Far away

Light was seeping in through the small space between the blinds and the window ledge that reached all the way to the floor. It came in furtively, licking the wooden surface of the floors, trying hard to reach with its warm hand the opposite wall.

The times she was up with the sunrise, she’d observe this careful display, sometimes allowing the light to embrace the space by opening the blinds, sometimes permitting it to spy on her environment by turning the blinds a full horizontal. A few times she just sat in the darker rooms, thus allowing the temperature to remain cooler.

On that specific day, she decided to open the blinds fully and let the sun greet her with its whole countenance, slowly regaining ground until it victoriously grabbed the back wall that it so longed to reach.

It was a good day. She opened the door to her deck, facing the immense ocean that was dancing in concert with the rays of the sun that were bravely swimming in its deep waters. She loved watching the sparkles, enjoying the blue sky, and watching the clouds navigate the firmament like they were on a secret mission to reach a destination that only they were privy to.

She had been on house arrest for the last three months, and still had nine more months to go. She was thankful her house was located by the beach, giving her the ability to sit on her deck and watch the ocean and the blue sky. She couldn’t think of anything better to have across from her house. It had been a long time since she’d seen any boats, swimmers, or any life at all outside her walls. She lived separated from other houses, so she didn’t really have any neighbors. Even if she did, she wasn’t sure they’d see them.

Society had taken a dark turn at some point in the past few years, which was one of the reasons she was on house arrest. She had been protesting along with thousands of people the fact that women had been losing their jobs at an astronomic rate (especially in high positions), they had started losing some of their rights and equality and, well, it just seemed like the clocks had been turned back a century —and some. She had been lucky that they had only given her one year of house arrest, some women were taken away never to be seen again. Of course, they couldn’t do that to all of them, she hadn’t been one of the organizers, after all, so perhaps that’s why they had shown some leniency. Three months later, she found herself isolated in her home and not aware of what was happening around her. She had watched the news for a while and discovered that things had started getting worse by the minute. There was a lot of discontent, uprisings, and all kinds of trouble that hadn’t been there before. Correction, they had been there, they had just been simmering below the surface, until they hadn’t been able to keep the heat down any longer and boiled over, spilling everywhere. It was a mess. She had stopped watching the news a month ago. She still had access to Netflix and the Internet, so she figured things couldn’t be that bad. Nothing like a zombie apocalypse like in The Walking Dead, at least. She wondered what would happen if she took her car for a drive. Would the cops show up at her door to arrest her for breaking the rules? She didn’t care to find out. She’d give herself another few months before checking out what was happening in the world.

That’s why, on that particular day, when she now sat on her deck, with a coffee on the table and a book next to it ready to be devoured by her, she couldn’t help but be surprised when she spotted a sailing boat far away in the horizon. She hadn’t seen one in so long, she thought people had stopped getting on boats. The oceans had gotten wilder over the years and it was a bit of a hazard to go sailing.

“What are they doing there? And who are they?” She said to no one in particular. Her Australian Shepherd, Spots, looked up at her as she spoke and let out a friendly bark.

“I know, buddy. Strange, huh?” She patted him on the head and kept looking at the sailing boat. It didn’t seem to be going randomly, so there were definitely people on board who were steering it someplace.

“Hopefully they are headed to a place where things are much calmer. Perhaps, even with all that the ocean has thrown at us in the last few years, it is still a much calmer place than the cities and among people.” She sighed. Spots was looking at her with his blue eyes, as if understanding what she was saying, he gave another friendly bark.

She smiled, picked up her book, and set out to spend her morning reading and enjoying the sun on her face.