Stranded in the Wind

“... Supplies running low. Rationing begins tomorrow. Aphrodite’s Kiss due to sail near this route tonight. Attempt at rescue possible.” Rufus read the final line of the entry over and over. With an almost involuntary shake of his head, he snapped the logbook closed and shoved it into one of his many pockets.

Rufus stood near the beach as the waves became larger and more frequent. The horizon was so blackened it swallowed the sunlight, casting an ominous glow across the open ocean. “So much for fishing,” he thought, loosening the grip on his fishing pole. A crack of thunder whipped the air from Rufus’ lungs and nearly toppled him. Birds shot up from the treeline in a chaotic frenzy, completely startled into flight.

The echoes of thunder rode on distant waves while wisps of lightning littered the growing darkness, giving it life with displays of ferocity. The air was dense with moisture and cold, wet wind began blowing through the sparse trees, kicking up sand and dirt. Dust spun around, swirling and tunneling upwards before being struck by a crosswind and decimated into formless nothing again.

Resting at the very peak of the island stood an ancient lighthouse, and Rufus’ temporary home after a similar storm left him stranded on this island. A sailor welcomed storms as easily as an old friend to a cup of tea, but this one was different - it felt unnatural, unbecoming. Like the Devil was sweeping the Earth and all of its oceans to destroy everything and remake it in His image.

Rufus pitied those aboard the Aphrodite's Kiss, somewhere on the other side of the storm wall. When the sun rises again, he might have new companions on this deserted island. Though, probably not. This one was a killer. All of those poor souls were sentenced to die at sea with nothing to remember them by except shards of weathered wood as their ship is obliterated and cast aside like trash. Trash that Rufus would like to pick through in the following days.

He turned and hurried along the trail, dashing through the brush, evading low-hanging branches and skipping over old, thick root systems that protruded from the ground. The vegetation eventually fades away, becoming more scarce and desolate closer to the tower. Even at the base of climb, there is little else besides rocks and dirt.

Rufus grabbed hold of a boulder and began climbing steadily up the rock formation. On a normal day, this climb was treacherous enough. If Rufus had any chance at survival, he had to be quick before the storm was truly on top of him. The wind tested him, disrupting his balance and almost sending him tumbling down the rocky hill.

Far below in the distance, trees of the forest swished vigorously. The weaker leaves were carried away in the wind, littering the shoreline with little green specks. Glimpses of the tower flashed into view as the lightning closed in, its forks and tendrils reaching closer and closer to Rufus. He pulled himself up to the final clearing where the tower stood defiant and unprovoked.

Rufus stared at the door of the lighthouse with desperate yearning. He shivered uncontrollably as he trotted towards the door, his focus narrowing to only the dissipating distance that kept him from the dry warmth of the lighthouse. Soaked to the bone by preliminary rain, the wind felt like stinging knives of ice slashing his skin and giving him permanent goosebumps.

Beyond the lighthouse, Rufus could see water spouts and small tornadoes forming on the ocean, barely visible, appearing as shifting distortions traversing the open waters. Intermittent streams of lightning briefly illuminate the cylindrical terror heading for the island. The shadowing thunder shook the ground like temperate earthquakes. No, this was no ordinary storm indeed.

Rufus anxiously crossed the final threshold and grabbed hold of the door’s steel ring handle, only to discover it would not budge. “Impossible!” Rufus shouted into the wind. There was no locking mechanism installed on this old slab of wood. It couldn’t possibly be jammed either. He yanked and pulled on the door in disbelief. Nothing. A new layer of fear sank deep into his gut, completely crushing the previous flecks of uncertainty and doubt. He uncomfortably acknowledged the fact that he would die out here at the foot of his salvation.

No longer did the wind gust incrementally; it became an unrelenting torrent of force. Rufus held on to the ring with both hands to keep himself from being carried away. Perhaps imagined in his growing mania, he felt a rush of warmth emanating from the other side of the door, mocking him, as he lost feeling in his limbs and the chill settled as if to reach his soul.

His loosening grip on the door was the only thing separating him from being impaled by one of the trees below to bleed to death. Perhaps the wind would carry him down to the rocks where the waves would smash against his limp corpse as if he were a rag doll, lost and forgotten.

He cursed as his hands finally slipped off the handle. Rufus was immediately whisked away from the door and fell backwards. He looked around frantically for something to hold on to, but there was nothing else this close to the lighthouse. Death and emptiness surrounded him on this barren land. He wondered if he were the first victim of the lighthouse’s cruelty, or if there were a pile of bones and corpses littered around the base of the cliff where the lighthouse stood triumphantly.

Rufus scrambled to get back to the door, but the wind halted his efforts every step of the way as he was nudged ever backwards. The edge of the island's peak grew closer behind him. His eyes were transfixed on the door as it appeared to slowly open. It was completely dark now, and he saw only glimpses of it in the intermittent lightning strikes around him. Yes, it was open. He could see a glimmer of candlelight attempting to escape from the small gap.

With newfound strength, Rufus lunged and charged through the wind, but it was hopeless. The wet ground and crosswind sent him sprawling forward, and he slid back to where he was before. The flickering candlelight consumed and transformed his thoughts. He imagined himself safely within the confines of the lighthouse, wearing dry clothes and bundled in his blankets. The calm and still light of the candle cast shadows that danced on the walls, and he would bemusedly watch them all night until he drifted off to sleep, completely unaffected by the raging storm outside.

A stray pebble struck him on the side of the face and his mind returned to his reality. Rufus laid there in the dark, his body curled up in the fetal position as the wind scooted him closer to the edge. He kept trying to imagine himself inside the lighthouse again but the panic and fear wouldn’t allow such comfortable thoughts any longer. He thought about his family and how he would never see them again. They probably thought he was long dead and now they would be right.

With a final gust of wind, Rufus was thrown off the edge and felt himself falling. The air whisked around him and the wind continued to jerk him in different directions. He closed his eyes, though it wasn’t much difference from the darkness that surrounded him. The waves crashed below violently against the rocks that would become his grave.

Only there would be no grave for Rufus, no grave but the sea.