Now that he finally got to the small island, Christopher didn’t have to think about how he was going to get back to mainland. There was plenty of stuff to hold his interest for a while. There was great pleasures: pelicans to be scared off, shells to be collected, and of course the waves crashing on the shallow slopes that made the island just barely accessible at low tide, which it most certainly was. But the waves started to get a little too close and a little too turbulent. And the island started...sinking? No, but the island was shrinking noticeably. Remembering where he had walked just minutes ago and where the water was coming up to now, Christopher, and that increasingly unpleasant feeling in his gut, agreed that he should probably get back to the beach. But with the sea being turned into white foam all around him, the question was, how?
Christopher woke up early on this lazy summer Thursday for just one reason: low tides at the shoals. While not usually the first one to disturb the quiet in the North Carolinian beach house, Christopher was completing his mental checklist, which was mainly things he eventually got around to when his mom asked him for the fifth time. After he ate breakfast and brushed his teeth, he did the egregious act of applying spray sunscreen to his own face. Now that he was ready to go, his father and mother had a quick monologue that Christopher’s father would be the one to take him to the beach. It was only a couple minutes to the peak of low tide, and he was going to finally going to experience the full glory of the shoals, sleeping siblings or not.
Immediately ditching his father and dropping the chairs in their area, Christopher ran up the beach, until he reached the small, lagoonish pond of brine that formed at the base of the shoals peninsula. He kept looking for Sean or his dad to come before he ventured out into the vast array of little islands off of the mainland, yet no one came. He contented himself with playing with the young fish that populated the salty pond that lay only feet away from the ocean and collecting the plethora of seashells that lined the coast. Eventually, Sean, who seemed groggy at best and irritated for being the older sibling at worst, came and walked alongside Christopher.
“Hey Chris”
“Hey Sean”
Not wanting to upset his brother but too excited to resist the urge, Chris went for the more polite approach to going out.
“Sean can I--we please go to Pelican Island? Look at all those pelicans, it would be so cool and it’s not even that far and I can swim well and you’re older and-
“Hold on, buddy, we can go out a little and see if we can walk there. If we can’t, then no way.”
“Okay but umm--okay”
Chris didn’t want to test his luck with Sean, he got a better reaction than he expected already, and there was no reason to push his luck yet. Sean started to lag behind Chris as they started wading through the water, but Chris didn’t realize. He was running through the water as fast as he could, and didn’t think twice about the yell behind him. At this point, he transitioned from tip-toe to swimming. Christ didn’t think that Pelican Island was far, but every time he looked up to see how much farther he had to go, the island seemed just as far as it had before. Then he made the mistake of admitting to himself that his muscles were starting to tire. This frightened him, but he had to continue going. The mainland was farther from him than the island, and he figured that once he got to island he could rest before going back. Finally, he reached the island’s base and walked out of the water to the warm sand. After being delighted by the island and realizing that he must get back quickly, he saw Sean back on mainland. Sean was waving his arms and seemed to be shouting, but any trying to decipher any sense out of what he was yelling was futile. Chris looked around, he didn’t see any boats, and he wasn’t sure if he had the time to stay on the shrinking island while someone was called to get him. But he did notice lots more white foam in the shape of a hook that started at the end of the peninsula, went out into the ocean, and came back right to the island he was at. Considering his aching arms and legs, he wasn’t sure he could swim back to Sean, but if he could walk along the hook where it was more shallow, then maybe he’d have a chance to get back safely. He started along the hook fine at first, but almost immediately he was swimming, and the waves here were even worse than the ones on the other side of the island. With the plan abandoned and the island being more diminished when he got back, Chris was starting to panic. Sean kept waving, the waves kept crashing further on the island, and the island kept shrinking. With the undeniable knowledge that his only way out was swimming back, Chris started out into the ocean again. Walking at first, keeping his head above the water along as he could, then swimming. He was so concentrated on his fatigue and switching between swimming on his back and on his stomach, that he didn’t realize how far it was. Chris looked up after what felt like one of the hardest moments and his life and his entire being was seized with terror. He was almost midway through and felt like he swam back and forth three times straight. For a brief moment he started treading water and considered going back to the island, but instinct and adrenaline drove him on. At this point he was going much slower, and the current wasn’t in his favor, but he kept going because it was his only option. Then he felt his leg touch something, some sea creature, and his panic induced state of mind concluded that if it wasn’t a jellyfish, it was shark. His arm hit it too, and his fingers felt the grains of sand. He didn’t stop until he got to Sean, but the relief of a thousand teachers-not-collecting-the-homework-you-didn’t-do washed over him.
Chris and Sean got back to the house, Sean walking funny and wincing in pain at his swollen foot. Turns out someone did actually hit a jellyfish. Their mother noticed them over the puzzle on the table she had been doing since last night. “Back already?” she asked without looking up. “You guys weren’t out there for that long, and you know you need your vitamin D”. She added “Go back outside and come back when something important happens”. But Chris and Sean had enough of the ocean for one day.
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