As she looked up at the stars…
As she looked up at the stars…
Today’s post is based on a writing prompt I shared in a previous Daily Drafts & Dialogues post. Keep reading to see what I wrote, and to access more writing prompts.
What I wrote below is based on the following writing prompt: Complete this sentence for today’s writing prompt: “As she looked up at the stars...” What comes next? Try to write a few paragraphs, if not more. And try to be as creative as possible by writing about something that might be unexpected or unusual in such a scenario.
As she looked up at the stars, she could almost feel him breathing next to her, though the biggest part of her knew that he was already half an ocean away from her by now, floating with the currents.
But it was the first night since their boat had capsized that she didn’t feel all alone in the world, so she tried to hang onto the ghostlike feeling of him for as long as she could. She slowed her breathing and continued to stare up at the illuminated night sky, not caring that she was completely covered in sand, and allowed her mind to wander.
Sounds of children playing in a fountain in the middle of a public park on a busy and hot summer day, the day of their first date, surfaced. Then flashes of their third kiss on the rooftop of their friend’s apartment building during someone’s cousin’s birthday party. Then she imagined the morning after their wedding, which was less than a week ago, when they had lazed in bed and she had drifted in and out of bliss for hours.
“Hey, I think I found enough dead tree limbs to get us through the night. Do you want to take the first watch? Or should I?”
It was Keith, her former boat’s captain and now-presumably-dead husband’s father.
“Why don’t you?” she asked, averting her gaze from the stars. “I was already starting to drift off anyway.”
He nodded, then walked toward the fire, where they had set up a lookout of sorts.
It had already been four days, and they hadn’t seen another soul anywhere. Not on land. Not at sea. But they still had hope they’d see someone soon, so they wanted to be ready to signal them when they did.
Being stranded on a deserted island was so much more exhausting than she had ever thought it would be or could be. The constant vigilance. The constant worry. The constant sun. The constant waves. The constant hum of tropical nothingness…
When she focused her eyes on the stars again, all she saw was water engulfing her, choking her, drowning her. This time they became a source of panicked awe. She jolted upright, massaging her throat as if that would help her phantom pains. And that’s when she saw …
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© All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton and Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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