In the Wind

The moment your existence is questioned or threatened, the rule of priority of life sets in. You understand all of its implications, all its necessities, all of its sacrifices. The fight seeps through your skin permeates the air around you and provides you with the strength to make it through almost anything.

For me, a shark provided the clarity I needed to survive.

My girlfriend and I were on our vacation for the summer. A one week get away, down in the Duck area of North Carolina. Late August provided the cheapest prices for the nicest rental houses and proved to be the less populated season, with late June and deep July claiming fame to prime beach time.

It was a simple morning. Early and crisp, with the sun just peaking over the horizon. I threw on my dark swim shorts and decided to go for a swim before the rest of the vacationers lugged their coolers and umbrellas out on to the sand like beached whales. It was comical to see whole families walk uncomfortably across scorching sand, hands full of chairs that created wedgies, coolers that kept the beer cold, and suntan lotion for babies.

Now, though, the sand was cool between my toes. Traces of crab scuttles marked the sand, giving evidence to an active night before. I had one pole resting on my right shoulder. The orange flag attached to the end flapped aimlessly in the wind. Since I needed nowhere to sit to soak up the twilight rays, I had to mark my place somehow. I brought the flag with me every time we visited this beach because every set of stairs leading to the back of each waterfront house was notoriously similar.

Similar. It’s how life had been feeling lately. Not monotonous. Definitely not boring. My girlfriend was anything but a bore. She kept my life at a pace I could barely keep up with and I loved her for it. We were both paramedics, saving lives and such. It was a beautiful and haunting job. Many of the calls we went out on were traffic incidents. And I say incidents because it would astonish the layman to know how many auto accidents were not accidents at all, but road rage and retribution for a small cut off here or a missing turn signal there.

But back to similar. More like déjà vu. Déja vu of me standing somewhere alone reflecting on my thoughts, of the world around me, of the multitude of problems everyone else had. What I had was simple. I had a job I loved, I had a girlfriend whose careful strokes across my forearm gave me goosebumps, and I had this morning.

With the wind blowing against my ankles, I jabbed the pole into the sand near the shore and waited a moment until the flag caught in the breeze. Its flapping was a familiar and comforting sound. As I walked to the water, the sand moistened. My hairs stood at attention in response to the coolness of the water. And just as the sun peeked over the horizon, I dove in.

The water jetted over my ears, down my back, and across my feet. The waves propelled me down and up as I pushed my way through the current. I always swam against the current so the swim back was easier and more relaxing. The waves kicked up sand and small shells, yet nothing bothered me. I swam with my eyes closed and listened to the churning ocean and clicking dolphins underwater miles away. As my head broke the surface of the water, I took a deep breath in and submersed once more.

And at that moment, it hit me.

A force, stronger than any I have ever felt, pushed my back into the melting sand on the ocean floor. As I was pushed deeper into the sand, I felt shells dig into my shoulders and puncture skin. And then the burning began. Searing, lightning, stinging pain in my left shoulder. I opened my eyes and spotted the beast on my left. It gnawed at me as if I was a piece of meat.

And then it really hit me. This was a shark. My heart skipped a beat at the realization and time slowed. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes to hours. Albert Einstein had relativity on point.

I felt the animals teeth seek deeper into my shoulder and it began to swing it’s snout back and forth. I clawed at its slick skin, looking for a hook in the shark’s gills but I had no luck. It slung me forward, and gave me the advantage. Raking the sand for some kind of weapon, my fingers stumbled upon a shell large enough to injure. I grasped at it and hurled it at the shark. It made impact and startled the shark, making it loosen its grip on my shoulder but bit down harder lower on my arm. Blood coursed through the water and I could taste its coppery tang.

My heart raced and my body tensed. I could literally feel the shark’s teeth ripping though my skin, muscle, and tendon. I lost all sensation of my left hand and knew I was in trouble when the shark began to wrangle. Shaking me around like a rag doll until suddenly… it stopped. It let go and darted off into the darkness.

As I was released, I pushed my way up to the surface and gasped for breath when my face hit air. Cold air filled my lungs and it felt like God had granted me a second chance. Floating there for just a moment, I caught my breath and then realized that as I swayed my arms around in the water to keep afloat, that I was loosing massive amounts of blood.

I swam as fast as I could, thanking the current for not changing direction on me. I saw my flag. The orange one I had set up just a half an hour ago still waved in the breeze. When I reached the shore, I dug my feet into the sand to stand. Instantly, I fell to my knees and was pushed over by a small wave hitting the sodden sand. I felt weak, out of breath, almost childishly tired. I braced my self on my right hand to try and stand up, looking toward the sky for support, and that’s when I saw it.

Blood was pouring from the tattered remains of my arm. I froze. By tattered remains, I mean nothing. I had nothing where my arm should have been. And as I began to mentally disintigrate, I could feel my blood leaving my body even quicker with the hastening of my heart. I flopped onto my back and pushed my self out of the surf as much as possible. I had to tourniquet this. Stop the blood flow. But with what?

I looked around. I knew I only had a matter of minutes, maybe seconds before I would lose consciousness and bleed out. My breathing shallowed. Grasping for anything, I felt the string around my waist. The one that held up my swim shorts would work. I fumbled with the knot, oh god. A wet knot is nearly impossible to untie with one hand. Some way, somehow, I unraveled the tie and yanked it out of my shorts.

Breathe, breathe.

I could barely move. All of my muscled ached and burned and not only was I losing blood from my missing appendage, but the bite on my shoulder was spilling my blood onto the sand as well. Biting onto one end of the string, I tossed the other end over the remains of my arm. Thankfully, I had just enough arm left to tourniquet. Quickly, I struggled to tie the string as tightly as possible. The bleeding had slowed, but not enough. I needed help if I was going to survive.

———

When she reached her hand out and found the bed void of body warmth, she instantly curled into the sea of pillows and blankets. Camilla peered through the big sprawling window that enveloped the north side of the bedroom and admired the stars that were quickly fading into the soft light from the sunrise. She loved that Zach could get some time to himself to reset for the day, but damn if she didn’t want him here beside here.

They had been dating for three years and the spark turned into a deep flame that burned steady and blue. Somehow, they had found a week of vacation together and escaped reality.

Camilla slipped into her bathing suit sleepily and pressed brew on the coffee maker. It would be ready for when they both returned from the beach. She placed two cups next to the coffeepot and smirked. Whenever she and Zach were on opposite schedules, the one at home would always have a clean cup and full pot of coffee ready for the other, whether they were going to work or coming home. Their symmetry diffused throughout their whole relationship and provided a foundation that seemed unwavering.

She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and walked down two flights of wooden stairs from the kitchen. It was one short walk to the beach until she felt the sand between her toes, cool to the touch, not yet heated by the sun. She could hear the waves and felt her blood pump just a little quicker at the idea of seeing the ocean waves in the morning light for the first time in over a year.

Crystalline and clear, the waves crashed on the wet sand with chaotic precision. Their white foam fluffed and blew away in the wind. From the foam, Camilla’s eyes lazily floated to Zach’s flag that flapped in the wind. Orange and brightly visible from the crest of the sand dune.

And there was Zach. Lying on his back in the surf. She cocked her head as she made her way down the rickety stairs. What was he doing? Catching a twilight tan? She laughed to her self as she crossed the beach and then froze. As she neared, she noticed the sand around Zach had a sickening red tint to it.

———

I turned my head to the side when I heard my name. “Zach?!” Cam’s voice rolled over the sand like a welcome siren.

“Cam!” Just saying her name drained all of my energy. I rolled onto my side and reached out to her with my hand. She grabbed it and fell into the blood soaked sand beside me.

“Zach, what happened?” She was already pulling tighter on the tourniquet I placed on my tattered arm.

“A shark.” My brain was beginning to fog up. “Babe, we’ve got to go.” I pushed my self up on to my knees.

“Come on.” She grabbed my good arm and threw it over her shoulder. “Lets go. Come on.” She pulled me up and we both stumbled across the sand to the set of stairs that belonged to our home.

By this time, the sun was just above the horizon, shooting rays of saccharine orange and deep plum across the sky. The early winds had stilled, leading into soft coos of doves waking up. My abilities to process the meaning of the world around me were waning. Things were simplfying as my body began to shunt its energy to the more important processes.

“Come on. Let’s go.” Cam grabbed the hand railing with her right hand and placed her left arm around my waist, slick with blood. “Let’s go. Come on.” She heaved us both up the first three steps and with the momentum, we made good timing up the rest of them.

“Zach. You still with me?” I could feel myself leaning more weight on her as we descended the four steps over the dune to the back yard of our home.

“I…yeah.” I was able to muster up the last of my energy to walk through the light plastic gate before falling to my knees.

“I’m going to grab my phone and call 911. Stay here.” She helped me on to my back on the concrete near the pool. She left. Only for a moment.

———

I lost massive amounts of time. Time between arriving back at the house and now was all patched together into nonsense memory. I remember the the bug eyes of the medic that followed Cam into the back yard. I remember the searing pain of having my arm wrapped in clean bandages. I remember throwing up. And then now.

I woke up to a sharp clang on the threshold of the hospital room door and opened my eyes to see Cam, swearing underneath her breath. She held my flag pole over right shoulder, with the small orange triangle dangling behind her back. She grinned at me as she noticed me awake.

“Hi, love!” She came over to me, set the flag pole at the foot of the bed and placed a kiss on my chapped lips. “ I figured you might need it. So you know where to come back to.” She gestured to the flag.

I smiled. She was perfect for me. “I love you so damn much.”