Watery Grave

         “Get a hold of your self…”Cried Tommy, slapping John in the face, while Rolland nursed a contusion he sustained against the cold steel of the bulkhead.

            “May-day, may-day…this is the Ice Western: man overboard, man overboard!” the captain radioed, and hollered to the crew. “Get down and check on that engine.”

             “You son of bitch,” retorted John, and pulling Bill from the captain’s chair, accidentally spinning the rudder into another treacherous wave. “You killed Jake you bastard…you killed him!”

            “Put on your dry suit” managed Tommy tearing John away from the beaten captain, the ship listing badly.

             “See what you’ve done,” cried John.

            “What are we doing?” Rolland asked, having finished donning the survival suit.

             “Don’t worry about it…get to the life raft,” ordered Tommy, and trying the radio, blood on his hands, the world turned to shit.

            Rolland lingered, cold, beaten and bruised, outmaneuvered fool by his own greed, and the Bering Sea waited his grave.

            “Get out here!” Tommy screamed, and continued radioing for help.

            Rolland stumbled down the ladder way, until he met the Open Ocean pouring in through the main hatch into the MMR Space, causing the ship to list more on Port Side with every passing gallon of seawater.

              John was struggling with the life raft’s chords, trying to get it deployed except the waters got to him first, and carried him away from the raft, carried into the deadly frozen waters, forevermore.

      Tommy remained in the wheelhouse fighting the surging waters with the sinking vessel, and then the life raft was gone too in the twinkling of an eye, and the Ice Western went to her watery grave at the bottom of the Bering Sea.

             Rolland swam for his life, and tried searching for any signs of life, but the waves were too massive and too cold, it was all he could do to stay on his back, fighting the mountainous waves rising up to touch the seagulls, cresting above the torrent while surfing the turbulent winds.     

             He could almost reach out and touch them; their feathers looked so warm, so inviting, so angelic, he wondered how that could be when the world was so dirty, and the fowl of the air was so clean?

P.A.L