Shipwrecked

This is my first stab at fiction. It isn't perfect, but it's a start, and I love beginnings. I figure this blog will be a developmental one. Start small and possibly work my way to something... better. So with no further ado I present to you, my very first short story. Enjoy.

Shipwrecked
The old man sits staring through the mesh squares in a reinforced window. While he stares a carousel of memories loop over and over in his mind- a birthday, a wedding, a birth, a bat mitzvah, a death, a play, a graduation. All of them as familiar and yet equally unfamiliar, as if he was looking through a photo book on an acquaintances coffee table, compelled to turn each page.

He turns to watch the red headed nurse walk down the hallway and through the double doors. He knew her face so well, chubby, pink and round. Her familiar bright white uniform and nametag with the smiley face sticker. She had been administering his daily 7 pill regimen every morning for the past 3 years. And every morning she began with the same cheerful greeting, “G’mornin Mr. Grady! The sun sure is shinin’ today!” The old man liked her quite a bit and had grown accustomed to the snaggle tooth in her big dingy smile and the way she always smelled slightly of mildew. Sometimes, though not always, the damp smell made his stomach lurk. That same feeling you get when the bike starts to tip over or as you hear the click click click climbing up the rollercoaster tracks and understand you are about to fall. Though he wasn’t falling, no danger in sight, this unidentifiable anxiety would sweep over him, knotting his stomach as it moved through his mind. Once or twice he mentioned this to the red headed nurse, though he’s now forgotten the conversation. “Must be all them pills,” said the nurse, “they’re just too darn harsh on your tummy.”

The old man turned his attention from the window to the world inside the room in which he was standing. 3 men in hats sat on a couch watching Wheel of Fortune and remarking about the contestants to one another. An old lady sat in a wheelchair, mindlessly knitting purple yarn, staring blankly at the radiator in front of her.

Suddenly, the room shook. The old man was thrown to his knees. He tried to get up but the room stole his balance and each time he was swept to the ground. The building rumbled and growled as the walls cracked and the pipes broke. The old man made it to his feet just in time to see the huge wave of water barreling toward the double doors. He watched in horror as the wave came crashing through, shattering the glass and throwing the red headed nurse against the reception window. In an instant the entire room was flooded and water continued to pour in strong and steadily. The old man became submerged and struggled to swim, barely surfacing in time to breathe. He grabbed onto a floating couch cushion and marveled at how strong the reinforced windows were. Around him bells were ringing, alarms were sounding, children were crying, lights were flickering, someone was screaming for life jackets. Thunder boomed and the storm raged on, swallowing every sliver of the old mans energy, feasting on every ounce of his will to fight against the current. To his right 2 men were looking for a third, their hats ripped from their heads, floating down the hallway through the broken doors. The old woman lay, face down and floating. Blood seeped from the large open wound on her head that the radiator had unsympathetically impaled upon her when the room shook her off her chair. Around her, purple yarn unraveled mixing with her blood and the space shone in a plum colored hue . The old man sobbed and yelled, “Somebody! Help! Where are the life jackets? Help! We’re trapped!” He swam around the open air pocket at the top of the room that was quickly loosing volume. He grabbed at the metal chairs that were floating in the water and began throwing them at the windows. He threw them harder and harder, and harder still but to no avail. He was distraught, frantic, uncoordinated. He could hear someone calling for his name, but with every turn of his head he could see nothing but death, chaos and the green blue of foamy seawater.

He felt a deep pinch at the back of his thigh and cried out in confused anguish. He slowly sank into the sea, tasted the salt, let go of his will, let go of breath and watched helplessly as the world around him went black and, finally, silent.

“Oh no… it happened again?” Exclaimed the red headed nurse as she ran toward the two large men carrying the old man to his bed. “We don’t really know what set it off this time…” said the first man, “He just starting yelling about life jackets again. He was really upset. We tried to calm him down and get him back to his bed, but then he picked up the chairs and began throwing them against the windows. We had to tranquilize him, we had no choice.” The first man looked at his shoes after saying this. He hated the way they cried out when tranquilized, the way they soiled themselves and that glassy look in their eyes afterward.

“That crazy fuck,” said the second man, “I told you we have to keep an eye on him- that’s the second time this week! You know he scared Mrs. McGrath so much that she fell off of her chair and hit her head on the radiator? She had to go to the hospital! 13 stitches!”

“Now Larry, you just watch your mouth, you know it’s not Mr. Grady’s fault, not one bit. Well… something must be settin’ him off... just hard to tell what’s goin’ on in his head. Come on, now, boys, lets finish gettin’ him cleaned up. It’s almost time for my lunch break.”