Transcedence Island

By Roger G. King

People who survice the most terrible circumstances become extraordinary.
During the Summer Break after his sophomore year of college a privileged young man goes through one ordeal after another. He survives an accident at sea to awaken alone and adrift. Eventually he is found and taken aboard a boat that has a unique crew. The crew’s codes-of-conduct are centuries old, their boat modern, and their motives and way of life are barbaric.
Transcendence Island is a fast paced novel. Set in contemporary times and written in the first person -- spoiler alert, the protagonists survives -- Walter Alister Bowen III recounts his adventures on the high seas. What will he discover? How will he survive? Who will he become?

Warning! You start reading, you would be able to stop!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger G. King
• Release date: Aug 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463391228

Roger G. King

Roger G. King discovered his love for writing at an early age. His first work, written at ten-years-old and never published, was a western. The story began with the antagonist riding OUT of the sunset and into the lives of his next victims. The protagonist, no surprise here, was a ten-year-old boy. Educated as an Electrical Engineer, he has pursued a career in Real Estate since graduation. This is his first fiction novel, Affirmative Action, was written in small bits over the span of 22 months. It was finished and first published when Roger was 53 years old. During the intervening 43 years he had started many works, but finished none. He likes to say that time was a "maturation period". but, he admits, that he had to first ignore his fears and press on with his dream of writing novels -- he never conquered them. So powerful was his apprehension he told no one that he was writing. Hiding his nasty habit from his family and friends, he would steal 15 to 30 minutes a day to writing. The first novel, Affirmative Action, was 90% complete before he admitted, or dared to admit, that he had been leading a secret life. His wife asked, "What else have you been hiding?"Roger G. King's second book, Cross Reference, was published two years later. It is a sequel to the first, but introduced so many new characters and plot lines that it could be considered a stand-alone book. Cross Reference took longer, and more difficult to write than the first novel. He is grateful for all the feedback and was encouraged by the positive reviews, not mention the sales.His third novel, Transcendence Island is a departure from the first two novels -- each of the prior novels were written in the third person, "God like" perspective. Transcendence Island is a fictional account, written in the first person, of a young man's struggle to find his way through life and extraordinary experiences. The main character returns home during the Summer Break after his sophomore year of college. He is a privileged young man who goes through one terrible ordeal only to be thrust into another. He survives an accident at sea to awaken alone and adrift. Eventually he is found and taken aboard a boat with a unique crew. The crew answers to no higher authority and has codes-of-conduct that are centuries old, their boat is modern, but their motives and way of life are barbaric. The Transcendence is fast paced novel. Set in contemporary times and written in the first person -- spoiler alert, he survives -- Walter Alister Bowen III recounts his adventures on the high seas. What will he discover? How will he survive? Who will he become?Roger has said that he had more fun writing this book than the others, because he was reminded of his younger days. Times when his brother and he had turned empty refrigerator and washing machine boxes into submarines, battleships and pirate corvettes. Spoiler alert for the third book -- the main character is forced into labor aboard a modern day pirate ship.Stay tuned for the next novel. He said that a rough outline has been completed. This book will be another departure for him. This time the main character is a women who is swept into a mysterious life... But, he tells us that its too early to say more. Roger is an author who creates from a blank page with only an idea of what he would like to accomplish; he really has no idea how the book will flow or where the story will end up.Wish him luck!

Book preview

The Atlantic Ocean, Somewhere East of Miami

I struggled to wake; I couldn’t remember what class I had this morning. I couldn’t remember making my usual preparations for any of the lectures that day. Not that that had ever worried me -- I had been the consummate sophomore at Yale, laid-back, immature, and lacking good judgment. Besides, the sound of the alarm wasn’t like any I’d ever heard before.

Whoop, whoop.

I wondered about the sound? Did my roommate, Jack, program a new alarm tone into his smartphone? I would tell him to change it or lower the volume – that sound was too annoying.

I think I screamed, Jack! Turn that shit off!

There was no response from his side of the room.

In my muddled state, I laid on my dorm bed, unable to focus. Hadn’t I taken all of my finals? Wasn’t I on summer break?

I rolled my head to the right and reached back for my pillow to fling across our small dorm room at him.

Whoop, whoop.

There was no pillow behind my head. Where was it? This realization made me shake my head to force myself into the present. The movement caused my head to pound. Closing my eyes tight, I tried to stop the room from spinning.

My first thought was that Jack had gone too far, again. I opened my eyes and tried to focus, but I couldn’t – it was too dark. I felt on top and around my body but couldn’t detect any of the usual signs of the antics he had pulled on others and me: missing pants; flour and lipstick on my face; noise maker stuck in the corner of my sleeping mouth; a small carrot protruding out of my half-opened zipper.

Whoop, whoop.

I could tell I was wearing street clothes. But then, there were times I had flopped on to my bed and fallen immediately asleep out of exhaustion or intoxication.

Tilting my head further to the right, I tried to focus on our dorm room’s far wall. I couldn’t see a wall -- only darkness. I squinted, forcing my brain to find and process any light, find a familiar outline. But there was nothing.

Whoop, whoop.

There was a flash of light. Not in the room, but far out in the distance. I must have been looking through the window. Was there a campus-wide blackout? Where was the soft, ever-present nighttime light coming up from the quad below?

There was another flash -- lightning -- it back-lit yellow-white storm clouds above a flat black horizon. Where’s the campus? Where was I? Why couldn’t I remember?

Whoop, whoop.

I shook my head again to clear it, but that just made me dizzy. I leaned forward, feet out-stretched off my dorm bed -- groping for the floor. There was no floor.

I fought the urge to retch.

Panic was rising; I reached out with both hands. Each bumped into a smooth surface. The surface felt like polished wood – stable, secure. It felt familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Grabbing a tight hold, I pulled myself up, forward. I held on for dear life. Otherwise, it seemed I would fall into darkness, never to stop falling.

Whoop, whoop.

I slid out of bed, and my feet landed on the floor. I didn’t remember the bunk being that high recently. Did we rearrange the beds into bunk beds as we had them the first few weeks of our freshman year?

I couldn’t remember.

Controlling my urge to be sick, I held myself in place and tried to steady the spinning in my head. I remembered now that concentration helped, and the spinning subsided. Had the alarm stopped? Did Jack finally roll over and stop it?

Whoop, whoop.

No. The spinning in my head was stopping; I recalled snippets of recent events. The pictures came up fuzzy in my mind’s eye. Frame after frame flickered and sped up with glimmers of memory, a few, then a flood.

I remembered.

I remembered that I -- no, we -- Jack and I -- were on my boat. I realized that the distant lightning had to be a storm and that the black line below the clouds had to be the ocean. But where is the sea?

That’s right! My roommate and lifelong friend, Johnathan Maximillian Statham, known just as Jack – some classmates called him Simple Jack -- had flown down with me in my family’s jet. But, schoolmates kidding aside, there was nothing simple about Jack. He had to be the smartest guy I had ever met – especially when it came to his elaborate practical jokes.

He had planned to spend the next two weeks with me in Florida. Then he would fly back north to spend the rest of the school break with his family on Martha’s Vineyard.

Whoop, whoop.

Why would he set his alarm on the boat? Was this a practical joke?

We had nowhere to go nor any particular time to be there. I remembered that Carson, our family chauffeur, had picked us up from the executive airport. Loaded our suitcases full of dirty clothes into the limousine’s truck and had driven us to my family’s compound in West Palm Beach. My sister and her husband had been there. Ever present, ever fighting – they were the couple that would discuss everything.

Then Jack and I were on the boat -- the family’s yacht -- The Lady Jane. They had moored it in its usual slip at Riviera Beach Marina. Boarding, Jack had remarked that the ship’s name sounded as if we had named the yacht after a racehorse. When I informed him we had named it after my grandmother on my father’s side, he replied in his crude, sophomoric humor, so you did name it after a lucky nag.

Whoop, whoop.

Standing there and holding on for dear life, I thought about the ship’s electronics. I couldn’t remember any of them making that noise before. I squinted and concentrated on my surroundings. I began to make out objects onboard The Lady Jane in the dim starlight. Slowly, I turned my head not to cause any more discomfort. I was on my boat. Over there was the ice chest. The teak chairs were on the fantail deck where they were supposed to be.

Looking down, I was holding on to one fish fighting chairs’ arms. I must have fallen asleep there, but why can’t I wake up now?

To my right, I made out Jack’s outline slumped in the next fishing chair. One arm dangled and swayed in rhythm to what had to be small ocean swells. He was snoring softly.

I reached for him, missed his arm, but knocked over a glass bottle. The bottle thumped down on the wood deck and rolled away to the right.

Whoop, whoop.

I pushed myself forward and stood on unsteady legs. My right hand held onto the chair’s arm as I pivoted to my right, clearing the footholds. I needed to make my head more; I needed to remember. I wasn’t sure why I needed to remember, but the feeling was urgent. Recalling the sick feeling that shaking my head had caused, I kept my head steady and blinked my eyes several times.

More realization came back to me. We had settled into the fish fighting chairs in the late afternoon. Was that this afternoon? We had not rigged up any of the tackle. We just wanted to sit in the chairs – relax. We had gotten two red solo cups and a full bottle of 15-year-old whiskey, Macallan; it was Jack’s and my favorite.

Holding on, I reached over and shook Jack. His head lolled toward me as he continued to snore. He was out.

Whoop, whoop.

The alarm wasn’t coming from Jack or his side of the boat. It was behind me from the starboard side of The Lady Jane, from the open water. Remembering that I had set up the ship to control it remotely, I turned and tapped the screen of a device called an iPad. In case you don’t remember, 68 years ago, the Apple Corporation marketed many popular products that began with i. They had made a fortune before being taken over by Google. All of Apple’s divisions were separated and chopped up into smaller companies, then sold off individually. It was big news. Google made a fortune, well – another fortune, and was subsequently subject to a Senate investigation. The takeover was the basis of the 2025 book, Barbarians at the Window.

I remembered that the screen on my device remained dark. I had forgotten to plug in the power source. Again, in 2017 a device would have to be recharged periodically by plugging it into an electrical power source. Not just any source, but the power had to be compatible with the device.

Whoop, whoop.

Then, not necessarily awake, but more aware of my surroundings, the distant whoop-whoop sound took me only a moment to identify. When I did, it sent a cold chill down my spine. I didn’t need any sophisticated electronics to tell me we were about to be run down by a large ship. Even today, decades later, it takes little effort to recall the next few minutes as if it were yesterday. I can play the events back in my head like a full-length movie.

The Whoop-Whoop was getting louder. From the fantail of The Lady Jane, I could only see in the direction directly behind the ship. I saw darkness with some phosphorescence churned up in The Lady Jane’s wake. I yelled at Jack to wake up. Except for his gentle snore, there was no sign of life. I’d have to worry about him later.

Whoop, whoop.

Grabbing the handrails, I took two steps at a time up to the upper deck. I rushed as fast as my unsteady legs would carry me to the helm. My head felt like it was going to explode. I stopped in front of the console and blinked until the displays came into focus. Two red, flashing lights got my attention first. Flashing red lights were never a good thing, but these two lights, in particular, confirmed the worst for me. Next, I leaned over the radar screen and had to place a steadying hand on each side of the scope. I saw one giant image. It took up an eighth of the image off The Lady Jane’s starboard quarter.

An indicator on the screen was blinking, Collision Alert in yellow letters.

Whoop, whoop.

I murmured a sarcastic, Thanks a bunch, to the screen, and then looked out the south’s starboard side. I saw nothing -- not even stars. Stepping to my right hand-over-hand to steady myself, I stooped out from under the helm’s covering and looked up out of the bridge’s starboard window. What I saw froze my blood.

Whoop, whoop.

The bottom half of the horizon to the south was dark but capped with large, green/red running lights. Above that was the starry sky. The running lights would soon be overhead. My reaction was to push up with my hands so that I could look down.

Whoop, whoop.

I could make out the bulbous protrusion on the bow of what had to be a large cargo, oil, or container ship. The bow cut a wide arc in two to three-foot seas, leaving a phosphorescent trail down each side of its hull. I watched, frozen with fear. But only for a moment. The thought of Jack passed out with no life preserver snapped me into action.

He was a sitting duck.

Whoop, whoop.

In retrospect, I made the correct decision to help Jack and not try to avoid the collision; I probably wouldn’t have been able to move the ship out of harm’s way in time. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I will live the rest of my life second-guessing the moves and decisions leading up to that point. The other ship captain and crew must have thought we would have hove-to or sprinted forward to let them pass – they had the right-of-way. But, by the time they realized that we would not stop or alter course, it was too late. A ship that large, at cruising speed, takes time to stop or turn.

Adrenaline took charge of my pain and instability. I ran past the stairs and leaped the nine feet off the upper deck down to the fantail. I hit the fantail deck hard. My momentum, or it might have been the whiskey, made me stumble. I fell forward, tucked my shoulder, and rolled to a stop against the fantail gunwale. Looking up, I saw Jack. He was sitting in the fishing chairs, face to the sky, mouth open -- snoring.

Whoop, whoop.

I reached for the cabinet on hands and knees that contained the life jackets and other safety equipment. But before I could get there, it lifted me into the air. Lady Jane took a crushing broadside hit. As best I can piece the event together, the massive ship must have caught her beam. There was less a collision than compaction. In an instant, Lady Jane rode up on the enormous ship’s bulbous nose. The impact ejected me.

I spun in the air and tried to see Jack; to get an idea of where he had been or where he might have landed. But. It was too dark.

I heard a horrible, loud sound like the smaller ship, The Land Jane, was being crushed. When I hit the water, it knocked the breath out of me. Luckily, I skimmed across the top of the dark water; if the impact had pushed me under, I probably wouldn’t have known my way up or been dragged under the ship to be chopped into fish food.

Whoop, whoop.

A massive wave crashed over me, muffling the cracking, splintering, breaking wood. It pushed me further away from the enormous ship. I fought back to the surface to take in a breath. I have had the wind knocked out of me in the past. Each time, I could bend over as I tried to fill my lungs with air.

I didn’t have that luxury here. I fought that urge to bend over as I made myself relax. I floated on my back until I was taking deep breaths. I was/am an excellent swimmer, and being in the water didn’t worry me. I relaxed as best I could, face to the sky, as the buoyant saltwater kept me on the surface. After a few moments, I could breathe normally again. But, by then, the ship’s wake had been pushed further away from the crash, and probably from Jack, by a series of large bow waves.

Whoop, whoop.

Treading water, I spun in a slow circle as I called for Jack. There was no reply. The ship’s stern passed by me. Powerful lights from its fantail eliminated the sea aft of the vessel. It’s massive propellers churning the water in reverse. The ship was trying; I supposed it had been trying to stop. From my perspective, its wake seemed to be a mile wide.

I continued to call Jack’s name. Each time I rode up on the crest of a small wave, I could make some objects floating on the water. The stern lights of the ship helped. The occasional lightning flash gave me a quick, unobstructed view. But I could see nothing moving independently from the action of the container ship or the sea. I couldn’t see Jack. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a body.

The whoop-whoop had stopped, but the ship was still moving away.

I swam back toward the wreckage and through the debris. I was moving in and around the floating parts of Lady Jane. Deck furniture, life jackets, parts of the hull. As the lights of the ship faded, my search became more challenging, more desperate. I swam from one floating object to another. I was stopping each time to yell Jack’s name and for help from the ship. I could see people, the size of ants, moving along the bridge wings.

As I tired, I crawled up onto a teak lounge chair and paddled around. My muscles were burning, cramping. My head ached from dehydration from both the alcohol and salt water that I had consumed.

But I had to find Jack.

The ship was still moving away, and its lights were providing less and less help. The lightning from the approaching storm gave me frozen images of the debris in the sea around me. There was still nothing that looked like a body or even part of a human body. As the rain began, I looked at the large ship in the distance and wondered why they hadn’t launched a boat. Assuming they had called the Coast Guard, I scanned the sky for a helicopter or a plane.

I couldn’t see anything; the rain had increased.

I rolled onto my back and floated on the deck chair. Opening my mouth to the fresh rainwater, I cupped my hands in the shape of a funnel over my lips and greedily drank. Once in a while, a wave would crest and splash nearby, fouling my freshwater. But after spitting and rinsing, I collected more water.

Once I had drunk a few ounces, I carefully rolled back over and resumed my search. Assuming that the ship was too far away to hear my calls for help, I paddled, as best I could in circles, and called for Jack.

As desperation increased, hope waned. I paddled. I called out his name. Occasionally I’d search the sky and surrounding surface for rescuers.

As the ship moved away, thoughts of survival crept into my mind. So, as I searched for Jack, I also searched for objects that could help me. A better floating device, something that could store and keep rainwater fresh. Hat and extra clothing in case I was still out here when the sun rose.

The ship became a bright, blurred image a mile or so away. The increasing winds churned up the sea, making it choppy – angry. Soon after, the wave crests grew and developed white caps.

As the sea tossed me about on my make-shift float, I lost hope of finding Jack. I could only hope that he was clinging to his piece of floating debris.

As I rolled over to drink in more water, I almost lost my balance as a wave crashed over the top of me. I stayed prone. I put my head down and held and paddled the deck chair to tide the waves head-on.

My thoughts went back to the previous day, or was it earlier in the same day? I wanted to piece together where we had been to understand better where we, I, was now.

We had left the Riviera Beach Marina and cruised out into the Atlantic, heading for a small deserted island. I had set the navigation control before sitting in the fishing chair next to Jack. We watched the sunset as The Lady Jane slowly cruised east.

We shared the whiskey bottle as we talked about the classes we would be taking, future jobs, other friends, and girlfriends. And then, we must, from fatigue or whiskey, have passed out.

Since I didn’t know how long, far, we had been cruising, we could be many miles to the east of Miami and past the island. If we had entered the shipping lane, which was a good bet, we were more than 30 miles to the east. If that were the case, we had cruised right past the northern end of our deserted island destination.

I pictured the nautical charts of the area as an immature thought entered my mind. We, I was probably on the western edge of the infamous Bermuda Triangle. I was exhausted and worried. So, please forgive me if, for a moment, the images of a thriving underwater alien civilization below me passed through my mind. Perhaps even Atlantis. I looked through the slats in the deck chair and into the dark water. I could see the outer walls and inner structures of a great city in my mind’s eye -- Giant Kraken swimming in and around tall minarets.

I was snapped back to the surface, to the predicament that I was in when it began to hail. My primal fear faded, replaced by survival instinct.

Golf ball and then baseball-sized ice chunks began to pelt me and the water around me.

I covered my head with my hands, but I made no difference because the world went as black as the water below me.

2. June 5th, 2017

Somewhere east of Miami, Atlantic Ocean

I awoke on a calm sea. A sea that the sailors refer to as the doldrums. There were the occasional swells from a distant breeze, but around my little floating deck chair and me, there was not a wisp of wind.  

I remember that the simple act of lifting my head was painful, and any movement on the chair threatened to dump me into the saltwater. For the benefit of balance, my actions were slow and deliberate.  

The front half of my body had been soaking in seawater. Half of my forearms were white, so much so that they appeared to be translucent. I didn’t want to see how my abdomen and lower body looked.

Rolling over slowly, I took inventory of my injuries: there was a large lump on the back right of my skull; the salt had swollen my lips, and I had a blinding headache from a combination of alcohol, dehydration, and the injury.

I lifted my head slowly and scanned the horizon. Extending my arms to each side of the chair, I slowly paddled in a circle. The large container ship that had run Jack and me over was nowhere in sight. The floating debris from The Lady Jane’s wreckage had probably drifted away or sunk. 

I couldn’t see or hear any aircraft. 

I was alone.  

In every direction, there was a calm blue sea. I remember that I had figured I was in the shipping lanes between Europe and the Caribbean; in the so-called Atlantic Drift, where ship captains would take advantage of the strong warm water current to speed their way Northeast to Europe.

But I had no way of knowing. 

I could tell by the sun’s position that I was still north of the equator and had awakened in the morning. But of what day?  

I let my head drop too hard against the deck chair. A sharp pain threatened to split my head apart. I closed my eyes tightly until the pain subsided. Relaxing, I opened my eyes and looked up into a cloudless blue sky. But loss, desperation, and black despair overwhelmed my thoughts. I thought of just rolling over, into, and under the dark blue water. Then Scream until my lungs were full of water, allowing my body to drift down into the depths until there was no more pain – feed the Kraken. But, a quote from a contemporary author of that time, Stephen King, played over and over in my head, Get busy living or get busy dying. I pushed the negative thoughts away and began to concentrate on survival.  

Taking a personal inventory, I had my clothes, and in the right-side pockets of my pants, I found my Swiss Army knife. It was a gift from Jack. He had spent a couple of weeks with his family in the Swiss Alps last winter, and that was my souvenir. In his opinion, that was the most Swiss thing he thought of getting me. I had thanked him and jokingly remarked, the Swiss make good watches and have large bank accounts.

Now I was not only glad he had chosen the knife, but that I had thought of bringing it along on the boat.

Carefully taking the knife out of my pocket, I cut off the bottom foot of my lower right pant leg.

I cut along the seam so that the round leg section opened up into a square. Shoving the scrap into the left pocket of my pants, I cut a long strip of cloth out of the left pant leg, long enough so that I could tie the square on the top of my head, providing me some shelter from the sun. Making two cuts into the square cloth, I wove the strip in one cut and out through the other.  

My head felt a little better being out of the direct sun. 

I opened each of the tools with my sore wrinkled fingers. I opened the scissors and the corkscrew to see if I could fashion a fishing hook. Then I pulled out the bottle opener; this was a manufactured hook, used to pry up the old bottle caps.  Fashioned in a way that it resembled a large fishing hook. The finish was bright silver and reflected light—the perfect lure. The thumbnail slot had a small opening and would be ideal for tying the end of a line through. I spent some time, probably hours, using different fingers to bend the opener from side to side, working the tool loose from the knife. When it finally came loose, I got so excited that it popped into the air, landing on my chest. I didn’t move, watching to be sure the hook didn’t slide off. My arms stayed still, holding the remaining parts of the knife. When it didn’t move, I slowly lowered my right hand, placed two fingers on the hook. Pressing it tight to my chest, I slipped my thumb under and gripped it.

Shoving the opener/hook deep into my pocket, I then open the knife blade and cut a strip of cloth from my shirttail, and began to unravel the threads with my wrinkled fingers. Deep painful cracks had opened on two of the fingers of my right hand. So, progress was slow, my head still hurt, and the day was hot with no breeze.  

Every few minutes, I would search the horizon and sky. Many times, converging waves on the horizon made me think there was a boat in the distance. I even hoped for a storm to bring fresh water and relief from the sun. That was terrible news for me too; fish stayed down deep and avoided the surface on hot, calm days.

As I braided the threads into a line, I would spin and search the horizon. Wanting to keep my hands dry, I learned that I could gently turn in a circle using my right foot as a paddle. I had to make the line strong enough but not so large that it would scare off the fish. In those days, clothes manufacturers still used natural cotton. My shirt and pants were, for the most part, made of cotton.

I couldn’t chance to lose my tackle to a massive fish. So, I made a thick weave of the material.  

Around dusk, I had finished a long line out of the bottom quarter of my shirt. The sun was low on the horizon. I could feel my exposed lower back, ankles, and feet burn. All I wanted to do was sleep but knew that that was a symptom of my dehydration.

I lowered the line into the water. Not trusting my chapped hands to hold on if a large fish hit the line, I tied the loose end to my deck chair. As I slowly moved my lure up and down, dusk faded into night. A light breeze kicked up. Nothing paid any attention to me or my hook. I had expected a curious shark or two, but I was alone.  

In the distance -- I believed, or imagined, that it was to the southwest -- thunderheads were developing.

These would create rougher seas but would also bring much needed fresh water. I thought about how to collect clean water. When the storm came, my solution was to remove my pants, tie the legs in knots, and gather as much rain as possible. If waves didn’t make the collected freshwater brackish, I should have fresh water for a few hours. So, I waited and tried to think of other ways to collect the water, but none came to me as I waited for the rain hoping that the thick pants fabric could hold the freshwater.  

As the sunset, the storm approached. I tied my line around two of the slats in the deck chair, sat up, and balanced myself as my head began to swim. My dehydration was getting critical. That storm needed to move faster. Imagining how best to collect the freshwater, I would have to be patient. I would rinse the pants off the salt before filling them.

I checked my line and turned toward the storm. A cool breeze began to blow. Well, more refreshing than the stagnate air. The clouds formed into a thick edge that slowly swallowed the stars as it headed in my direction. The type of weather front that is so common to Florida and these waters. On my side of the clouds were thousands of stars and a bright quarter moon.

I felt a jerk. I softly pinched thumb and forefinger on the thread and waited. I bobbed the line slowly, hoping that what little moonlight was penetrating the water was reflecting off the hook. For some time, except for the slight movement in the line, I sat still – waiting for my dinner to come back. After a few minutes, I slowly pulled the line out of the water, and my heart sank. The hook was gone. The braided line had been cut.  

I remember crying with no tears.

Heat lightning was crisscrossing in the line of clouds as they approached. Once in a while, a bolt of light would extend down from the clouds and illuminate my surroundings. I could see some waves being pushed up and in my direction by the approaching storm. I was so thirsty.

I waited, watching the light show and thinking about how I could fashion another hook from one of the remaining tools. In a flash of lighting, I saw a reflection on my left. It could have been a wave. The storm clouds had eaten the moon, and the remaining starlight wasn’t providing enough light for me to see. I concentrated and waited on the next bolt of lightning.  

In the next flash, I saw the reflection again -- an outline above the waves. The thing was long, smooth, and dull. There was a large fin in the middle and another to my right -- maybe a tail. I first thought that it was a whale. It couldn’t be a ship -- there were no running lights visible.  

Was I hallucinating?

Then another flash, and there it was still. A long dark object, sitting in roughly the same spot. It was several hundred feet from me. The part above the water appeared to be a long cylinder.

In the middle was a wide object sticking far above the water. I had to be seeing a surfaced submarine, but I was not sure. The lack of