Issue 6:
Sea
Diane Schuller
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Rigging of Hope
1865
That day I discovered men could cry. I'm not certain whether learning that, or the shock of him being alive astonished me more. His torment echoes yet in my mind.
The entire townsfolk had made their way to the docks the way a school of fish moves as one. Above deck, the foreign brig held sailors wearing tattered clothes too large, like Mama's scarecrows. They were on stage and we their audience. Murmuring spilled into moans and gasps following the recognition
of seven ghosts who made their weary way down the wooden plank.
He called my name, "Evangeline. It's me -- your papa." His arms cradled oranges and a single bottle of wine for the homecoming celebration; his treasure from Valencia, home of the rescuers. Swept away from my siblings whom he didn't know, couldn't have known.
Mama's pallid gaze, her fear, her pain linger indelibly in my brain. Remarried? The news severed his rigging of hope, sending him adrift. From his dry, cracked lips his anguish surged like the tidal waves that had washed him away four years before. He drowned that day, with tears, down an eternal abyss.
~Diane Schuller
Diane enjoys country life on Moonwind Meadows in northern Alberta. She is currently concentrating on the craft of writing, embracing inspiration through her senses. She edits the Cenotaph Pocket Edition. Email.
© 2001 by Diane Schuller. All Rights Reserved.
© 2000-2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated April 24, 2002.