Too Close to the Wind

by Richard Attree

  When the season ended most windsurfers mothballed their equipment for six months and did other stuff (mainly surfing) until the Doctor returned in the spring. Not us though. We were addicts and we needed a regular fix. We started looking further afield, travelling to exotic locations, sailing some of the planet’s most notorious wave spots: Ho’okipa in Maui, Punta Preta in the Cape Verde Islands, ‘One Eye’ in Mauritius …

  Windsurfing those spots on their day, when they’re going off, is an extreme sport. The locals are radical, hardcore. We had to prove ourselves, earn the right to sail them. The sketchy situations became more serious, the injuries more severe. Our bond was subjected to more stress and cracks started showing. But we shared this obsession with adventure, danger. It was intoxicating. We were addicts, living on the edge. We lived for those trips, but we needed to make real money to afford them. So we began dealing drugs.

  It’s dark now, a cloudy night, no moon or stars to distract me. I’m lying across the board face down without the strength to sit, trailing my limbs in the water, fascinated by the phosphorescent bubbles. My mind is empty, drifting with the current as I gaze into the abyss below.

  Something brushes my leg. At first I think the turtle has returned and brought hope with him. But then there’s a second, heavier touch and one of my voices chuckles menacingly.

  A fin breaks the surface and primal terror grips me. I’m shaking so violently that it’s hard to stay on the board. I don’t care who you are, however expert a survivalist, the fear of having your limbs torn off and being eaten alive can’t be underestimated.

  “No worries, mate. It’ll be over quicker this way.”

  The voice-in-my-head has a point. I’m going to die a slow painful death anyway. Perhaps I even deserve it. However, I’d prefer it to be in my own good time and slightly less violently.

  “R.I.P. Nick” the voice in my skull yells, as the dark shape circles me. “Ripped In Pieces!” He starts singing the infamous riff from ‘Jaws’.

  I lie on my board waiting for the attack, defenceless, heart racing, riff rumbling ... but it never comes. The creature seems more curious than predatory—and suddenly I know why. It’s not the ‘Man in the Grey Suit’, el tiburón, it’s a dolphin! Hardly surprising he’s curious, considering the odds against him coming across a human floating around in his territory.

  Again hope courses through my veins. There are plenty of stories of dolphins saving humans—chasing away sharks for instance. We have a lot in common, apparently. If I can just grab his fin perhaps he’ll understand my predicament and tow me back to land?

  I remember watching a wildlife documentary where dolphins were trained to perform tasks by scientists who learned to speak their language. So I try communicating this idea to him by emitting a bizarre series of whistles and clicks while pointing at myself and his fin.

  If I managed to convey anything in dolphin-speak it can only be to confirm that I’m not to be trusted, because when I reach out to him he abandons me and swims languidly into the distance.

  Of course, I knew the idea of being rescued by a large aquatic mammal was somewhat far-fetched but while he was with me there was hope. Now all I have are my voices and my memories. They replay in my head like a movie-length version of my life flashing past.

  I can taste the despair, but I don’t blame the dolphin. I wouldn’t trust me either—after what I did to Robo …

  It started innocuously enough—the drugs—cultivating a few plants to supply our fellow students, but it quickly escalated. Robo knew some big players and the deals soon became significant. We began smuggling coke and weed hidden in our windsurfing bags. It was a double bluff: nobody suspected these two long-haired students, such obvious targets, would be crazy enough to conceal drugs in their enormous coffin-like bags. We made ourselves comically obvious, dragging the board-bags around like two clowns and we were always waved through customs with smiles while the suits were strip-searched.

  Robo enjoyed the wheeler-dealer shenanigans but I was ambivalent about the drug deals. I had other revenue streams and some were even legal: windsurfing instructor, travel journalism, teaching English … My real passion was writing and I dreamt of becoming rich and famous by chronicling our adventures in the windsurfing equivalent of Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’. That was still just a dream and none of the other activities was as lucrative as drugs, but nor did they cause insomnia.

  As the deals got bigger I became increasingly worried that Robo was dragging me into a disaster. I told him we were playing with fire and we were going to get burnt. He told me to get out of the kitchen if I couldn’t handle the heat. We began to argue, chucking clichés at each other like grenades. For while there was a bubble around us. Nobody could touch us. But inside the bubble things were falling apart.

  Eventually we got too big for our boots and took on some sharks who were higher up the food chain than us—the Great Whites of the drug world (isn’t it funny how there aren’t any Great Blacks preying on smaller white fish?). These guys were ruthless predators. We knew they’d screw us unless we screwed them first so we hatched a plan to take their consignment and skedaddle (as my Irish gran might have put it)—get the hell out of Oz and never come back.

  Unfortunately, the screwing also included me and his wife, Alison. It started when Robo was out of town setting up the deal. The Great Whites weren’t bothered about political correctness and they refused to do business with a “cocky Abo punk” so me and Alison were left alone in their one bedroom apartment. I volunteered to sleep on the sofa but I ended up in their bed.

  There’d always been an undercurrent of attraction between us. Robo knew that. Alison and I flirted and it made for a tense triangle, but he trusted us, counted on our loyalty.

  “Loyalty. Remember that?” A voice in my head was telling me to stop, but another part of my anatomy was in control and I had to have her. “It’s just a word, mate” another voice whispered, as we tore off our clothes. “This is real.”

  Passion feeds self-deception and fuels betrayal. It’s like a game of ‘stone-scissors-paper’—sex cuts through trust and crushes loyalty.

  It didn’t stop there. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other and we drifted into an affair behind Robo’s back. Things hadn’t been going well between them and my relationship with him had also deteriorated. I was blinded by desire, drowning in guilt, and it unhinged me. But there’s no excuse for what we did next …

  Alison and I split with the drugs, leaving Robo to deal with the Great Whites. It was a catastrophic decision. Stealing your best mate’s woman is one thing, taking his livelihood another, but dumping him in the dunny with the Mob is unforgivable. I didn’t just betray him, I put all our lives at risk. Now there was a bunch of people after my blood. So we went on the run, fleeing to the world’s most remote surf spots, never staying long enough to be traced, living by selling the dope bit by bit until both it, and we, were finished.

  I windsurfed all the time—to escape from myself and eventually from Alison. She didn’t surf, wasn’t interested. Whenever the wind blew, or the surf was up, she accused me of abandoning her. She couldn’t bear to be on her own, but all I wanted was to be left alone with the wind, waves, and my guilt.

  The stench of betrayal and self-loathing was overwhelming. Depression and paranoia stalked me like a pack of black dogs. I was gripped by panic attacks, living in fear of a knock on the door, a tap on the shoulder, a knife in my gut.

  Finally the drugs were all gone and we couldn’t stand each other any more, so I skedaddled again. I left Alison enough money to get back home to Oz and vanished—ran like the wind—to live like a ghost in El Médano …

  And that’s how I ended up drifting around the ocean with just my demons for company. Now it looked like I’d be taking them with me to a watery grave.

  Of course, it wasn’t meant to end like this. I was only borrowing Alison for a fling. Robo got her back soon enough and I’d repay all my debts eventually …

  �
��Who ya trying to fool?” a voice-in-my head demands.

  “Certainly not us” the rest of them chorus.

  “You stole her and you didn’t care a shit about him.”

  “Yeah, you fucked up big time.” They’re gloating now.

  “It’s payback time, mate …”

  “R.I.P. Nick Kelly!” they yell in unison.

  I see lights in the distance. Perhaps it’s the inter-island ferry or a tanker. It looks enormous and strangely unreal. Of course I go berserk trying everything to attract their attention. The ship passes cruelly close and the throb of its engines drowns my feeble croaks for help. The wake lifts my board from the flat sea and for a moment I’m surfing, flailing madly. Then it surges away and the lights are swallowed by the darkness.

  I lie across my board on my back and drift. The sea and sky become one. Nothing to choose between them. My life is no longer worth fighting for. I’m finished. I close my eyes and allow myself to drift into the blackness.

  I dream about death and it’s one hell of a dream—a vision of hell! They’re all in it, the principal players in my life and they’re all after a piece of me …

  A beautiful bird with Alison’s face dives out of the sky and pecks out my eyes, laughing as she drops them into the sea. I scream. Robo appears as a shark, tearing great chunks of my flesh and tossing them to a pack of monster crayfish to mince in their giant claws. To my horror I realise the cray also all have features I recognise: my brothers, my dad, mister Big Fish. Finally, the Great White mob in their grey suits circle me, shouting profanities while casually gnawing at the remains of my corpse.

  The strange thing is: when they’ve finished torturing me and leave me to die, I’m not afraid any more. I simply accept it as the end of everything that’s me.

  3

  Heaven Or Hell?

  The Atlantic. Monday, October 26, 07:50. I’m surprised to find myself alive as the first streaks of light distinguish sky from sea. At least I hope I am, but it’s far from certain. Perceptions and thoughts are floating around, but there’s not much left of my sanity. Voices still crowd my head, competing for ownership. There’s also a whole heap of pain but who’s feeling it? Where the hell am I and how did I get here?

  Then I notice something that persuades me I’m either still dreaming, hallucinating, or dead. As the sun climbs out of the sea a shape emerges with it. At first it’s just a dot, then a mysterious blob travelling towards me on a collision course.

  I rub my salt-encrusted eyes, trying to focus on the mirage, expecting it to disappear. Instead, it gets bigger, coming straight out of the sun, backlit like some epic Hollywood vision of an alien spaceship. From somewhere there’s a hideous cackle of ironic laughter, possibly mine.

  “Mate, this is ridiculous!” one of my voices sneers. “You really think your story deserves such a blockbuster ending?”

  The apparition is a hundred metres away and still heading straight at me. Pure white, glistening in the dawn, perfectly reflected in the mirror-flat sea. I’ve never believed in a supernatural being but now I’m not so sure that God is dead. If this is the kind of show he puts on to welcome a soul into the After Life then he can count me in. “Hallelujah, I’m a believer!” my voices sing, like a demented gospel choir.

  Then I hear shouts. They seem to come from the White Shape and they don’t sound like celestial choirs. A smaller, darker shape emerges from the Mothership and races towards me.

  “In the nick of time, eh Nick?” a voice sniggers.

  The shouts get louder, more agitated, even less angelic. Now I’m not so sure it’s the Good Guys coming to guide me to the White Light and I’m afraid.

  The dark shape arrives beside me. Inside are two men—at least, they seem convincingly human. They’re dressed in white and I’m relieved to see they don’t have horns or forked tails. I lie there looking up at them and wait for the next development in this impressive dream, hallucination, or whatever. It certainly has high production values, anyway.

  They throw me a lifebelt. It has a symbol or logo on it that seems somehow familiar. I stare at it, wondering if I should trust a lifebelt in a dream. But I grab it and they lift me into the dark shape.

  “They’re aliens, mate” a voice-in-my-head tells me. “You’re being abducted by beings from another galaxy.”

  That’s all very well, I think to myself, but they can’t just leave my wave-board adrift in the Atlantic. She’s a thing of great beauty and she saved my life (if indeed I was still alive). I desperately want these aliens to abduct her as well, but to my horror I find I can’t speak. My mouth, tongue, throat and vocal cords are welded together into one solid block of salt.

  “No worries mate, they can read your thoughts!” my voice reassures me.

  Of course they can—they’re an advanced race from a distant civilisation. My board is lifted out of the water and joins me in the floating shape.

  We speed across the water to the Mothership. From close up it’s even more impressive. There’s a name painted on the gleaming white hull in blood-red capitals that are larger than me: THE ABYSS. Next to it is the same, strangely familiar symbol that was on the lifebelt: six black lines, two broken, four unbroken.

  I gaze in awe at the ship, whispering the name reverently, and for the first time one of the men in white speaks to me: “Sí señor, eso es correcto—el Abismo!” Whether these beings are from heaven, hell or another galaxy it’s comforting that they communicate in Spanish.

  I have to climb a ladder to get onboard but I’m too weak to stand, let alone climb. A rope is thrown down and I’m hoisted up onto an immaculately polished deck. I lie there convulsing, barely breathing, but perhaps I’m alive?

  Water is poured into my mouth but my throat is so constricted that at first I can’t drink. Then I’m vomiting bile and salt water onto the deck. I remember feeling ashamed to behave so rudely to these kindly super-beings but a moment later I’m unconscious.

  More shouts and then one of them is pumping my chest and breathing into my mouth. I observe this from above, looking down at my lifeless body.

  After a few seconds my heart is beating and I’m breathing unaided again. I regain consciousness, open my eyes and try to thank them, but now the pain is unbearable.

  More water trickles down my throat and this time it tastes wonderful. They pick me up, carry me inside and gently place me on the softest surface I’ve ever experienced.

  It’s as if I’ve observed all of this from outside my body. Now I close my eyes and feel myself return, before plunging into deep, dreamless sleep.

  4

  The Abyss

  Tuesday, October 27, 08:00. I opened my eyes, after twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep, and wasn’t surprised to see water. I tried to focus, but my eyes were sluggish. Was I dreaming? Hallucinating? It was hard to tell.

  Six inches from my face, filling my entire field of vision, was a glass of water. This wasn’t what I was expecting but it was what I needed. I drank to the bottom of the glass without pausing for breath and looked around for more. Right then I could have soaked up a bath-full!

  “¿Le gustaría bañarse, señor?”

  Excuse me? So the voices in my head spoke Spanish now? A fragment of memory from another dream popped into in my brain: superior beings from an advanced civilisation who could read my thoughts and communicate telepathically, in Spanish.

  There was a knocking sound. I looked around for the source but my eyes were still adjusting and I was finding it difficult to make sense of the visual data they were sending.

  “You like a bath, sir?” A deep voice with a Spanish accent.

  Aha, so that’s how it works—I think about drinking a bath-full and they answer the thought.

  Suddenly it occurred to me that I was lying in a bed rather than on my windsurfing board. This made no sense but it was certainly welcome. I sat up and tried to focus on my surroundings. I’d been half blinded by the sun the previous day but my sight was gradually returning.

&nb
sp; Now I could see that I was in a perfectly white bedroom. Light flooded in through a round window and there was a door, half open. A man, or humanlike being, dressed in a white uniform stood in the doorway. He repeated his question, again speaking in heavily accented English.

  “Yes, that would be great, mate” a voice replied. It sounded like mine but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Muy bien señor, the water is ready for you. After bathing the Master will speak with you.”

  I stared at him, unsure of how to respond.

  “Please to come with me señor.”

  With his assistance, I managed to get out of bed and follow him towards another door. He opened it to reveal an enormous white bath. He helped me climb in, pushed a button and jets of water massaged my aching limbs.

  I lay in the warm foamy water thinking how strange it all was—to be surrounded by water again, floating but not drifting ... and no longer alone. I didn’t know what was going on, but right then I didn’t care. Heaven? Alien abduction? Dreaming? No worries if it meant luxuriating in a kingsize hot tub.

  The man-in-white turned towards the door, but my eyes managed to focus on him before he left. He was my age, powerfully built, dark complexion, wearing white Bermuda shorts and a smart white polo shirt. Everyone I knew wore board-shorts, bright surfy teeshirts, torn jeans, hoodies ... surf-punk was the uniform of my tribe. But this dude had a kind of timeless, classic elegance about him.

  There was a logo on his shirt—a graphic symbol with six black lines: two broken, four unbroken. Beneath it, in elegant red lettering: ‘The Abyss’.