Overboard (Continuous writing)

Knocked out in his captain seat after bashing his head on a wall, Uncle Stew leaves the wheel spinning in one direction until the boat starts rocking fiercely like an enraged bull trying to swing its rider off its back. The next thing I know is that I am jerking out of the porthole window into the boiling sea.

Splash and Splosh! Water gushes into my mouth. My arms are flailing in the air and my legs are kicking in the impenetrable water. Slowly, my legs turn numb in the icy water. I am screaming for help, but my voice is sucked away by an endless void.  Numerous crests are towering over me. One of the gigantic waves crashes onto my face and I am being dragged to the bottomless ocean. My whole body shuts down…

Almost immediately, I feel like I am encased in a bag and being hauled up onto the solid deck of the boat. My arms and legs are spread out and someone is screaming at me and pumping my chest. All I can feel is pain in my ribcage. I spit out water and my eyes slowly open up…

Uncle Dock is yelling in my face, “Finally, you are back with us.”

Everyone weeps, “We thought you w ere dead!”

What an adventure! That is near-death for me.

The passage was from The Wanderer by Sharon Creech

The sea, the sea, the sea. It thunders and rolls and unsettles me; it unsettles all of us.

We tremble as we listen to the waves pounding. When I close my eyes, all I see is that huge white wave, and all l hear is the low rumbling that grows louder and louder as the wave breaks. We are all afraid to sleep, all afraid that The Wave will return.

When we do lie down, we jolt out of bed at the slightest rumble of a new wave. I keep running through the scene in my head, over and over, from all different angles. It was like being born: I was in my rolling little world until a huge surge of water broke on me, scrunching me into a tight, round bundle and pushing me through a small space and then I was helpless and wet on my back, attached only by a small red line until a big hand pulled me away. I couldn't talk, only whimper and moan.

The hatch is secured, most of the water pumped out from below. Cody is up and at it again, but now Uncle Mo has succumbed to seasickness and so he and Uncle Stew are awfully miserable. Brian's arm is badly sprained, and Uncle Dock wrenched his back. We're a sad-looking group.

My right leg is still throbbing and hurts all around my knee and down the back of my thigh. My other leg is fine except for a sprained and sore ankle. But besides that and a big bump on the back of my head, I am in one piece physically.

Inside, though, I am in many pieces. I feel strange and raw and all jumbled up. Sometimes I feel as if one little roll of the boat or one quick movement will shatter me into a zillion pieces and all those pieces will go flinging off into the sea.

From The Wanderer by Sharon Creech