The Trident

On an open boat with my mother, father, and sister...my sister is trying to catch a fish with a specific face...hooks him but the line breaks...my hands painfully stigmatized by the missing fish hook...must have been trolling for Christ, baiting the line with sin...

Sky darkens...sudden storm erupts outbursts of huge breakers ...our craft capsizes and we are thrown toward a mist enshrouded island...steep embanked shoreline an impossibilium, takes an infinity to climb...I keep getting thrown onto the sand and then sucked back into the swells by some unseen over-tow...watch as the others scurry up the shifting embankment towards a barely visible tree line...finally an immense swell picks me up, breaks, throws me through the brine-stained atmosphere and lands me halfway up the shore bank...I scramble in slow motion with all my juice up the sand...I am naked but not cold...when I finally reach the top, bursts of water coming from a blowhole in front of me knock me to the soggy earth and consequently almost back over the brink of the embankment...

Up ahead lies a barren forest: horrible craggy leafless trees protrude from the stinking mud like cursed barnacle covered fingers pointing heavenward in blasphemous mockery...to these vegetable abominations cling my family...the waves have become agitated, growling and roaring like great sea beasts...my father hangs from a triple pronged tree, appearing as though Neptune has lost control of his almighty trident...I sprint with mercurial speed and reach the haunted stand of timber just as an oceanic assault from the rear commences...somehow the waves travel completely over this barren land, through the entirety of this forest of bones...my sister appears lost and confused and wanders through the trees being knocked and pulled by waves from both sides...eventually I guide her via vague hand signals and histrionics toward our deadwood saviors...during the lull between each series of waves (every seven) we bolt forward from tree to tree in an attempt to reach higher ground free of this anomalous situation...in the midst of these sombre woods lay great sulphuric pits, bubbling and squawking with painfully loud flatulent effervescence...a smell of putrefying eggs permeates the nostrils with every ejaculation of steam, like embryonic fluid expelled from the orifices of the earth...temperature receptors torn between a dichotomy of hot sulphur mists and cold salt spray...

In the center of these pits sits a phantasmagoric skeletal mansion, like some sort of unfinished hotel, a charnel house amidst a forest of bones, victim to fire, but bleached bone-white by sulphuric gas, as if constructed of human remains and housing misery...the interval between wave bursts has increased; perhaps now we may escape this perpetual soaking...we push forward, but the expired vegetation appears to be thinning like the balding crown of our Lord...as we pursue this course, the previously small and fairly insignificant lapping undulations ahead slowly increase in both size and velocity...to avoid being swept away, we find we must hastily move from one tree to another, as the trees appear with less frequency and the waves become increasingly dangerous...it is as if the entire expanse of this forsaken island is swept by the angry foam curtain of the sea...the light has achieved a dusky, burning purple hue, bathing the surroundings in a morbid deathly glow...as the claustrophobic veil of smothering night descends on the cursed crags, visual acuity diminishes and appearances become deceiving: you sprint towards a tainted December-pole, which, upon reaching its position, dematerializes into a haze of sweat and saline...

Despair wafts out, crying across the barren firmament of fishes, the Isle a star expelled from the heavens and tossed down into this earthly pool of tears, created by the unstopped floodgates of a million eyes of sorrow...

The ground has become jagged and rocky and lacks the cold comfort of white-washed wood...the ocean can now be seen again, as we have apparently crossed the entire island...an anarchy of crashing waves pervades the gloom, out of which emerges an unnamable shape of geometric accuracy seeming to hover above our pathetic plight...within the shifting light of dusk, the object is briefly delineated, appearing to be some sort of platform or stage...the chaotic symphony of Neptune suddenly ceases as the moon breaks through the elongated cloud cover with a demonic grin...in a flash of illumination, a horde of faceless observers are exposed on the platform above...looking ocean-ward, I see that we have now come to the brink of this cursed rock; beyond and below lies the sea, gurgling in mocking anticipation... immediately a burst like a thunderclap erupts and the waters commence their dance macabre...my father ascends the platform, dragging my sister behind, I taking my mother by the hand and attempting to follow...but a sudden deafening blast and monumental swell of the dark shattered mirror of the sea ascends the ragged cliff, wrenching my mother away and pulling her silently asunder...she is tortuously smashed to pulp against the pointed rocks by the tempestuous currents below...

My father looks down from above, expressionless. Evidently he has regained control of his trident.

© Sartisohn 2003