Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Six Sentence Story.
Denise is the host.
The format is to use the prompt word in writing a story of six (and only six) sentences.
This week’s prompt word:
WATCH
“Being the newest hand, the Fourth Watch is yours; the autopilot is set and there’s nothing between us and the Hudson Canyon but the devil and the night-black sea, don’t fall asleep,” the owner and captain of the fishing trawler placed the thick leather-bound book he’d been reading, on the chart table, looked around the bridge with the falsely casual glance of a man watching his wife get dressed and left without another word.
‘How long has it been now…don’t look, you’ll be disappointed,’ the young man straightened up in the chair and, looking out the windows that formed three sides of the wheelhouse, watched as a star touch, as lightly as a five-year-old boy kissing the cheek of a favorite aunt, the far-edge of the flat, dark ocean; with a squeak of worn vinyl triggering a neuromuscular shock that rippled the back of his scalp, he realized he’d dozed off.
The radar screen insisted, with each silent, green sweep around the screen, there was nothing between the boat and the horizon; the light, which minutes before was a bright star reflected in the flat-calm water was now an inverted umbrella of halogen light, illuminating the work deck of another trawler, its wheel house dark, except for a white rectangle in one window.
Over-riding the autopilot, he changed course to pass to the left of the silent vessel, barely ten feet between their respective out-riggers; picking up binoculars, he read the paper taped to the window of the other boat’s wheelhouse, LUKE 12:35-40 written in shaky magic marker letters.
Just before the distance grew to where details were cloaked in the night, the lights on the other ship went out; turning to the chart table, the newest deck hand found the worn-leather bible the owner kept to pass the day at the wheel and read,
“Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching.”
About clarkscottroger
I like this beautiful, and unexpected story.
Thank you, Romi
A miss is not as good as a mile. Very well told!
ty, M
Terror! Panic! Intense fear! I would have felt all had I realized I’d fallen asleep. The “newest hand” seems to have been even keeled. Surely, a must in that occupation.
So what happens when fender benders (accidents) occur at sea??
I can’t help wonder who was on that trawler with such a scripture taped to its wheelhouse window.
As always, enjoyable imagery.
fortunately the fall asleep was part of the literary license… the implications of had I, in fact, fallen asleep has kept the memory in place
Whew! That was quite the near miss.
Some very descriptive writing presented in this SSS, visual and tactile to engage the senses. It would seem that the captain/owner may have had a near miss with that trawler as well.
yeah, had I more ‘room’ I would have tried to describe the odd, darkroom feeling in a wheelhouse, underway in the night.. and the pervasive smell of sea, machine oil and night.
I was a sailor in the USN. Should have gone this route. Good job Clarkster. Anchors aweigh! Nice six.
Thanks, man. Did my time on much, much smaller boats… fishing trawlers and the like.
Wonderful a bible story in a fishing boat setting – loved it.
Thank you.
Glad everything worked out even with him dozing off.
Would have been very unpleasant. Based on a true story. Though I didn’t fall asleep. But, for the pacing of a Six, I thought it might add some excitement. That being said, I suspect a big part of the reason I still remember the experience, a lifetime later, was how absurd it would have been to crash into the only other non-water object for a five hundred mile radius…lol
Clark! You really pulled me in from the get go. Such well versed prose. Beautifully portrayal. My daddy kept watch on the battleship and his showing me the where and his telling of how had me awestruck.
Thank you, Lisa. It (the ‘setting’ of a boat at sea is such a distinctive environment, quite unlike anything else I’ve experienced)
Wonderful story Clark. I remember driving home at 2:00 a.m. down a dark country road and came upon a horrific car accident that had recently happened. Two cars in the early hours of the morning both thinking they were the only ones on the road and one decided to ignore the stop sign.
Thanks, Len. Some events are way more ‘singular’ than otherwise should be expected, however, it is still on the observer to have the presence of mind to notice.
Ah, that’s kind of perfect. Nicely done, Clark. Good one.