A Proposal, Part 2
For six years the boy spent his days learning the ways of city life. After a couple of months he was no longer the small town fishing boy and after a couple of years he was no longer a boy at all. But in the darkness of night, on the other side of a draped window, Cameron spent his time dreaming. It was always the same dream. No matter how much money he made during the morning, no matter how much ale he drank during the afternoon, no matter how much he enjoyed the company of friends during the evening, the dream always awaited him during the night.
Cameron tried dating but he found that he cared nothing for the girls he met in the city, just as he had cared nothing for the girls he had met in the fishing village before. The girl in his dream haunted him and he began to realize that he would never be completely happy without having her. And so in the spring of his 23rd year, on a drunken, rainy night out on the town with friends, Cameron decided that he could not run from himself, or his dreams, any longer. When he awoke the next day, the boy who had now become a man came home to his brother, his father, and to the sea.
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But in the late fall of that very year, the boy's father was laid to rest in the old cemetery just out of town. It was a small service, with sailors, the Reverend, a neighbor and the two boys. Cameron listened to the others and their good words, sipping from his flask and letting the downpour of rain soak through his overcoat. He imagined it seeping through his clothing, and then through his skin. He imagined it cleansing him, giving him a fresh start. There was a clap of thunder overhead and a flash of lightning that split the sky over the bay. Cameron shivered and raised the flask to his lips once more. After his brother Luke had said his piece, and the eldest brother had declined the chance to speak, the reverend said a prayer to close the ceremony. As the man spoke, Cameron sipped his scotch and imagined that the rain drops which ran down his face were instead tears.
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"Supposed to be a monster of a thing." Luke said. The two brothers stood alone on the old cemetery hill overlooking the sea and the approaching storm.
"The greatest storm this century has ever seen." He added quietly. Cameron handed his brother the flask.
"How is the family?" He asked. Luke drank from the flask, swallowing hard.
"Well enough." He said, passing the scotch back to his brother.
"Dad sure loved my boy." He said. "Couldn't get enough of him."
The brothers were quiet. The wind howled around them. Thunder crashed ahead of them. The rain stung their faces. Cameron sipped his scotch and handed it to Luke.
"I'm going out there." The older brother said. "This wind is gonna bring in the catch of a lifetime."
Luke took a deep swig from his brother's flask and clenched his teeth. "I figured you would." He said. "I've got Dad's boat prepped and ready for us."
Cameron shook his head. "There's no 'us' on this one." He said. "This is something I've got to do alone." His brother laughed into the wind.
"Not a chance I'll let you have all the fun for yourself." He said.
"I'm afraid you've no choice, Brother."
Before Luke could say anything more, his older brother swung around, bringing with him a vicious right hook. And then for Luke there was only blackness.
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As Cameron left the harbor in his fathers drift boat he paused for a moment to look toward the hill where his father lay at rest, and his brother lay unconscious. The knowledge that Hannah was on her way to make sure Luke was OK did little to ease the guilt Cameron felt for hitting his little brother. He had never hit him before today.
"There was no other way." He muttered in the wind. "I'll see you, Brother." And with that Cameron turned into the oncoming storm.
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The next ten hours were the sort that only tales tell of, the sort of tales that are told by widows and orphans of the men that parish in them. There was wind. There was rain. There was thunder that shook Cameron to the bone and lightning that shattered the sky into hundreds of pieces. There were waves thirty feet tall. And there were fish. There were so many fish that the net lines could not hold them all. With a mighty snap, the net cut itself loose of the boat and disappeared into the sea. And then for the boy, the boy who had somehow become far too bitter for his twenty-some years of life, it became a simple, pure struggle of life and death.
The boy laughed at the storm. The boy cursed God. Tears streamed down his face. His muscles burned with fatigue but Cameron fought on. Cameron fought... and fought. He found he possessed strength he didn't know he possessed. But in the end, he was only a boy, alone in the oncoming darkness of the stormy night, sinking into the waters of the violent sea. At last his strength gave way. In exhausted defeat the boy collapsed to the deck. And then there was only blackness.
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And thus ends A Proposal, Part 2. A Proposal, Part 3 to be concluded...
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