What the Duck?

Michael opened his eyes, coaxed into consciousness by the warm sunlight beating on his face. He stared up at the cloudy blue sky, squinting as a seagull flew directly over him.

“What the—?” he muttered, attempting to sit up.

The world shifted beneath him, wobbling unsteadily. Michael threw out his arms for support, but there was nothing to grab onto. He had two seconds to realize that water surrounded him on all sides before being plunged into it.

The sheer intensity of the bitter coldness shocked him to his core. At first, he couldn’t move a muscle, sinking deeper into the water with his arms outstretched on either side. Then, he began to flail and force himself to swim. He didn’t want to die today or anytime soon.

Shooting to the surface, Michael gasped for air. Gentle waves rocked him, causing more water to go into his mouth. His eyes and lungs burned, and his limbs felt like dead weights.

He spotted the item that he fell off of in the distance and swam to it. The water carried it away from him at a steady pace, but Michael used to swim every summer of his childhood at his grandpa’s lake house. Panting, he grabbed ahold of the air mattress, but it slipped out of his grasp.

Uttering a strangled sound, Michael forced himself to think. Mattresses usually had a handle on the side to make them easier to move, but did air mattresses have one? Treading water, he spun the portable bed around in a full-circle, emitting a curse.

It did not. It had a tiny, rubber flap for an edge that he couldn’t grasp very well with wet hands. Eyeing the waves, he spun the mattress around so his back faced the sun. He put one dripping wet arm on the mattress to hold it still and waited until the wave behind him swelled. Grasping the edge of the bed with his other hand, he used his momentum to swing one leg up just as he lost his grip.

It worked. Michael rolled onto the air mattress and managed to stop before he rolled off the other side. Throwing out his arms, he lay like a prostrated starfish atop the floating, rubber mattress, panting and shivering.

“What the hell is happening?” he moaned, one cheek pressed firmly to the rubber material.

He stayed in that position for several long moments with his eyes shut tight, afraid to move. One sudden movement and the whole thing could tip over again, throwing him overboard. Not even that, one big wave could be the end of him. Twenty-six is too young to die. His girlfriend, the love of his life to whom he planned to propose to tonight, would be expecting to meet him for their dinner date at their favorite restaurant.

Jess. The thought of her beautiful face and big, green eyes made his eyes pop open. He had to find a way out of there. The mattress rocked gently with the current, swaying over the small waves like a small boat.

Think, Michael. Think.

The last thing he remembered before waking up is texting Jess. He didn’t see her yesterday, having been busy with meetings and a stressful evening of going over his parent’s estate plans with Joseph. When his brother finally left, he poured himself a glass of whiskey and drank it in the hot tub.

He tried to call Jess, but she didn’t answer, so he figured she had another early night and texted her goodnight and that he loves her. Her job at the university requires her to be up before dawn, so their schedules didn’t always line up the way they wanted.

After the drink, he ate one of the brownies his boss’ wife had sent home with him, took a quick shower, and went to bed. He specifically remembered debating whether to turn on the tv for a bit, but he must have fallen asleep because he didn’t recall getting up again.

When he moved to Virginia, he took his time and waited for the perfect home to become available. His realtor called him one morning, excitedly announcing that she found the perfect beachfront property with views of the picturesque rocks. He fell in love with it at first sight, having dreamed of living on the water permanently since childhood.

Now, here he was, floating in the middle of the ocean, instead of waking up in his bed. This isn’t what he meant by living on the water, and he definitely didn’t want to die there.

Michael knew he possessed a limited amount of time to figure out a plan. Even if he managed to stay on the air mattress and avoid drowning, the elements would get to him before long. The August sun already had his clothes mostly dry, and he no longer shivered. That meant that before long, he would be sweating and in desperate need of hydration.

Water surrounded him on all sides as far as he could see, but he knew better than to drink it. Courtesy of his early morning dunking, he didn’t have to dip his finger in to know that it contained salt. Drinking it would only dehydrate him further, and he had no supplies with him on the rubber bed.

How long can a person survive without water? He shuddered at the thought. Some obscure fact in his brain said around three days, but did that account for the elements? Michael had a decent tan, but with the way the weather had been all week, he would surely get sunburned being on the open water all day with no shade. Tomorrow would be even worse torture, and that’s if he didn’t fall off the raft again.

He couldn’t just lie there helplessly and wait to die, though. In order to make a plan, he had to have more information to work with. Slowly and gingerly, he turned himself over and sat up, scooting until his bottom occupied the exact middle of the vessel.

Squinting, he looked all around him. Water, water, and more water. There wasn’t a spot of land to be seen in any direction. Fighting the urge to panic, he took a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm. Freaking out wouldn’t help the situation at all. He had to think. His grandpa taught him many things about the water, the current, and the wind, having been a sailor for decades.

He spotted another seagull, assuming that it wasn’t the same bird from earlier, and felt a surge of hope. An adult seagull could fly quite far out over the ocean, but why would they? There had to be some sort of land nearby, and the bird was most likely headed for it. The sun, not yet to the middle of the sky, beat on the back of his shirt, so he knew he faced West. The bird flapped steadily to his left, so that would be South.

The nearest land had to be to the South. Hopefully, it wasn’t some uninhabited island of rocks, but even that had to offer a better means of survival than staying on the makeshift mattress raft. A dark thought occurred to him. Thankfully, whoever put me on this thing didn’t put a tiny hole in it. A chill went down his spine. Someone wanted him dead, clearly, but wanted him to drift far enough out to sea that his body would never be found.

Frowning, he got one finger wet and held it up above his head. The wind blew against the right side of his dampened finger, confirming that it came from the North. So, the wind would be trying to blow the vessel North, at least for now, but the current was clearly running East toward the sun and the waves came in from the West.

None of that was in his favor. Every moment he sat there, the wind and current were ensuring that he went further in the wrong direction. If he fell asleep that night, he would float off course and have to start over from wherever he woke up. Sighing, he tentatively turned back onto his stomach and scooted to the front of the raft.

He kept his legs spread out for balance, and used his arms and hands to paddle South from the front of the air mattress. He almost swallowed his tongue when a larger wave nearly tipped him headfirst off the vessel, but he managed to recover and continue paddling South, making sure to keep the sun at his left side.

His thoughts drifted to the obvious, now that he wasn’t in immediate danger and had a plan for survival. Who would do this to me, and why? Who wants me to die?

He didn’t have any enemies as far as he knew, and the last time he got in a fight was in high school. He got along with everyone at work and didn’t have any secret animosities toward any of his coworkers. His parents died in March in a car accident, and as much as it pained him to think about them, he couldn’t recall them ever having any enemies either.

Michael’s father, after retiring from the Navy, had gone into the tech business and flourished with the help of his wife, who had a master’s degree in applied mathematics. They made all the right decisions and together, turned a small company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

They never spoiled Michael or his younger brother, making sure the boys learned how to do things for themselves instead of growing up to be useless and overprivileged. Richard and Melinda Foster were good people and had done their best to raise kind, responsible sons with strong values. Michael wanted to be a father more than anything, and Joseph already was, having giving birth to a healthy son about a year after marrying his college sweetheart.

Michael had a harder time connecting with people than his brother did, always being the last person to join social events. He preferred to keep to himself and hadn’t connected with a women on more than a sexual level until he met Jess. Other girls seemed so superficial, worried about their clothes and image, but Jess was different.

They met in a restaurant downtown called Sushi King shortly after Christmas, by accident. Michael ordered takeout because he was sick of leftovers and had a hankering for something different. He could cook most things, but hadn’t gone shopping due to the blizzard that swept through, and that day, he craved one thing he didn’t know how to make, sushi.

Jess must have had the same craving because when he turned around with his take-out bag, she stood there, waiting in line behind him. He nearly tripped, taken aback by her shock of thick red hair and perfect complexion. She stared up at him with innocent eyes the color of emeralds, and he melted inside.

They started talking and that was it. Jess had a remarkable humility about her that made her that much more beautiful and appealing to him. She was incredibly smart, having graduated early and obtaining a degree in nursing before deciding to become a full-time writer instead, and she was kind and gracious to everyone she encountered. She brought out the best in Michael, and he wanted to marry her and spend the rest of his life making her smile.

She wouldn’t do this, would she? Michael fought down bile, splashing some of the cold seawater across his face. No. No way.

Even if Jess didn’t want to be with Michael anymore, she would just tell him that. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. They didn’t have any problems with their relationship and the last time they argued was over a guy that messaged Jess in the middle of the night back in June.

It turned out to be an old fling, probably drunk and wanting to see how she was doing. Jess assured him that it meant nothing and it hadn’t come up again. Someone else did this, but who?

Dinner with Joseph had been stressful, but not because they disagreed on anything. At twenty-four and twenty-six years old, the brother’s shouldn’t have to discuss their parent’s estate matters and speak of them in the past tense.

They weren’t prepared for it, but thankfully, their parents were. Everything had been prepared and laid out in their will by lawyers, and all Michael and Joseph could do was nod solemnly. It didn’t leave for much of an appetite, and they mostly drank afterward.

Michael had been prepared for it, expecting it to be an emotional affair, and called a cab to take him home, the same way he had arrived. He tried to relax at home and forget about the things he couldn’t change. That brownie was the main thing source of nourishment he had consumed all day.

Michael’s stopped paddling and sat upright. The brownie that he ate before bed had been given to him by his boss’ wife, Katrina, shortly before his last meeting of the day. She came in the office sometimes, but mostly worked from home, having some company position in the payroll department.

She always smiled and played innocent, and Michael never told anyone that she came on to him hard at the Christmas party last year. She cornered him while eating a cookie in the copy room, hiding from the noise and excitement, and kissed him. Having both drank a bit too much, things got physical, but he told her afterward that it couldn’t happen again.

Katrina was a married woman and a mother of two children, and besides being insanely attractive, they had nothing in common. She was materialistic and vain, driving a sports car and flaunting around in trendy, tight-fitting outfits. She didn’t want to stop, but she had no choice but to accept it.

Michael never told anyone, and Katrina was extra nice to him after that. Deciding that he had a weakness for sweets, which wasn’t a lie, she brought him baked goods any time she had an excuse to, not bothering to hide the fact that she still wanted a piece of him. This time, it was because his newest piece about self-driving cars went viral, and the company’s stocks were skyrocketing.

Was this Katrina’s way of getting back at him for rejecting her? Brian, the new editor, saw him at the jeweler and the whole office knew that he planned to propose to Jess. He saw that Katrina had emailed him last Thursday with the headline: “Seriously?”, but he deleted it without opening it or replying.

“You have to be kidding me,” Michael uttered, resuming paddling.

He paddled all day, only stopping periodically to rest his arms. He was in good shape, but the sun beating relentlessly on him took its toll. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around his head after awhile to protect his face from the sun’s rays.

Exhaustion set in around sunset, and Michael began to lose hope. With no sign of land in sight, it would be nearly impossible to maintain his bearings once it got dark. The air mattress could easily turn directions without him noticing, and he would be killing himself paddling in the wrong direction. If he didn’t keep paddling, the odds of the current and wind taking him in the right direction were slim.

With no other choice but to accept fate, Michael lay on the air mattress facing the sky. His arms throbbed from the exertion of paddling, and his body was covered in several layers of sweat and salt. His face and arms felt like they were on fire, and with nothing left to do, he broke down and cried.

His back stung, so he turned to his side, blinking several times at the sight before him. Swimming not three feet from the air mattress was a mallard.

“What the… duck?” Michael exclaimed, sitting up.

The mattress rocked precariously beneath him, and Michael ignored it, squinting into the distance. Sure enough, he could just make out a dark spot in the distance.

“Land!” he shouted excitedly, laying back down to paddle the raft as fast as he could.

He didn’t have to paddle all the way. A small fishing boat returning to shore spotted him and picked him up. Michael thanked the fisherman profusely, gulping down the water they gave him in between telling him about his situation. They managed to get a rope around the air mattress to pull it along with them to shore.

The police took pictures of it and noted the brand and color once they arrived on the shore, but due to the excessive wetness of the ocean, any fingerprints besides his own had long since been washed away. Michael didn’t even own an air mattress, nor did anyone he knew. He used one of the officer’s phones to call Jess, but she didn’t answer.

Having no car or cash to get home, Michael called his brother, who was able to get him a room at a local hotel. The police told him not to go home, as they needed to canvas the scene for clues. They also told him to stay away from Jess’ house until they had a chance to question her.

One of the officers gave him a ride to the hotel, and the officer corroborated his story to the front-desk attendant about why he had no identification on him. He got the room number from the clerk, and assured Michael that he would be contacted first thing in the morning, or sooner, with an update.

“Thank you, officer,” Michael told him.

The hotel attendant handed Michael the key card to his room, smiling nervously. “Here you are, sir. I hope you sleep well.”