Jeremy C Kester

converting caffeine into words

Riptide

a flash fiction story

Now, normally I would simply fill this area in with some sort of description of the story, but given the topic, I need a bit more explaining. Multiple members of my family, including my father, have tried and/or succeeded in committing suicide. It’s a topic I return to in various ways, and this story is no different. This story deals with the indecision of it…

Riptide
by Jeremy C Kester

The tide was easy on him, pulling him gently from the shoreline. It cradled him, took care of him. He envisioned it to be more violent. Rougher. As though it made a difference.

But of course it did. Violence felt right in the application, despite knowing, in the end, it mattered less of the path compared to the destination. How rough in getting there was only the excuse.

He paddled some as a whistle blew over the water. Caution. This was why he needed it to be less careful with him. He gave a wave of being OK, and the lifeguard appeared to back off, at least for a few moments. There was no telling how tolerant they would be of him being out that far.

He needed more time. More time to think. More time to decide, although the decision was already made. Uselessness plagued him, wrapped around him like a bandage on a wound.

Distance needed to be farther to ensure it was too far for him to return. Death and the ocean would swallow him.

No gunshot.

No pills.

Simply the silence of his breathing being muffled underwater to carry him to the cold embrace of death.

Only there was a nagging question.

Why?

There always was an answer. Reasons abounded for why he knew — KNEW it was the right decision. And it was the right way. An accident. A man caught off guard by a sudden riptide. Easy to lessen his family’s trauma, to give them the belief of its accidental nature rather than an act of his own cowardice.

They would be unaware of his own contempt.

Another trill swam across the water. He looked around and waved, trying to signal he was OK.

A little more time was what he needed, not a rescue. Time without these people, those lifeguards who think he was in trouble and needed saved.

“More time. I just need more time. Another minute, please,” he mumbled, certain he hadn’t made it out far enough yet to be beyond hope.

It was too late; they were coming. His plan was to be foiled. Reluctantly, he obliged and started to swim back. Only in his fortune, he mistakenly moved right into the path of a stronger riptide, one the lifeguards had seen and were trying to warn him from.

Death heard the man’s prayer and decided to oblige. Except the man understood too late, he wasn’t ready to die.

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