Escape - Part 4

Brien makes his way to the zoo... (part 4)

Voiced by Chad Luckner
Written by Brien Bartels
Original music by Ian Botsford

©Kaotix Illustrated

Transcript

Escape, part 4

Written by Brien Bartels, Read by Chad Luckner, man's voice

Hours in the cockpit, legs burning from the run for my life, arms limp, ass killing me from sitting slumped in the kayak’s hard plastic seat. I moisten some freeze-dried peas in a little of my bottled water, try to wait for them to dissolve in my mouth. Drifting past docks, restaurants built on piers, waterside parks. No one visible. Could be any winter’s day, if only for the lack of cars. Miles to go and maybe a half mile from land. 

A mottled grey head appears ahead of me. Do the plague-victims swim now? Black eyes blink at me. A dog? No, a seal of some kind. I think I see pity in its eyes. As suddenly as it appears, it launches itself down into the depths again, flippers flicking the surface. Soon I see an enormous jelly in the water. The marine equivalent of a zombie, brainless consumer, wandering back and forth. This all heartens me. There is little life in the water down by the docks and the paper mills, but much more up here between Tacoma’s peninsula and Vashon. Wonder if any hippies managed to survive on Vashon. Or if they survived on Andersen. Or in the old federal compound at McNeil Island.

Buoyed slightly with hope, I weakly paddle towards shore, the wind against me now. I can make out the algae covered sea wall and rocky beach of Point Defiance Park. No one visible among the picnic tables on the beach, but who knows what’s hiding on the forested hills? I don’t care. If they meet me on the beach, I will die happy to have had one last kayak tour and to have delivered Yin to someplace more hospitable than downtown. She stands in the forward cockpit, roaring with displeasure, water up to her knees. I forget to grab a bilge pump. Is this thing leaking? Yes. I see drops of water dribbling in through claw marks in the hull.

Waves carry the kayak onto the stony beach. As the incoming tide buffets the boat, I slump forward, waiting for whatever fate brings.