(Saturday Writing Essential)

Challenge: Write something (prose, poetry, fiction, or even an essay) about the ways your life may have changed. It could have been in the past, the present. Or you can be creative and place it in the future.

Displaced.

He awoke with the sun in his face. It was hot. It was muggy. It was...moving? Sitting up suddenly was a bad idea, as the dingy he was in rocked violently and he struggled momentarily to stay upright. Water sloshed around his ankles as he scanned the the horizon that stretched unbroken in every direction. His skin felt tight, hot. It was obvious to see by its color that he had been out here for a while. Thirst suddenly overwhelmed him, but looking around the little boat he could see no bottle, canteen or even a bladder with a drink of any kind in it. Unbidden the words to that poem played in his mind.

“water water everywhere; nor any drop to drink”

He was slightly amused by that because he remembered the torturous essay he had been assigned for Coleridge's interminably long poem about a mariners plight forced upon a wedding guest. Looking at his feet he began to realize the level in the boat was increasing. For some reason he wasn't alarmed, but intrigued. In his head he was going over the rule for displacement.

“An object in a fluid experiences an upward force equal to the weight of the fluid displacedby the object.”

Archimedes had figured displacement out long ago and it was still an apt statement today, as he was seeing the rail of the boat getting closer to the surface of the water in tune with the depth of the water in the boat, steadily creeping up his calves. He was being slowly displaced, and it was going to dramatically change his life very soon.

The biggest question of all was the one he was avoiding. How in the world did he get here?