berick reims

Blackout

Have you ever felt like you’ve fainted into reality? His tense voice whispering prayers to a god who surely could not hear him, or who perhaps refused to listen, was the first sound I heard upon regaining consciousness. I couldn’t make out, nor felt concern to listen to, what he mumbled behind me. He rowed the boat, creaking the oars in rhythm with the waves that lapped at its sides, in rhythm with my throbbing head. It was too dark to tell whether my head was moistened with sweat or blood–with that throbbing it could have been either. As I looked out in front of me at the darkened dunes of the ocean’s ebb and flow, a subtle breeze wafted the stench of dying sea life, and despite the moonless night, no stars could be seen other than those that hung in the darkness of the slumbering city from where we came.