One and Only Observer

Chapter 10

Sailing is both being pushed and pulled towards one’s desires.

His shorts were wet where they contacted the driver’s seat. And itchy. At the next emergency pull-over, he wiggled out of his shorts and underwear and pulled on a dry pair of tan cargo shorts, zipping the fly carefully. One of his towels, folded, was between him and the now-wet seat. His wet clothes had joined the shoes and socks on the passenger side floor.

His driving sunglasses blocked some of the intense white-blue glare. He tapped the edge of the car door. Wind increased as he accelerated to highway speed. On the radio, Elton John sang, “Don’t let the sun, go down on me; although I search myself, it’s always someone else I see.…” Daniel sang with him, tapping his fingers on the door. Sun. Wind.

The fact was, the sun stood still and the Earth, seeming still, was moving fast around it, like always. Relative to the galaxy, the entire solar system, including the sun, was moving around its center. Within the solar system, though, the sun was motionless, although it moved relentlessly across the sky. Maybe it was the movement of his car, the lack of trees, hills and buildings…. Everything seemed bigger, fuller, and stiller. Maybe it was the low horizon and the ocean.

Flat. Open. Water in every direction. Daniel’s Nissan wagon pushed through the wind, on a roadway floating over the ocean, sailing away from the mainland and his past. Eighteen years, fading behind him.

A sign, Islamorada, Florida, flashed by. The Overseas Highway lead southwest over sparkling water. An umbilical of power poles to his right kept pace with his car. The water couldn’t be that deep because the concrete roadway supports had to rest on something. It was like the highway was tracing the back of a sea monster. It looked deep. A lone Jet Ski approached from an angle ahead, its rooster tail of water shooting skyward as it skipped over small waves. Two bicyclists flashed past, pedaling north on the edge of the roadway. The day seemed longer here with nothing to get in the way of the sun. Everything felt motionless. Well onto the islet of Islamorada, a fish hook-shaped key, Daniel rolled to a stop in a sandy asphalt parking lot at Mr. Lobster: Fish Market & Marina. There was a narrow beach between the highway and the eastern ocean. He flipped his sun visor up, got out and stretched, then jogged across the road, following a twenty-foot-long path through scrub grass to reach the ocean, where he stood on a pebble-strewn patch of sand peppered with debris and seaweed. A large, worn log pointed out to sea. There were almost no waves, which surprised him because he’d always imagined there would be surf everywhere there was ocean and shore. The concrete power poles behind him marched in both directions along a narrow strip of ‘dry’ land. There were traffic sounds behind him. The sun was going down over there, behind some palm trees. A breeze from the open expanse of water cooled his sweating face. He knew The Bahamas and Cuba were in that direction, beyond the visible horizon. The waning sun warmed his right shoulder and ear. He couldn’t see anything but water out there.