Catalonia

From the silence a gasp echoes though the dense sea air. Swaying on the large smooth waves a lone life raft is cradled by the sea, up and down, down and up, gently rocking, serene and hypnotic. The sea as mother. From the raft a man awakens and heaves forward towards the sky raising his arms as he grasps at the heavens, he screams, “I am blind”! The sea air has wrapped him in its cold embrace. A thick dark fog limits his vision to but a few inches. He mutters, “Am I dead”? Frantically he searches for vision as he gropes around him, seeing and hearing nothing. He freezes and holds his breath as fear overtakes him. “I must be dead”, a tear drips from his eye. Setting as stone, not moving, not breathing, not hearing, not seeing, he is, alone. Waiting, waiting, waiting, for an angel, or a monster, for Poseidon? His mind races as to what is next. His body begins to shiver, and he knows he is alive. Slowly, he hears his heavy breathing; then the gently lapping waves, but nothing else, only silence. Finally, his eyes begin to focus and slowly he can see his hands, then his arms, his torso, and then, he feels the pain. Pain shoots as a lightning bolt through his head to his toes and he cries out, “Lord”! ‘What have I done? Where am I”? ‘I don’t know”! The pain strikes again, pushing him forward, he writhes as he pulls his head forward so violently that he lands face first into the water that covers the rafts the thin cold floor.

Holding his head, he feels a large knot as he moves his hands around the bump feeling every inch of his skull -trying to remember something. In pain and in tears he struggles to set up and as he does, he sees his hands are covered with matted blood and hair. Perplexed, he stares at his rough and calloused hands and through his thick scarred fingers a shadowy outline of a shape appears, “A box”, he whispers. Tied to the rafts tube is a wooden box with the faded name, “Catalonia”. Without thought he feverishly unbuckles the crusted old latches; opens the box and digs through the contents. Inside he finds a blanket, water, some canned food, a flare, first aid, and a small black perfectly bound notebook. Ecstatic, he pulls the old wool blanket from the box and wraps it around his body. For a moment he stays under the blanket then reaches for the water and brings it into his cocoon. He does not move until the shivering stops. After hours pass, he pops his head out and reaches for the food. He takes a bite and swallows hard, choking it down with a swallow of water. After, he falls asleep and dreams wild dreams, dreams of the notebook, and the life he had known.

The room was alive, bright and happy, the band was playing swing and the dance floor was full of dancers doing their best to keep it going. Ten hours have passed, and half the contestants have already failed, but that still left twenty couples as the night set in. The tall leggy blonde and the muscular guy have a real shot they seem to have more energy now than they did this morning. Others were quickly running out of steam especially the big guy and the short lady, she seems to have all the energy. She keeps yelling at him to keep up, “Stanley it’s twenty thousand dollars’ don’t forget twenty thousand, we need the money, Stanley!”. He just nods but gets slower. Comical really, the rabbit and the turtle in a dance contest. They didn’t last much longer, though neither did many others.

By midnight only five other couples survived the longest swing contest this side of Portsmouth. As dawn broke it was the leggy blonde and muscles and an unlikely couple, the movie star and the laborer. That’s what everyone was whispering, the scuttlebutt, the back story, ya know, everyone loves to gossip. She must be the most beautiful woman in all of the east coast and maybe even America, she is tall and elegant, her eyes are green like emeralds, and they sparkle so bright that the stars have competition. Even though her eyes spark it is her smile that lights up a room like sunshine, warm and inviting. It was hard to believe she would be with a guy like him. Blue collar type, a brick mason, gruff and stocky, ya know, from other side of the tracks kinda guy, and her a movie star type. She just looks rich, like she’s just waiting for the uppity rich husband to show and take her home. No one knows much about her, but he’s been around here for at least the last ten years, building walls, homes, churches, etc. -a bit undesirable, grumpy and will tell a man off, no problem! The story is, he met her at a church he was building about a month back, and she asked him if he wanted to be her partner for this contest. So, they ended up here. Go figure…

12pm the next day, 26 hours after this contest started, blondie and muscles finally stop moving, and the dance is over. Movie star and laborer smile and lightly kiss as they win the twenty thousand dollars. A tall good-looking man with a camera takes a picture of them and ask, what are you going to do with the money? She turns to him and smiles, “Barcelona my love”, then winks.