Louis sunk his feet into the wet, clay like sand as he wandered the foggy and deserted beach.  He was not quite sure where he was going, but his feet seemed to know the way.  After all, they had been pacing the beaches of the Bahamas ever since Louis could walk.

 Slowly, he turned to stare out at the ocean.  Louis allowed his eyes to rest at where the sea met the sky.  He could look out at the water all day and never grow tired of it.  You see, there was a connection between the water and himself, a connection only a native could understand.  Finally, Louis pulled his gaze away from the ongoing flow of the waves and continued walking along the sand.  In doing so, Louis had hardly to look up before his feet knew just where to head.

 Louis liked the beach this way.  In the early hours of the morning, there were not any people to crowd or disturb him, no one to muffle the sound of the water that Louis loved to hear, but most of all, Louis enjoyed the freshness of the sand.  After having a night to settle and rest from the never ending trampling of the day before, the sand was new with an extra touch of softness.

 Suddenly, there was a peculiar banging ahead.  When Louis raised his eyes to see what was causing the racket, to his surprise, he discovered a small fishing boat, which the water was knocking against the beach.  Quickly, Louis raced to the boat in the distance.  He had expected to find a fisherman beside it, perhaps one whom he could have easily overlooked the first time that he had caught sight of the boat, but there was no one to be found.  Again, Louis scanned the beach for the owner of the boat, but the beach was just as calm as it had been a moment ago.

 Although there was no rope to show that the fishing boat had simply broken free of the dock’s grasp, Louis assumed that that is what had happened.  People did not just leave their boats loose on the shore for the sea to swallow them up.

 Before he knew what he was doing Louis jumped into the small boat and started out towards the dock.  He could not just leave it by the water where it would be lost forever.  As Louis continued on his mission to return the boat, he could not help but notice how it resembled the old boat that his father had.  His father, of course, had not been much of a fisherman, but several times, he had taken Louis and his brothers out on small trips in his boat.  Oh, how Louis had loved those trips!  Louis then thought back to the day when his father had sold the old boat.  He had pleaded for his father not to sell it, but he had refused.

 "That boat means nothing to me," his father had said, "but it will bring in a good deal of money and that is what this family needs a lot of!"  Since then, Louis had only sailed in boats in his dreams.

 Once Louis reached the dock he found that returning the boat would not be a good idea.  If Louis did not tie it up in the right spot, the owner might not be able to find his vessel for days on end.  It would be smarter if Louis brought the boat back to shore and placed it farther up on the beach where it would be safe from drifting into the ocean.  But as Louis began to do just that, he felt that connection that he shared with the water, spring inside of him.  The sea was calling to him, and Louis listened.  Then, he decided to go for a ride in the boat, just as he had done with his father all those years ago.

 At first, the ocean was calm and the vessel drifted along the waves as if there was nothing to it.  Slowly, however, the beautiful morning sky turned an ugly gray.  Louis continued on without any worries.  What did the color of the clouds matter to him?  They did not look like rain clouds, but simply like thick blankets that had faded over time, like the ones that were draped over his bed at home.  So Louis kept on going, and the boat floated along nicely as Louis marveled at how wonderful the sea looked and felt beneath him.

 Clearly, Louis had been wrong about the clouds, because rain began to fall.  At first, it was a light drizzle and Louis did not pay much attention to it.  However, soon the droplets grew heavier, and his white shirt was spotted from the rain.  The droplets made quite a noise as they steadily pounded excessively on top of the water.  Tremendously disappointed, Louis decided that he had no choice but to turn back to shore.  To continue would be unwise and would not be safe.  As Louis sadly turned the boat towards what he had thought was the shore, he saw only the ocean.  Nervously, he spun around in his search for land, 

 It was then that it happened!  The waves seemed to be responding to the fury of the rain that had been beating down on them, because they soared wildly into the air and came crashing down.  Winds howled and blew with full force at Louis, hitting him in his face.  The boat that had so gently floated along the water moments earlier, was now being thrown to and fro, and it was on the verge of capsizing.

 Louis bit his lip and then he closed his eyes, hoping that this was all just a bad dream.  When Louis reopened his eyes, however, he found, not a bad dream, but a nightmare before him.  Headed directly for him and his boat was a giant water spout!  It was bound to tear Louis to shreds.

 "1899!" Louis mumbled to himself.  He had always thought of death as something that would happen to him in the far future, well into the twentieth century, but surely, this would be the year that he would die.  Louis held his breath and waited for the water spout to hit.  He did not have to wait long.  Within seconds it crashed, ripping Louis out of the boat and throwing him into the sea.  His head flew backwards.  He felt as if his whole body had been disassembled.  Hardly able to breathe, Louis tried to keep himself afloat while gasping for air.  At the same time he reached his hand out and attempted to get a grip on the boat, but he found it was quite impossible to do.  As Louis attempted to pull himself up on the boat, it seemed as if the boat was being tugged twice as hard in the other direction.  Though the water spout had passed, the waves, rain and winds were just as wicked, continuing to make the voyage out to sea unimaginable. 

 After much struggling, Louis finally found strength enough to pull himself up and into the boat.  He soon realized that the boat was missing a part of the side.  Water began to seep in and added to the flooding the storm had already caused.  Louis hardly paid any attention to this problem.  Instead, he found himself a bit more preoccupied with the shiny dagger-like shapes that suddenly pierced through the water and were headed his way.  Louis gulped!  He knew what those shapes were.  He had heard people of the village talk of them.  Sharks!  Just as quickly as they had come into view, they began to attack.  The sharks pushed against the boat and began to bite at its sides.  Clearly, they were ready for their next meal.  In a panic, Louis reached for the broken pieces of wood that had been torn off the boat.  Quickly, he began throwing the wood at the mass of sharks surrounding him.  Not satisfied, a larger shark made his way to the front and took a quick bite.  The shark swallowed the mast and sail whole, as if it was something it did regularly.  To Louis it seemed as if the large shark had gone to brag to the others about eating the mast.  The other sharks seemed to grow jealous, and they jostled the boat more intensely than before.  One shark in particular, seemed upset and took a violent whack at the boat.  Louis slid across the boat as it rocked backwards and he all but slammed against the sides.  Before Louis could even give a sigh of relief, the shark hit again.  This time Louis was not as lucky.  Though he held his arms out far in an attempt to save himself, his head fell hard against the side and Louis fell unconscious.

 Two days later, Louis found himself lying on the beach, surrounded by many people peering down at him.  As he awakened, they were demanding what had happened.  The circle of villagers reminded Louis of the sharks.  Their mouths were open, hungry for news.  Tired and weak, Louis pushed through the crowd to where his own family stood.  Their faces were pale.  He hugged his mother and father and his two brothers very tightly, and then he fell to the sand in relief.

 "How did I get back to shore?" he asked. "How did I ever live?"

 Squeezing him tightly, his mother explained how shortly after he had been knocked unconscious, a ship had passed and the crew was able to save him.  Louis picked up a handful of sand.  Two days ago, when he had thought about how wonderful and refreshing the sand felt beneath his feet, Louis had never thought how that could have been the last morning that he would touch the sand.

 To this day, no one is quite sure why his life was spared that day of the storm.  Some say that it was pure luck.  Others think that the boat he discovered was magical, but Louis knows that it had something to do with his connection, his connection with the sea.
 

This original  narrative was written in response to a viewing and lecture on Winslow Homer’s masterful seascape, "Gulf Stream." The above Book Review is also an original work.   Under no circumstances may any of the works, or any part of the works in this publication, be copied or reproduced.