Capsized

Once capsized, the fourteen feet sailboat drifted fast against a forty feet yacht.

Shia shrieked while she tried to hold onto the mast, but a wave snatched it away. Harsh winds took the sail for a waltz, and then dropped it as a rude dancer.

"Sam! I am drowning!" Shia shouted.

She tried to stay afloat. Rough waves twisted and turned her body. Salty water intruded her nose, mouth and eyes.

The ramble of the approaching yacht wiggled her head; she sank; her mind came to standstill, until a sudden remembrance of cowardly Sam pushed up her adrenalin.

She kicked the water and stroke it with her arms until she surfaced. Sam was nowhere to be seen. Shia tried to swim on her back, but the waves took the muscle out of her strokes.

She grabbed for water, for air, struggled with the waves, looked for Sam, for the mast, and then lay on her back again to rest. The wind fell off, the waves flattened out; she felt a brute punch in her left arm; the mast came back to her. She grabbed it with arms and legs, as if it were her lover and held on to it.

When she looked up, the bow of the yacht hung so close above her head, that she could see the pilot's worried eyes and fast turning hands on the wheel, as he made desperate efforts to avoid her.

Shia saw herself sucked under the vessel, drawn to the propeller and ground into hamburger meat. She used her left hand as a paddle in trying to hastily move out of the way.

The man on the yacht shouted,

"Jump!"

She kicked her body away from the mast, hardly made a few strokes when she saw something gray fall off the yacht, a splash and a German Shepherd swam towards her.

Shia trusted his big warm eyes and the skill of his paddling legs. She held on to him. The ocean remained peaceful. Her savior only let go of her when she was safely ashore.

He shook the water off his fur and headed back to the water before she had a chance to caress him, when the voice of his master froze him on the spot,

"To-be! Stay! I come and get you."

Shia lay on the sand in the mid-afternoon sun to get dry. So did To-be. She caressed him. He licked her legs.

Out of nowhere Sam reappeared. She felt like vomiting.

"Here you are. I knew you'd be all right. I panicked," Sam mumbled.

"Go to hell!" said Shia.

She'll get a divorce. The chief librarian promised to give her a raise.

"Let me take you to the car."

"Go to hell."

"You want me to walk home?"

"You got no home."

"Shia I love you."

"Go to hell!"

"You mean it?"

Shia waited till the yachtsman threw his long afternoon shadow on the sand, then squatted next to her with a close-up charming smile.

"You gave me a scare. Thank God all your pretty parts are together."

"I am grateful to you for saving my life. Can I get something for To-be?"

"Caress me," he said and his smile meant he did not mean it.

She did and looked at the man in erected posture, at his muscular built, as his steel-gray eyes combed her body, his suntanned rugged handsome face; then she laughed her thoughts away.

"Very pretty... Forget it - an old man. Sorry. Got carried away. My name is Fiasco, if you ever need a crooked lawyer," he said and gave her his business card.