The Sinking and the Sweet

Tagline: To a young woman depressed and without means after a shipwreck, salvation comes from an unexpected encounter.

 

I stared out over the railing at the horizon, which was precariously rolling up and down as the waves pitched on and on relentlessly.

“We’re never going to make it“ I screamed out loud to anyone who wanted to listen. But only the wind’s loud voice returned to me, whistling an uncanny tune of doom.

“Man the lifeboats!“ the officer commanded at the top of his voice, screaming to be heard over the agony wails of the storm. „Women and children first.“

„Where? What? How?“ - in a confusion of flight the masses raced past me, all focused, all determined, all terrified.

 

I followed, quickening my pace to keep up. There they were. Frighteningly small, too few. Someone pushed me headlong and I fell into the first boat, a flurry of petticoats taking flight, landing me painfully upon the other passengers, too winded to apologize.

Before I could think the boat was being lowered to the black depths. The splash and shudder of contact making us aware that we had arrived. Some strong young crew members quickly put their backs into it, rowing us away from the sinking ship, sailing us towards the nothingness of jet blackness. Anyone with breath was crying, wimpering, howling or sobbing, all shivering in the cold.

 

Three days. Four nights. How many souls were lost? Too many. Too many to count. Too many for my lonely soul to comprehend. Of all of them, only one mattered.

John was gone. The man I worshipped, the man who loved me and who I loved back with a fervour which was shamingly passionate. How did we get separated? Why wasn’t he at my side that fateful night? What am I going to do without him? Is life worth living any more?

“No“, the woeful answer, “God no!“

When we finally hit land and safety, compassionate hands helped me out of the boat. But I couldn’t feel the warm blankets they flung around my shoulders, couldn’t hear their kind words of comfort, couldn’t see one single step in front of me. I had ceased to be. Deceased. I died out there with my fiancée. My heart had stopped pumping, my lungs had stopped breathing, the spark that was my life had spluttered out.

 

So how did I become the self assured young woman I am today? What revived my flagging body? What sparked the joy of life I know today, what magic turned me around? 

 

It happened in a moment, a mouth watering moment of indulgence. 

 

The next day, after my arrival at this new stage of my life, I was sitting with other survivors at a table, hopeful of encouragement and perspective.

 

A young man came up to me. He had kind blue eyes and a gentle confidence to his step. One word jumped into my mind as I beheld him… “balanced“.

He offered me a tea, but I declined. A piece of meat with potatoes. But my stomach was still cramping from the food I had greedily gobbled down last night. Famished as I was, no one told me to eat slowly and not too much. Today I was paying the consequences.

 

Then he did something that would forever change my life.

“This is a sea port. We see and taste, smell and touch things that no one else has ever known. Try this.“ He pulled a bundle from under the bar and sacredly undid the knot. Then he pulled out an earth coloured block of something so non-descript that I wanted to ignore him. But there was something about the way he reverently touched it that captivated me. He took a sharp knife and sliced off a chunk of it and handed it to me. I just stared at him. “What do I do with it?“ I asked. My curiosity now piqued. “Why eat it, silly“, he replied!

I smelled it and the most exotic and overwhelming scent I had ever smelled hit my brain and I started to salivate! “O my!“ I uttered, and popped the whole piece into my mouth. 

 

That was it. I was lost. An explosion of sweetness, and fantastic harmonious gorgeousness erupted in my mouth and sent shivers of delight to every corner of my being.

I was in love. Chocolate had entered my life and was to be my consuming passion until the day I died!

 

Carole Stolz © August 2023

(Word Count 792)

FCA

 

 

This was written after the prompt “ Chocolat” 

from Write Edit Publish, a writing group which bimonthly pens friendly 

competition. 

For more entries for the August 2023 Challenge please  click on this link.