OOC:
|
I was going to say I didn't need to say any words and I would just float around until the others caught up time-wise, but then all this came bubbling up out of nowhere... Jeez.
|
|
The raft drifts in the sea and the man laying atop it narrows his eyes in disbelief. He puts his head down and rubs his sunburned fists hard into his eyes. Reaching over the edge of the raft, he cups a handful of water and splashes it on his face. He breathes hard and slow, in and out, in and out, before looking up to see the ship still there out on the horizon. He starts to chuckle, then to giggle, and soon it explodes out of him into huge gut wrenching guffaws as he laughs like a madman until his dry throat catches the laugh and chokes him into a coughing fit, leaving him doubled over and nearly falling overboard into the water.
He scrambles onto his hands and knees and in a frenzy of erratic movement the man seizes at the pole which had been lashed down behind him and begins to work at the knots that kept it secure. Frantically tugging with bloody fingers to loosen the knots, he kept darting glances back toward the ship to see if it was any bigger or smaller than before. He couldn't tell, damn it, and he couldn't untie the knots while looking away. Using all his willpower, he focused and finally untied the last knot. Hoisting the pole to raise up the bloodied red shirt tied to it's far end, he set the near end of the pole in the notch he had prepared for this hoped for time. Wobbling on his knees as the small raft bobbed in the water, he swayed back and forth with the makeshift flag to wave it from one side to the other. He couldn't see where the ship was anymore through the tears that were suddenly clouding his eyes. He tried to wipe his face on his arm but still couldn't see where the ship was. They were going to miss him. He was going to die because they couldn't see his flag flying so close to the water. If only he could raise his signal... higher.
His eyes opened wide at the thought. No, he couldn't do
THAT. But it would
work, he knew it would from his own years sailing. The tears came back again, and he worked blindly now, but without hesitation or fumbling. He put the pole and flag down so that the flag was on one corner of his raft. Balling the old bloody shirt up into a mound, he pulled his small prayer book out of his shirt and unwound the multiple layers of leaves and leather he had wrapped it in to keep it dry. Laying it open on top of the mound, he hesitated only once before reaching down to rip a swath of pages out from the center. After another tug, he had another handful of pages which he tossed down onto the open book. Snapping pieces off of his flag pole, he set those sticks on top of the pile. Then, from his belt pouch he brought out his flint and steel. Striking over and over until he got enough sparks to set the pile alight, the man's tear streaked face looked solemnly at the fire which sprang up from the pages where he had learned so much. But if he died here on the seas, then that knowledge was just as surely gone from the world as it was from the pages burning in front of him. Now
HE was the only repository for that knowledge and his survival the only way of returning it to the world. "I'm Sorry, Sir Redivar." He stripped off his own shirt and added it on top of the sticks as the flames danced higher and the embers rose up on the winds into the sky. The man looked up and wondered if it would be enough smoke? It had to be... it had to be...