Entry #28

"Two Lights"
by Myron Berdahl


I see a pair of lights filtering through the fog. I had been on the makeshift raft for days, maybe weeks.

The sea was calm as night came to a close; the gentle waves lulled me in and out of a transparent slumber. The food had long since run out, and I had to wonder if my mind was playing tricks on me. The night before, the crest of a passing wave disguised itself has the dorsal fin of a man-eating great white. I knew that sharks rarely exposed their dorsal fins. But, the romantic fear born out of one too many viewings of “Jaws” as a child wasn’t lessened by my higher education.

I felt the emptiness from the hunger within fill ever so slightly with the nourishment of hope. I squinted toward my salvation, hoping to get a clearer glimpse. The two beacons expanded vertically, creating twin columns of light that bordered some growing indistinguishable form. I squinted further. What was it? And then, I saw it. A whale about to swallow me whole! No, a fishing boat, and I’m to be saved!

**********

“Honey, could you turn the lights out before coming to bed!?”, yelled my wife from upstairs.

I awoke on the couch - “It was only a dream”. I smile as I stare at a picture on the wall, situated above and between two table lamps; the great battle between man, beast, and nature – Moby Dick and Captain Ahab battling it out on the stormy high seas.