The Ripple of Belief

(Author note; While I listed this as fiction, do know that it is fiction based on real events. Because the fictional aspect outweighed the non-fiction, I felt compelled to put it in that category.)

Sebastian stretched like a cat. A big cat. A cougar cat. He scratched his stubble absentmindedly. Tattoos and veins juddered over his forearm as he did so. The sun streamed through the window calling the day new. It was Friday, but a holiday Friday. He remembered the day and eased his mind back into his pillow. “Ah, no rush.” The digital clock on the bedside table ticked 7:34. Coffee. The word danced on the smell of beans. He sighed contentedly. “In a minute, I’ll make it in a minute.” Watson farted.

“Why do I let you sleep with me?” Sebastian gave his beagle’s ear a rub. Watson inched up to Sebastian’s face. His tongue reached out for a taste of morning breath. Dogs are weird. 

“What should we do today Watson?” Sebastian asked, flinging his feet from under the covers.

“Go to the beach.” The thought was brief and gone before Sebastian’s feet found the carpet. He stood up.

“Well, buddy?” Watson stretched and yawned and stood and shook the night off his fur. Sebastian turned toward Watson as if expecting him to speak. “A walk?”

“Go to the beach.”

The thought rapped again, a little stronger but easily ignored. Sebastian headed to the kitchen and pressed ‘start’ on the coffee machine. Watson stood at the door staring it open. Sebastian let him out, and let himself into his own bathroom. Their morning ritual. Peeing at the same time.

Ten minutes later Sebastian was on the deck with his mug savoring the first sips of coffee. He sat in the lounger and Watson jumped up settling on his lap. “You’re not a lap dog dude.” He ran his hand down Watson’s back and lifted his head into the morning sun.

“Thank you for this morning.” Sebastian prayed. His faith was not attached to rosary beads, or sanctified in hand gestures, there was no down-on-the-knees holy rollin’, just simple belief in Jesus whom he’d been saved by some twenty years before. His heart submerged in gratitude rose, and thanksgiving was set free from his soul. The breeze whispered…

‘Go to the beach.’

He heard it then. Like a train. Not the loud whistle, nor the screech of metal wheels against metal ties ‘round a bend. He heard it like a gentle beat you need to listen for when the world is screaming beside you. Calm. Rhythmic. Deep. Throaty. Thumps.

Go, thump, to, thump, the, thump, beach, thump.

Sebastian entertained the thought, took another sip of coffee, and figured…Why the hell not?

***

Bruce Kinkade ran his hand through his hair. Overgrown and graying. Oval glasses were pushed up the bridge of his nose. His laptop was open. He leaned back in his chair. Black leather on wheels with lumbar support. The best money could buy ten years ago. The seams were splitting now. White foam peeked out to see what he was writing today. He didn’t know yet. Something had been tapping on the edge of his mind for a while but he didn’t have a full grasp of it. It hovered like the morning after a night of dreams. There, but not there. He needed to work at it yet. The town of Bunson’s news reporter sipped coffee as he did that.

***

“I do it myself.” He scrunched his nose and lips together in a three-year-old stubborn stance. “I do it!” stomped his foot into the sand to punctuate the point.

Mel handed Sam his beach towel. “Alright then, you lay it out.”

“I do it.”

“You do it.”

“Hey Sam, do you want to come with me to the dock?” Jack suggested.

“Yesssssssssss!!!”

Jack and Mel and Sam started that day with pancake syrup dribbling down their chins at Peggy’s Diner just off Number 3 Road South. Their holiday go-to ritual. Pancakes. Maple syrup and butter, or bumbleberry or raspberry, maybe strawberries and whip cream.

“What do you want to do next?” Mel asked Jack. Bacon was being chewed. Coffee was being sipped.

“I don’t know, we haven’t been to the beach in a while. Thoughts?”

“Beach, Beach, Beach, Beach! Sam chanted, doing a knee dance in the booth. Blonde hair bobbed. A fork waved. The table jiggled. Milk spilled. Mel looked at Jack. Jack looked at Mel. “Why not!” they said at the same time, then burst out laughing because they did so.

That was two hours ago. Mel was now sprawled out on a Barney beach blanket reading a grocery store romance, absentmindedly rubbing away the sand from between her toes. She looked toward the dock. Jack was looking at the mountain, and Sam was crouched, inspecting something on the water. She laid back down and pulled the book up to read, blocking the sun from beating down on her at the same time. She heard water lapping against the shore. A goose gaggled somewhere in the sky. The murmurs of mommies pulling out snacks from beach bags were ignored as she flipped the page to see if Guinevere was caught in the storm or if she made it to the cottage on the hill before the sky opened.

***

Sam and Jack jumped along the wooden dock. A trail of liquid footsteps followed them. Big boys were leaping cannonballs on the left. A large lady tucked into a green two-piece was laughing, three white rolls of belly jiggled in joy. Her shoulders were screaming hot and mad, she didn’t seem to mind. “Watch me!” she yelled to her mini-me sitting on the edge of the dock. She pencil-tipped her hands and dove. Slicing through the water like a deflated inner tube. She surfaced and let out a loud ‘Whoop!’ “Come on Heather!” Mini-me, Heather, her daughter grinned and did so.

Sam crouched down balancing on his heels. His blue shark swim shorts brushed the dock with his butt. How do kids do that squat and stay? The thought rolled across Jack’s mind. He turned his face toward the mountains and drew the lake air deep until his lungs were filled and his mind emptied. Minnows raced in water circles. A piece of lake weed floated by the pier. A goose flew overhead and gaggled. Sam leaned closer to the lake watching the minnow race. A teenager wearing yellow shorts and white earbuds cocked his head forward and back like a bird dipping for worms mouthing the words ‘Unstoppable.’ His foot hit the kickdrum and water splashed.

A speed boat, driven by a dad pulling his kids on a tube zipped by. They were laughing. An orange sand shovel floated by the lake weed that was floating by the dock. Sam’s eyes left the minnows and reached for the shovel. Jack was watching the kids being flipped off their tube. The boat slowed and turned to retrieve them. Sam’s finger was on the shovel. A tiny bit more and he could fully grasp it, he inched forward. Two big teen boys with white smeared sunscreen shoulders came barreling down the dock. It bounced. Jack steadied himself. Sam couldn’t. The dock sprung him into the water. It surprised him. It was cold. He wasn’t expecting any of it. He opened his mouth to scream and the lake filled it.

Sunshine filtered through the liquid and Sam’s eyes were wide in panic, he saw shadows flickering in the light above. Waves filled them. His arms flailed blindly screaming for something to hang onto. They found nothing. The water dissolved as he tried to climb out. Lake weed wrapped around his foot. A trout grazed his calf. The lake held onto his legs and yanked. Black ink rose as his body dropped. His blonde hair disappeared into obsidian, his consciousness along with it.

Jack didn’t know he was gone until he noticed him missing. Bubbles. When he turned back to where Sam had been he saw bubbles. He didn’t see Sam.

****

Watson finished flirting with the lady in a red one-piece when Sebastian brought the sandwiches out. Food wins all the time, every time. Next, sleep. He was doing that now, snoring on a tartan beach blanket. Finishing the rest of his sandwich in one bite, Sebastian washed it down with a bottle of water, tossed the plastic back in the beach bag, and pulled out the sunscreen. He started rubbing it across Gabriel, the winged creature tattooed on his forearm. Look up.

Sebastian raised his eyes to the dock as two teenage boys barreled down it. A little boy, maybe three, was crouched on his heels, leaning in, inspecting the water. The dock shifted under the teen’s weight, he saw the boy bounce in. It took a moment for his mind to comprehend what he witnessed. He waited for Dad to do something, but he realized Dad didn’t notice. One leap, his muscles responded. He ran down the dock and dropped in after the boy.

Ink. They chained a dock in ink, he could see nothing but lake weed, he reached blindly ‘Oh Lord God, please!’ He begged.

Men were frantically looking for a way to help. Ten on the dock. Twenty in the water.

A voice shouted they had called 911.

Jack stared at the bubbles in shock.

Mel had leaped from Barney the minute she saw a flicker of commotion from the corner of her eye. She now stood beside Jack staring at bubbles. It seemed the lake was filled with a thousand bodies dunking, surfacing, breathing, and diving again. “Oh God please, help them find him.” her mind whispered.

Moms were holding their littles on the side, watching in horror. Whispered prayers for help and thankfulness in conflicted chatter escaped their lips. “Thank you it’s not me! Oh God, help him!”

Water. An infinity of water. An eternity of water. Sebastian felt like he was in it for a hundred years searching for that baby’s breath.

He swam deeper, it got colder. His lungs shrieked. He ignored them. It didn’t seem right that he should breathe while that baby couldn’t. He used his hands to touch where his eyes couldn’t see. “Oh Lord God PLEASE HELP!” his mind beseeched.

His hand brushed on something soft, instinctively he moved his body toward it, a stick? A soft stick? A soft… wrist. He grabbed and pulled and screamed to the surface.

When Sebastian surfaced with a blue boy, his tattooed arms held him toward heaven. A hundred hands reached down to extract him, Mel's and Jack’s were the first.

Green Two-Piece immediately started what she’d been trained to do. Emergency room nurses’ know how to keep it together in an emergency.

“Oh God, no heartbeat! Her blue-lipped fear, confirmed. She was hovering over Sam. Her jowls jiggled as she started CPR. “Momma?” Heather called out. “Just pray!” Green Two-Piece instructed as she started chest compressions. Heather did, Mel did, Jack did, Sebastian did, and everyone on that damn dock did.

The first- responders and a helicopter arrived simultaneously, and CPR was passed from Green Two-Piece to the ambulance attendant. Still no heartbeat, still no breath. Everyone was loaded into the chopper and a cry for prayer rang out through the city.

***

In his office across town, a Tweet vibrated.

“Drowning at Bunson Lake, first responders have arrived, please pray.”

Bruce was leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed in thought. “How the hell can people still believe in that shit!?” It made him angry, all of it seethed inside, and it slipped out. His eyes flashed open “Bull shit!”

He opened his laptop and started typing.

It was a three-line tweet.

“Ludicrous to lean on the superstition of prayer. We should focus our attention and gratitude on the first responders.”

He hit the enter button.

Within fifteen minutes The Editor of Bunson News’ phone was going off the rails. It vibrated. He ignored it. It vibrated again, and again, and again. He turned it over and swiped it open. Messages flashed.

“Your reporter needs to keep his mouth shut!”

“What a heartless ass! Who says something like this when a little boy is dying!”

“You better fire that dumb ass or we are pulling all of our advertising.”

The editor opened Twitter and saw what Bruce had typed.

“Shit.”

His phone kept vibrating and message after message flashed.

He picked up the phone and called Bruce’s number.

“Bruce here.”

“What the hell Bruce?”

“What the hell, what?”

“Your Twitter!”

“Ya, What about my Twitter? What’s the big deal?”

“They’re calling for your head.”

“Why?”

“It was shitty.”

“How so?”

“Bruce! A kid might die, the city asks for prayer and you smack that down?”

“Ugg, ya, shit the timing was bad, I admit. But it just makes me so mad that people spend time praying rather than doing legitimate things.”

“Your opinion!”

“Yes! It is my opinion, and I put it on my personal page. It's what I believe. What's the big deal?”

“Your opinion is costing the paper thousands of dollars in advertising. People are pulling away their business because of your f’n big mouth.”

“…Oh, shit, I didn’t consider that.”

“‘Oh shit, he didn’t consider that…” the editor rolled his eyes as he repeated the words. “You give me no choice Bruce, we gotta let you go.”

“You’re firing me because I stated my opinion?”

“Come in on Monday, collect your papers and your severance, sorry man, I have no choice.”

“Fuck.”

Bruce hung up the phone and wondered what the hell just happened. How had he gone from an employed newspaper reporter to an unemployed one in under an hour?

***

A simple tweet an hour later vibrated through the community of Bunson.

Sam’s heart started in the helicopter. Sam was responsive. Sam was breathing on his own. Sam was expected to make a full recovery.

The community exhaled gratitude. Jack and Mel thanked everyone for holding Sam up in prayer.

***

He pulled into Polly’s Pub. Gravel crunched beneath the tires of his jeep. The neon open sign flashed red. A painted parrot hung from rusted chains chirred in the breeze. The scalloped edge of the black awning flapped. He entered the same door the same way he’d been entering the pub for the last 15 years. The bartender saw him and popped the top of a long neck, shoved a lime in it, and set it on the bar in front of the stool he sat in just about every Saturday night.

“Thanks, Ted.”

“You’re welcome.”

He pushed the lime down the throat, stuffed his thumb on the top, and tipped the bottle upside down so the lime would sink. Rightening the bottle he put it to his lips and tipped it back. His Adam’s apple bobbed with the swallow.

The doors opened again and his friend entered the same door the same way he’d been entering the pub for the last 15 years. He pulled out the barstool and nodded a thanks to Ted who had just laid a pint of lager on the coaster in front of him.

He took a sip and wiped the foam off his upper lip. “I tried to call you yesterday, but you didn’t pick up, busy?”

“Watson and I went up to the lake. What about you? What were you doing on a holiday Friday?”

“Getting fired,” Bruce said.