-------------------------------------------------- About this story:
Thank you to those who have written. And for those who have not written, please Email me your questions, opinions, and suggestions at RomanGenesis@hotmail.com. I should be able to respond to all serious Emails.
Some of you are wondering where you can find the first story I wrote, "The Dreamer." You will be able to find it in the high school section. The last update was June 9th.
And now, without further ado...
Survivor - Day 3 (Horizons)
I felt the warmth before I actually saw the light. I yawned and squinted into the light that was coming through the window and I suddenly remembered what today was. I sat up and found myself the only person awake and I walked over to the window quietly and looked at the three forty foot sailboats still tied to the dock a hundred yards off.
The morning sun was reflecting off the sea, making it an unbearable lake of light, blinding me with it's glory. It was that water that we would soon be dedicating our lives to. We fifteen young voyagers were embarking on an adventure, and where we would end up, only the ocean knew.
Over time, the others were awaking and coming up next to me to look out at the shiny water and contemplate their own personal thoughts. It was their hopes and their dreams and their fears that were driving them on toward the uncertain fate that they were secretly accepting. Some did it absentmindedly. Others carried purpose and private design.
I looked to Jack standing next to me and smiled. He returned my smile as our eyes told of the wonder and glory that lay before us. "Let's get to breakfast," he said.
After breakfast we finished loading the perishable foods onto our boats and then put our own belongings down in the cabin. One of the small rooms in the back of the boat was going to hold our stuff, and being the oldest, Jack and I laid claim to the other small room with the bed. The younger kids would have to sleep on the floor of the main cabin room.
For the first time in our troops history, the kids were ready to go before the adults were and we all sat up in the pavilion waiting for them to finish loading their things and do the final paperwork.
I sat watching the boats and tried to ignore the older kids as they heckled the younger ones. As I sat there, uneasiness was seeping into my mind. I wasn't really sure at first why, but I decided finally that it was just my excitement and overactive imagination.
"I bet every single one of you guys will end up barfing after like an hour," Philip said. Kevin and Travis started laughing and I looked at Randy who was sitting at the end of the next bench just staring our like I had been. He seemed troubled by something, but I couldn't figure out what it was. He was acting just like he had the night before when he was outside smoking.
I looked over one group of the younger kids, consisting of Bobby, Tim, and Alan. They were all going to be on the other boat of younger boys with Mark and Shawn. They were completely oblivious to the older boys mocking. I felt glad that they were finally learning to ignore them. When they had first joined the troop, they were scared shitless by the older guys. I couldn't blame them though. I had been also.
Next, my eyes fell on the Senior Patrol Leader, Kyle. I had never gotten a good read on the type of guy he was. He was a leader in every sense of the word and hid his true self deep down. By the way his brother Philip acted though, I could only image how he was personally.
"All right you guys," Mr. Arnold said, coming up to us with the other two adults. "Ready to get on the boats?" The younger kids cheered and practically ran to the boats and the rest of us made our way casually out. We were hiding the excitement we felt, trying to play it cool.
Jack climbed on the boat and I got on right after him. Just as I did, I looked back and saw the older boys getting on their boat, pushing and mock fighting each other. My eyes caught Randy's for just a moment before he turned and walked down into his boat's cabin. That would probably be the last time I saw him before we got to Key West. I sighed and went and sat down on one of the padded seats next to the captain's steering wheel at the back of the boat. I was kind of depressed about not seeing Randy the whole week, but decided it was stupid anyway to think anything could ever come of my innocent lust for him.
Captain Bill came out of the cabin and greeted us cheerfully and shook Mr. Arnold's hand. "Okay, we should be ready to go in a few minutes. We're still filling up the tanks with fresh water." We all pitched in untying the boat and we pushed off into the bay and Captain Bill cranked up the motor. Before long, we were sailing far out into the Atlantic Ocean.
I looked back one last time at the camp as it slowly shrunk into the horizon and disappeared completely. I went and sat down in the pit at the back where the steering wheel was and we all just kind of sat there, looking out at the water and felt the slight rocking of the boat. After months and months in school, this was the ultimate release. Our trip had begun.
Austin, Dennis, and Henry made their way out to the front of the Bermuda Battleship as soon as Captain Bill said it was okay for them too. The front of the boat was constantly dipping up and down as we hit swell after swell. The younger kids were laughing their heads off and having the best time. I smiled to myself. And we had just left!
The first day was pretty slow. Not that we were complaining through. Captain Bill told us that there wasn't enough wind to put the sails up today, but that we probably would be able to tomorrow before we got the first set of reefs we would be diving at. I didn't see what the big deal about putting the sails up was though. The motor seemed to work just fine. I dismissed it and continued to sit, content that we were finally on our way to the adventure of a lifetime.
The coast was to our right the whole time, barely visible and the rest was water in every direction. The water in the bay was nowhere near as beautiful as the water out here. There wasn't a cloud to be seen and the water was just as blue as the sky. I had never felt so alive as I did out there on the boat.
After I had gotten over my initial joy of finally leaving, I went down into the cabin with Jack to have a look around. We would be preparing lunch in a little while and we wanted to have our look before everyone came down to eat.
"Oh cool," Jack said. "I didn't even notice this the last time." I walked over to where he was and looked down at the small table next to the first bedroom. There was a map laid out and a radio on the wall above it. "You think this thing works?"
As if to answer his question the radio buzzed and voice came over it. "Calypso Coaster to Bermuda Battleship. Do you read me? Over."
Jack started to reach for the radio. "Hey, maybe you shouldn't," I started to say, but there was no stopping Jack once he had his mind set on something.
"We read you Calypso Coaster. Over," he said cheerfully.
"Is that you Jack?" the person questioned. Their formal radio talk was over apparently.
"Yeah, who is this?" Jack responded curiously.
There was a bunch of static, but then we realized it was laughter. "This is Shawn." We started laughing to. The thought that we would be able to communicate with the other boats hadn't even crossed our minds, but it did seem logical after we thought about it.
I grabbed the microphone. "Shawn, go up on the deck and wave."
"Okay," he said. I quickly put down the radio and ran up the stairs to the deck and looked over at the boat that was sailing next to us a ways off. I squinted into sunlight and looked for a small waving boy. Then I saw him.
"There he is," Jack said, laughing. "At the back of the boat. Do you see him?"
"Yeah, I see him," I said and began waving my arms. Austin crawled to the back of the boat where we were.
"What are you guys doing?" he asked.
"Look, do you see Shawn on the back of the boat over there?" Tim said, pointing at the boat to our left. Austin looked carefully and started to laugh when he saw Shawn waving frantically.
"How did you get his attention?" he asked, still smiling ear to ear. I looked down at him and smiled to myself. Every time I looked at Austin the more he reminded me of myself when I was younger, before the trials of life had been placed before me. I wished I could go back to the innocence of the past.
"There's a radio in the cabin," Jack told him.
Captain Bill must have overheard him because he suddenly said, "Don't be playing with that radio down there." We all ignored him and went down into the cabin.
Austin saw the radio and map table and his eyes lit up. "Oh cool," he blurted. He must not have seen it while we were loading either.
Jack grabbed the microphone and said into it, "Shawn are you there?"
"Roger," he replied. I found it fitting that Shawn had sent the first message over the radio to us. He was so into technical things. I wouldn't be surprised if he had one just like it at his house that he built from scratch.
Mr. Arnold walked down the stairs and began to complain the moment he saw us. "Didn't you hear what Captain Bill said? That things not a toy." Jack put the microphone down and stepped away from it. "Come on, let's get the sandwiches made."
After lunch we were all feeling a little tired so Jack and I went out to the end of the boat to just lay out and relax. The front bobbed up and down as we continued on through the bright Florida day. Me and Jack started talking about school for some reason and all the girls we thought were hot. Actually, he did most of the talking and I just inserted agreements where I thought they should go.
The sun was moving further and further down the sky and before we knew it, we were pulling into a covered bay to anchor for the night. When dinner was over, Captain Bill explained to us that we would have to stay up in shifts to make sure the anchor didn't come loose and send us drifting aground during the night. There would be three shifts to fill and we would always stay up in pairs. I guess he figured it would be easier for us to stay awake.
That first night out, Jack and I took the first shift, so we wouldn't have to wake up in the middle of the night to do a shift. We would have to later on, but we just loved be the oldest guys on the boat so we insisted when the younger guys wanted the first shift. It wasn't out of cruelty. It was to let them know who was in charge on this boat. (Not counting Mr. Arnold and the Captain that is.)
Everyone else went off to bed and me and Jack laid out on the deck watching the dark clouds floating by above us, snuffing out the stars and the moon periodically. It had gotten pretty cold when the sun went down so we were wrapped up in blankets to keep warm. I suppose it was nice being cold out though. It would make it a little bit more difficult to go to sleep when we were supposed to be up watching to make sure the anchor didn't come loose.
"So, how was your second year of high school anyway?" Jack inquired. I was suddenly reminded of how much he and I rarely spoke at school. We were only friends at scouts.
"It was pretty good," I told him. "School is school," I added, almost as an afterthought.
"Who did you hang out with?"
I began to get a little nervous when he asked me that. I wasn't on any of the sports teams and Jack was practically on all of them. Most of my friends were girls that I had gone to middle school with. "I don't know. Different people," I said.
There was silence for a while and we just stared up at the sky. I wondered if he had gone to sleep for a moment and I looked over at him. The main sail was between us in it's tube and I couldn't tell if he was awake or not. I looked back up at the sky and figured I would let him sleep. I could stay up and do the watch.
As the clouds continued their dance across the night I felt my eyes becoming heavy and I closed them once in a while, but promised myself I wouldn't go to sleep. After I nearly dozed off I sat up and told myself not to close them. I looked down at Jack and saw that he was asleep. He looked so peacefully sleeping under the gentle moonlight. I just wanted to reach over and stroke his hair. I shook the thought out of my head and stood up and walked to the back of the boat.
I was certain that Jack was straight and I wasn't going to risk his friendship over a stupid move. I sat down on the cushioned bench next to the steering wheel and covered myself from the bitter wind that was whipping across me. Trying to remain awake in the pitch dark like this was not going to be easy.
My mind wandered and began to wonder if anybody in the troop was gay besides me. Probably not, I figured. I was probably the only person in the state that was gay right now. I sighed and let the rocking of the boat ease my mind. I didn't want to think of these things right now. I just wanted to relax on my little vacation I was on. Lord knows I deserved it.
Our shift was finally over and I went and woke Jack up.
"Oh shit," he said, looking down at his watch. "I fell asleep," he told me, as if I didn't know.
"It's all right. I stayed up for us."
"Thanks man," he said and stood up. We went down into the cabin and woke up Henry and Dennis. They would have to stay awake now. I figured they probably wouldn't be able to stay up if Jack hadn't been able to, but decided it didn't matter. The boat wasn't going to float away. I wondered if the guys on the other boats were doing the night watches.
Jack and I crawled into the bedroom that we had picked for ourselves and laid down on the mattress. Unlike outside, the inside of the boat was hot and muggy so we left the door open to maybe get some air exchange going on.
Jack wasn't up for talking I guess because he had just woken up. He tore his shirt off and laid down, facing the far wall. I tore off my shirt also and laid down next to him, facing his back. I glanced over his back and watched as he breathed in and out slowly. His skin seemed so smooth and soft. I wished to god I could just reach over and maybe just brush him. Why couldn't he, or anyone else for that matter feel the same way as I did. The only people that found me attractive were the girls at school and I didn't want them. I wanted someone like Jack, or Randy.
Just thinking about Randy seemed to make the temperature in the tiny room go up a few degrees. I wondered if Jack could feel it or it was just my imagination. I began to wonder what Randy was doing right now on his boat. Probably sleeping peacefully, laid out on his mattress without his shirt on, enjoying his freedom.
I closed my eyes and pictured Randy off somewhere sleeping like an angel, his muscular chest rising and falling gently. I began to get hard and rolled over and faced the other wall. It was pointless to dream of such things and I dismissed them almost as quickly as I had thought of them. No boy would ever feel anything for me more than friendship. My loneliness and isolation in the world became to unbearable and I began to fight back tears.
Here I was in bed with my beautiful friend Jack, inches from him and the flesh I would never get to touch. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the powerful force of exhaustion take me off to sleep.
I know this isn't what you wanted to know about, but you did say you wanted to know everything, so I'm telling you. I started at the beginning just like you asked and now you are going to get the full and complete story. Sure, you want me to hurry up and get to the part when everything fell apart and went straight to hell, but maybe there is more to it. Maybe we weren't just born evil, but maybe we learned it along the way. Or perhaps, the worst case scenario of all, the one I rejected because it was simply to horrible to image, perhaps it was in our nature that things turned out the way they did. Perhaps the flaw was rooted in our very human nature. If that was the case, then there was nothing we could have done to avoid the grim fate...
continued....
Don't forget to write and let me know what you think. Day 4 is coming in a few...