Lander

By Ulf Wolf

A sailboat with a crew of three goes down in a fierce storm somewhere between South Georgia and Gough Islands in the Southern Seas. All three drown.

Though one of them not entirely.

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The ocean spread in all directions like a blue-green sheet of undulating glass; in long, slow swells here where he hovered, vanishing into finer and finer motions toward the horizon where the surrounding water finally dropped away to form a perfect circle. The sun not so much glittered upon as glowed within this surface and the long slow waves spoke of recent truce between wind and water.

Yet, though the surface seemed at ease, the wind was not, perhaps heralding another storm as it steadily poured through him from a distant west.

As he took this in, Lance thought nothing of it at first. This was as it should be. Ocean all around, pale circular horizon far off in every direction. Then it slowly caught up with him, this new perspective, this new view: he saw all directions at once, and not only horizontally through all points of the compass, but globally too. He was surrounded by this watery, airy, weathery world and as far as he could see spread this undulating, windy stillness.

The clear blue sky above held only the occasional tatter of white cloud—busy little remnants not quite sure which way the herd had gone, looking here and there, chased by wind and curiosity—and directly below lay the watery side of the vast surface: the dark movement reached down and down.

Thoughts began to arrive, one by one, though in no hurry whatever. This was ocean. This was sky. This was wind. These were waves, though more like swells here. And this was him. Seeing. Thinking. Alive. Still alive.

Still alive.

Yet dead.

Dead. He was dead then? He had finally let go? Lungs full of salty, unbreathable water.

As if fanned by these questions his thoughts—images really—began arriving with more urgency. And so he remembered the raft, yellow, slippery, set on leaving him behind, and wondered was it still around. He scanned the surface for it. Again, his vision both curious and familiar, spreading out in all directions like air after an explosion, racing for the circular horizon. But there was no trace of the raft. No yellow anywhere to disrupt the blue-green, windy stillness.

Nor was there any sign of the boat, of course not—he had seen it go down, had in fact gone down with it. Nor were there any signs of the storm, the rage that now flooded memory with violent spray and brutal wind. Only its echo still lingering in these swells.

And of the others? No, no sign, of course not. And he remembered: they didn't even make it off the boat, trapped below when the mast broke and crushed the entryway, Adam with a broken ankle, he had slipped earlier in the day, unable now to move, and Tom with a severed thumb, trying to stanch the bleeding, crying openly from the pain, looking for the morphine with his good hand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ulf Wolf
• Release date: Oct 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370902194

Ulf Wolf

Ulf is a Swedish name that once meant Wolf. So, yes, Wolf Wolf, that's me. I was born Ulf Ronnquist one snowy night in late October, in one of those northern Swedish towns that are little more than a clearing in the forest. Fast forward through twenty Swedish years, ten or so English ones, and another twenty-four in the US and you'll find me in front of an immigrations officer conducting the final citizenship interview, at the end of which he asks me, "What name would you like on your passport?" And here I recall what a friend had told me, that you can pick just about any name you want at this point, and I heard me say "Ulf Wolf." That's how it happened. Scout's honor. Of course, I had been using Ulf Wolf as a pen name for some time before this interview, but I hadn't really planned to adopt that as my official U.S. name. But I did. I have written stories all my life. Initially in Swedish, but for the last twenty or so years in English. To date I have written six novels, four novellas and two scores of stories; along with many songs and poems. My writing focus these days is on life's important questions (in my view): Who are we? What are we doing here? And how do we break out of this prison?

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