A Dream

Tommy was sitting where he had always felt most at home, under his oak tree, on the hill. Feeling the cool breeze of the morning air wisp off the pond sent shivers down his spine. Getting up and brushing off his jeans, he made his way down to the bank of the pond. As he continued his descent down the hill, he felt his feet begin to get damp. He glanced down to see that he was standing on tile flooring and noticed something. The floor was wet.

Looking back up and around, Tommy could see that the house was in absolute disarray. A woman that he recognized as his mother was frantically throwing down towels and moving furniture out of the way of the flood waters.

“Mom!” Tommy called out. “Do you need help moving the furniture?”

“No, but go upstairs and get your sister. Tell her to pack a bag, we are going to go stay at your aunt’s place tonight. I can’t believe this is happening.”

As he began to make his way to the stairs, Tommy still could not believe it. The floor was wet.

Beginning his ascent up the stairs, Tommy felt a wave of emotions crash over him. He had finally done it - he was about to officially graduate from college. As he was stepping out onto the stage to walk and receive his diploma, the auditorium began to tilt to the side. Walking upright became extremely difficult so Tommy lowered himself to the ground to get more traction. He just had to reach his diploma - the culmination of years of hard work and dedication. As he steadied himself and began to low-crawl across the stage, a cup from the podium in front of him lost its balance and from it, a flood of water began rushing down the stage. Tommy fought and struggled to make it to his goal, but he could not get a good grip on the ever-declining stage. The floor was wet.

Tommy slipped and slid down the stage turning around to prepare himself for impact with the floor of the auditorium, but instead of the auditorium floor, before him lay a dark sea. A sea of water waiting patiently to engulf him. As he hit the sea, Tommy shot up from out of the water,

“Where am I?” 

Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Tommy's eyes began to widen, he remembered. He was in the middle of the Drake Passage below deck on an Antarctic Research Vessel, and he was freezing. Everything was drenched in water. The floor was wet.

Don’t panic yet. Tommy kept telling himself. Let’s figure out what is going on. As Tommy began to move, he could tell that the floor was uneven. The vessel was tilting in the direction away from his door. Okay, water is in the ship and the ship is definitely sinking, now you can start panicking a little. Wading through the calf-high water, Tommy grabbed his jacket off of a hook next to the oval-shaped door that led into his bunk room and grabbed the frame of the door to help pull himself out into the hallway. On both ends of the hallway staircases led up to the deck. Tommy turned his head to the left and right, Good, no water is rushing down the stairs. 

“Jim! Maria! Colt! Anybody!?” No answer came.“What the heck is going on, where is everybody?” Tommy muttered to himself. The stern of the ship is what’s sinking. I need to get topside, find the others, and get off this boat.” 

Tommy struggled to fight both the tilting of the boat and the pooling water around his legs. It was extremely hard to move fast without fear of slipping. The floor was wet.

Clamoring up the stairs, Tommy was almost blown from his feet as he emerged onto the deck of the Research Vessel. Through a window looking into the bridge, he could see that nobody was manning the helm of the ship. Even in the frigid wind, soaked in water, Tommy felt a chill. Goosebumps of sheer panic began to cover him as all of this began to set in. Tommy felt his stomach churning, and his world began to spin. Reaching out behind him, he found the side railing of the ship, grasped it firmly, and steadied himself. He turned his whole body towards the ocean ready to lose the contents of his stomach. 

“No, no, no, get a grip, Tom. Breathe. Find a way out of this.” 

Looking toward the stern of the ship on the port side, his eyes fell upon an orange, enclosed lifeboat. Everyone must have taken the boat on the starboard side. Finally, I got lucky. Before scrambling to the lifeboat, Tommy looked up and out into the ocean to take a deep breath. He wanted to check the horizon for land before abandoning ship. His inhale stuttered to a halt. Just on the edge of the horizon was a wave, larger than any wave he had ever seen. Larger than he thought was possible. Tommy turned and tried to run, but unfortunately; The floor was wet.

Falling to his back, he began to slide down the declined deck towards the lifeboat. Timing the outstretching of his hand perfectly, he grabbed a bar of railing next to his orange salvation. Carefully crawling into the orange lifeboat, Tommy shut himself in and pulled the emergency detach lever. Before the freefall began, Tommy flattened himself to the floor of the boat.

“This is it, the end, and I can’t even get comfortable.” 

The floor was wet.

Sitting on the rocky coast, Tommy stared blankly out over the choppy seas. Shaking his head, he tried to bring himself back to reality. The memories of the past few hours were hard to shake off. Though he was hungry, freezing cold, lost, and alone, Tommy found himself thinking of one thing - his mother and sister. Tommy had left them in Arkansas to pursue his dream of Maritime Research three years ago now, but Tommy knew that he had really left them long before that. Dedicating so much of his time to pursuing his dreams Tommy pushed all distractions out of his mind, including his family. After their home flooded when he was a freshman in high school, his family was left homeless. His mother, the sole source of income for the family, made barely above minimum wage. It was not enough to take care of all three of them. When they had lost their home, they had lost everything. Tommy felt, at the time, as though his mother had failed them. He decided that he was going to do everything in his power to rise above the poverty his family endured. He would never forget the feeling of walking across the stage to receive his diploma. He had finally made it. He had a future. A future that amounted to something - something more than poverty. Yet, there was still a feeling of emptiness. There was still more to do. Still, something greater to attain. It illuded him until today. Even sitting lost on that freezing rocky beach, Tommy found the answer he had been searching for his whole life. His place in life wasn’t with a higher social class or economic status. No amount of success was going to make him whole. As he sat, staring out into the freezing ocean, Tommy had a warming epiphany. He belonged at home. Supporting his mother and sister. Life was not worth enjoying if he had no family to enjoy it with. He longed to go back to the last time he remembered being happy with his family. He longed to go back to that day when their house had flooded. Before now, that day had been remembered in his mind as dark and gloomy. Now, he realized, it was the last day his family was truly together - mentally and physically. His dream wasn't to be successful. His dream was to go back to when; The floor was wet.