Waving Goodbye

I can't get this image out of my head:

I'm leaning against a railing on a long pier. The water is very calm outward, and the situation behind me is very violent and nasty. I don't want to look back there. I can feel it breathing down my neck, in a rage that's quiet now, but will be unbearable once it reaches me. I'm reaching out my arms in front of me, hard, almost tearing them out of place, in a desperate attempt to board the last and only ship around. At first, the place I came from was nice and pleasant, but as I stayed there longer and longer, it began to brew and bubble and burn. When I decided to venture there, I knew there was a ship that would have let me aboard, gladly, however, I'd never been to this type of place before and wanted to get there badly. I let that ship go. At first the water was calm but dreary, definitely not as good as the place I was going. Then things got brighter for the ship, and my world wasn't so bad either. Plenty of things to do, and no time to do them all.

After a hard day's having fun, and finally getting a chance to sit under a tree to reflect on the day's, and week's, and month's activities, I realized that there was no one to listen to all the wonderful things that I'd been doing. I sort of shrugged it off, and kept going, but always at the end of the day there was no one to share it with.

Then one day, as I was sitting under a tree reflecting on my day's activities, I noticed a dark cloud coming over the horizon. I was able to turn the other way and forget about it for awhile, keeping my attention turned to all the fun things I was doing. That dark cloud rolled and mutated, and blistered and burned all of the trees I had sat under, and got closer, hotter. I continued to ignore it, finding the last tree around. I sat under it, and realized that I'd made it back to where I'd come from. It was then that I noticed there were no more ships around. Only one. Just far enough that I couldn't tell if it was still there or not. As my heart lit up, and I felt like I finally found someone who would like me to tell them everything I'd done, and everything I would ever do, and who would tell me everything they'd done, and everything they'd do, I yelled and screamed and jumped up and down with joy. I yelled as loud as I could, and jumped as high as my legs would allow. I was totally and utterly consumed by the fact that I'd finally realized where I was meant to be.

The boat heard me, and turned around, but only came about 3/5 of the way back to shore to pick me up. We talked about things we'd done, and places we'd been. We both remembered what it was like to ride around together, and all of the fun that we had in each other's presence.

Then, I heard a crack of lightning behind me, which snapped me back to reality. The lightning reminded the ship of all the times that I didn't want to be with it, and all the times that I didn't want to tell it about my day. It reminded it of the last time we were together and I said I didn't want to float away forever, that I wouldn't enjoy it, when there was all of this other stuff to do on land.

I turned to look behind me, and the fire and rain, and bloody piss and stink and rot were getting closer. I pleaded with the ship to let me on, and take me away with it. I told it I didn't care where it took me, just as long as we were together. The ship stayed exactly 3/5 of the way back to me.

Then, just as I could feel the fire behind me, getting warmer and warmer and hotter and hotter, the ship turned around, and sailed into the horizon. Blue skies and birds and light breezes and sun surrounded it. I just watched and smiled and cried, as barely I felt the intense heat begin to burn the back of my legs and arms. It was numb though, because the burning of my heart was so much more intense and terrible.