Shipwrecked

The screaming wind ripped the sail and it flapped around in the storm like a broken wing. Months of careful navigation were now like diamonds thrown to swine. Utter hopelessness reared like the metaphorical last wave that hit the deck and as water flooded into the hold, the ship keeled to the right, beams groaning under the pressure and finally the majestic vessel slowly sunk below the seething ocean. The survivors jumped and struggled for life and breath between the heaving surface of the water. Most of them drowned. One was washed to shore. And there she debated the mercy of death over the long and lonely isolation of being washed to a distant shore, alive and alone.

Months later, the thought of rescue had left the forefront of her mind and she survived on shellfish on the rocks along the coastline. Loneliness was replaced by solitude. A profound sense of self with nothing to compare it to but the inconstant sea and the drifting sands. Strange how even survival becomes routine after a while. The night and day are not separate things, they are a continuation of an existence. The moon and it's phases have no more meaning than breathing in and out. We live one life awake and the other dreaming. Do we question the moon, the sun, our breath? Life is breath. Life is only breath. Breath is life and do we question breath? We just breathe... We breathe awake and asleep. Which is really awake and which is really asleep? I know, I understand, I perceive, I dream, I think, I feel... I am. I am alive and on an island. Am I alone and shipwrecked or am I on a long and blissfully free holiday with myself?