to dive.

——————————————

As the boy swam away from the shore, he began to open his eyes below the surface. The sea stung, but he knew he would grow used to it. His father could see underwater as well as he could above it and the boy hoped that someday he would, too.

The sea was calm. The boy’s vision began to grow clearer and he soon saw that the rocks that spilled onto the beach lay along the ocean floor as well. They appeared to encircle the island.

Just past the rock line, the boy saw a flash of silver. He brought his head up and took a breath. His swim had taken him far enough away from the beach that the trees looked no larger than his hand when he held it to the horizon. The boy dared not venture any farther. He knew that once he speared a fish, if he speared a fish, it would draw the attention of the other creatures of the ocean. The closer to the safety of the sand he was, the better.

He began breathing as his father had done so many times before. Without a boat to hang onto, the boy floated on his back and closed his eyes.

One slow, deep breath filled his chest with air.

He exhaled just as slowly, pushing all the air from his body. Once his lungs were empty, he paused, and waited.

One

Two

Three

Finally, he began drawing in another breath. First expanding his stomach and then his ribs until his chest felt ready to burst.

The boy calmly flipped and started to kick.

The light from above began to fade. Another kick and the sea floor became visible. There was movement, but the boy struggled to make out the shape or size of the creatures below him.

Another kick brought him closer to his target. The darkness came closer as well.

The spear began to feel heavy in his hand, but a flash of silver provided a target. It was a small fish that had wandered slightly from its school.

The boy kicked once more and lunged the spear forward. Fish darted in every direction, but the tip of the spear found nothing but water.

The boy looked up. His lungs began to squirm inside him. He kicked again and again, racing away from the depths. He hadn’t intended to dive so deep and the journey up was taking longer than he had hoped.

The edges of his vision began to cloud and the boy kicked harder.

Was he even going in the right direction? As he contemplated the question, his head broke the surface. He inhaled deeply, coughing, but recovering more quickly than when his father had saved him.

The boy slapped the water, dropped his head and swam back to the beach.

——————————————

Tearing through the meager meat of a coconut, the boy felt the sting of his losses building.

His father was gone.

He had failed to spear a fish.

And he had no way off the island.

Tears formed in his eyes and the boy screamed, his father’s words ringing in his ears.

You must not let death find you before it is meant to. You must not make it easy.

“Come find me!” the boy shouted. “I can not fish, I can not dive and I can not survive alone!”

He threw the coconut to the sand and wept. The boy cried until his eyes hurt and his throat became dry. When he finally raised his head, the sun was painting the evening sky. The sand was beginning to cool and he had no fire. At least he could do that one task.

And so the boy got to work.

——————————————

Night settled on the island like a heavy fog. The boy sat and stared into the fire, the flames jumping and clawing at the cool night air, casting shadows through the nearby trees. Each flicker made them dance, giving the island a life it had otherwise lacked.

Something caught the boy’s eye. A shadow seemed to be moving among the trees. Deeper and darker than the rest, it was not controlled by the flames.

“Hello?” the boy called out.

The shadow stopped.

“Who are you?” the boy asked, but the shadow remained still and silent.

“Show yourself!” the boy shouted. “If I am not alone on this island, please show yourself.” The boy’s words started as a yell, but trailed off into a whisper.

The shadow moved closer to the edge of the trees. It was larger than the boy, the size of a man, but nothing more than darkness.

The boy rose to his feet. “What are you?” he asked.

The shadow moved beyond the trees to the opposite side of the fire.

“I am Death,” it said.

“Death?” the boy repeated.

“Yes, Death. This is my island. You asked me to find you and that’s what I have done,” the shadow replied.

The boy looked at the figure before him. It was not a man or a woman, nor was it an animal. It seemed to simply be nothing. Yet, it was familiar.

“I’ve seen you before,” the boy said.

“Many people have,” the shadow responded.

“The first time I dove, you were the darkness before my father rescued me.”

“Yes,” said the shadow. “I am not all darkness, but that day, I was the darkness you saw.” Each word flowed smoothly from the shadow. Each sentence delivered with a straightforwardness that required no emotion; these were facts and facts only.

The boy thought for a moment. “You were there in the storm as well. I felt you all around me.”

“You are correct, but I was not there for you,” the shadow replied.

“My father,” the boy whispered.

“Yes. It was time for your father to come with me.”

The boy grew angry. “No, it wasn’t!” he yelled. “I still need him!”

“No,” the shadow said calmly, “you do not.”

Tears again formed in the boy’s eyes. He clenched his fists and began to shake.

“Yes I do! I can not survive here alone! I can not fish, I can not dive and I can not escape this place without him.”

“Your father did not think these things,” said the shadow. “Had he thought you unprepared, he would not have gone with me.”

The boy stared in shocked silence.

“He would not go until he knew you were safe,” the shadow continued. “He pulled you from the water and he believed you had what you needed to live.”

The boy’s gaze dropped to the fire, doubt clouding his eyes.

“But he left me with nothing,” the boy said as he fell to his knees.

“Then what are those?” said the shadow, unmoving as the fire crackled and popped before it.

The boy looked left and then right, but saw nothing but the spears he had fashioned earlier in the day.

“Those? They’re spears, but my father did not leave me with them. I made them.”

“And who taught you to make them?” the shadow asked.

“My father,” the boy said, looking at his handiwork. The spears were far from perfect, but each new one had been better than the last. “I couldn’t spear a fish, though,” the boy spat back at the shadow.

“How greedy you are,” it countered. “Did your father always return from the deep with a fish?”

The boy thought back to the many times his father came home empty handed. Those were the nights they ate the clams and mollusks. Nights where the boy helped his father open the shells and pull out the salty meat.

“Your father survived times without fish, but you can not?” the shadow questioned.

The boy raised his head and looked at the jagged rocks along the shore. If he couldn’t catch a fish, perhaps he could find the shellfish that his father had sometimes relied on.

The boy turned back to the fire, ready to respond, but found that the shadow had gone. He looked around, but once again felt utterly alone.

——————————————

The light of the morning brought a new determination in the boy. He walked to the rocks and moved into the shallows. The rocks, though, were bare. None of the sea life that thrived in such a place on other islands existed here.

The boy looked at the thicket of trees.

This is my island.

The shadow had said that. It was Death’s island. That’s why no birds lived in the trees nor crabs in the sand. The boy truly was the only living creature on this spec of land in the middle of the sea.

He looked out to the water. The school of fish had been just beyond the rock line. Perhaps once the island ended, life begin to emerge. It would mean that the boy would need to dive again, though.

He took a spear and swam back into the open.

The boy positioned himself above the rock line. He breathed in and out and then flipped his body and kicked for the seafloor.

There were no fish in sight, but as he drew nearer to the rocks, the boy’s eyes widened. On one side, closest to the island, there was nothing. No crustaceans, no plants, no sign of life. But on the other side, that which faced out to the open ocean, life flourished. Crustaceans scurried along the jagged edges, green and purple plants clung to the sides of the rocks.

A clamshell caught the boy’s eye. He reached his hand forward and tried to pry the shell free, but it held tight. The boy looked up. The surface was well above and every moment spent under was one he needed to use wisely. He brought the tip of his spear to point where the rock and shell met. The boy swam against the spear and the shell popped loose. He dove to catch it as it floated lazily to the sand below. Pleased with himself, the boy looked for more shells, but began to feel the familiar longing in his chest. He needed air.

The boy planted his feet on a smooth part of the rock and propelled himself to the surface.

As he filled his lungs with the warm air of the day, the boy looked at his haul. It was a good-sized oyster; large enough to fill his hand. In his other hand was the spear. He contemplated diving once more but doing so would require either an impressive balancing act or a third hand, neither of which seemed realistic to hope for.

So the boy swam back to shore. It took a few tries, but he was able to crack the shell open and enjoy the briny meat inside.

If he wanted to feast on more than one shellfish at a time, the boy would need a way to carry multiple shells at once. He would need a woven bag, like the one his father had used.

The boy walked to the thicket of palm trees and began to work.

——————————————

By the time the sun went down, the boy had a crude, but serviceable bag of woven palm fronds, just like his father’s.

The next day, the boy swam to the rocks and collected more shells. He still couldn’t stay under for long, but each dive was more comfortable than the last.

Time went on and one shell per dive became two, then three and four. Soon, the boy was filling the small bag in a single dive.

Days turned to weeks and the boy spent more time in the sea. He became familiar with the rock line as it stretched all the way around the small island. The division of life and death was the same on all sides. If he wanted to spear a fish, the boy knew he needed to venture farther into the open.

The boy slowly grew more patient. Time on the island seemed to move slowly and the boy had to move with it. Finally, one evening as the sun was beginning to paint the sky, the boy speared his first fish. His father had always told him the feeling was unlike any other. For a moment, he and the fish were the only two creatures in the world. A stillness fell between them just before the boy thrust the spear forward and captured his prize.

The swim back to the sand was long, but the boy enjoyed the journey. His fish was secure in his bag and for the first time, the boy would enjoy a fish that he himself had speared.

On the beach, the flames of the fire flickered and grazed the bottom of his catch. The boy cooked it as he’d seen his father do many times before.

The shadows in the trees leapt and danced, celebrating the day with the boy. As he settled in to enjoy the feast, a shadow caught his eye. It moved against the trees but did not join in the wild dance of those around it.

“Death?” the boy called out. “I see you. Come and join me.”

The shadow moved to the place across the fire.

“You caught a fish,” it said.

“I did,” the boy beamed. “Just as my father taught me.”

“Your father would be proud. He knew you would survive,” the shadow said.

The boy took a bite from the fish. “Why is your island so quiet?” he asked, oil from the fish staining his lips. “There are no birds, no insects, even the sea creatures stay away. Did you take them all, like you did my father?”

The shadow remained still and quiet for a moment.

“Most creatures fear me,” the shadow finally said. “They run from me for as long as they can, but in the end, I’m always there to meet them.”

“My father warned me that I must not let you find me,” the boy replied. “But you did, many weeks ago and yet, I am alive?” The boy’s last words came as a question, one he had not previously considered. If he were the only living thing on Death’s island, was he actually still living?

“Yes, you are alive,” the shadow reassured. “So many run from me, but you did not. You invited me out from the shadows. You invited me out, but you did not give up on living, so you may see me before it is your time.”

The boy took another bite and considered the shadow’s words. “Will my time come on this island?” he asked.

“I do not know,” the shadow replied. “I do not know when a life has reached its time, but when it does, I am there.”

The boy pulled the last bit of meat from the fish and laid the bones near the fire. His father had made hooks from bones and perhaps he could too. For the first time since he found the island, the boy felt satisfied. His stomach no longer demanded his attention. He felt stronger than he had in weeks, maybe ever.

“I will see you again then, but it will not be on this island,” the boy declared.

“No,” the shadow replied as it moved to the trees, “I do not believe it will be.”

The boy watched the shadow disappear just beyond a large, fallen tree. He had noticed it during the first days on the island. Recently fallen then, its leaves had still been green. Perhaps the same storm that brought down the boat had done the same to the tree. The leaves were now brown and brittle having baked in the sun week after week.

“I will build a boat,” the boy said. “And I will leave this island.”

——————————————

More time passed. The boy continued to fish and dive deeper and longer. He ate his fill and began to grow. Each day, his routine was the same; rise with the sun, collect coconuts and freshwater, and then work on his boat. He used the sharpest of the shells he collected and began to scrape away chunks from the fallen tree. It was an old tree when it fell and so wide at its base that the boy, even as he grew, could not stretch his arms around it.

Each day, as the sun crested in the sky, the boy would make his way to the sea and begin his hunt for more fish. He did not always spear one, but the days he did not taught him to cherish the days he did.

More weeks passed. Each day, the boy grew stronger and the groove in the tree grew deeper. One day, the boy climbed inside the tree and sat. He had more work to do and it was not big, but the boy smiled. His father had built a boat with a mast and a sail. The boy had built a canoe. They were not the same, but in many ways, the boy knew they were.

——————————————

On the day the boy paddled away from the island, he looked down at the sea and saw his reflection. He was no longer a boy. His face was more angular and no longer smooth as hair had begun to pop in patches, like wild grasses on the beach. He was not yet full grown, but the time on the island had turned the boy into a man. A man who now looked like his father.

He glanced back at the island with a twinge of sadness. He would never see it again. But he would see its sole inhabitant once more. That much he knew.

——————————————

It took days in the small canoe, but the man returned to his home. He built a larger boat, like his father’s, and he fished. The man fell in love and welcomed a son of his own. He taught his boy how to sail and how to collect shellfish and eventually, how to dive and master the deep.

Years passed and the man grew old. One day, he became sick.

“You can not leave me, father. I am not ready,” his son pleaded.

“You are, my son,” the old man replied. “I have taught you all you need to know to live without me. One day, you will teach your son these things as well.”

“You must fight it. Do not let death find you,” his son said.

But the old man merely laughed. “I do not fear death, my son. We are old friends. Remember that. You can run from death all you want, but in the end, it finds us all.”

As the day turned to night, the old man grew tired. His son did, too and soon he was fast asleep next to his father’s bed. A single candle flickered on the bedside table, casting shadows across the walls.

The old man breathed as he did when he dove.

One slow, deep breath filled his chest with air.

He exhaled just as slowly, pushing all the air from his body. When his lungs were empty, he paused, and waited.

One

Two

Three

Finally, he began drawing in another breath.

Darkness made its way into the room. Shadows that had kept to the corners began to move towards the old man’s bed.

One in particular, moved unlike the rest.

“Hello old friend,” the man said.

“Hello again,” the shadow replied.

“I knew I would be seeing you soon,” the old man said. “It is my time.”

“Yes,” the shadow replied. “Would you like to see your father?”

The old man smiled. “I would. Perhaps we shall go diving together.”