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Disclaimer: The characters Miss Parker, Sydney, Jarod, Broots etc. and the fictional Centre, are all property of MTM and NBC Productions and used without permission. I'm not making any money out of this and no infringement is intended.
Drowning
by Dominatrix
I saw him yesterday.
I know it was him, even though I can scarcely believe it. Even though he was the last person I expected to see. The way he looked at me, the way my heart nearly leapt out of my chest... it had to be him.
I know it was him.
That day on the Coast Guard Cutter, six years ago, I refused to believe he was gone; but there was the evidence floating all around us. Shattered pieces of hull, personal flotation devices, bait boxes bobbed in the cold Atlantic waters below. A crumpled, uninflated life raft. The orange lifesaving ring with the words "Mary C." painted in black letters.
A battered silver haliburton, emptied of its contents.
The commanding officer shook his head. "It was a bad storm, but someone with his experience, his knowledge of the sea... something must have gone dreadfully wrong."
***
Jarod "Saylor" had been masquerading as the captain of a small fishing vessel out of Gloucester. I don't even remember what he'd been trying to prove. He and his two-man crew were on day four of a five-day trip, many miles offshore, when the storm hit.
It was a bad one, but not the worst the fleet had seen that year. The weather forecasts had been wrong, however - only predicting squalls. What they got was a near hurricane, with seas raging to 60 feet.
I played the tape of Jarod's 9:35 pm distress call over and over. To the casual listener, he sounded relatively calm, in control, optimistic, even though he was shouting to be heard over the din of the crashing seas. But I knew his voice, and I could hear the edge of fear in his tone. He didn't want to die.
"Can anyone hear me? This is the Mary C. We're taking on water..."
They'd found the wreckage of the Mary C. the next morning, floating off Georges Bank. Of the three men onboard, only one body was ever found - it wasn't Jarod's.
We tried to be optimistic - Sydney and Broots and I. After all, this was Jarod. Our Houdini, the cat with nine lives. The Coast Guard only collected two empty survival suits floating in the ocean; one was never found. Perhaps Jarod had managed to survive a night in the storm, then been rescued by another boat before dawn, we decided. Or perhaps a helicopter.
But nearby vessels who had tried to respond to the Mary C. reported no other ships in the area. All other vessels were accounted for.
Somebody had to be lying, I said. Jarod is still alive, somewhere, somehow.
And I fully expected the phone to ring every night, every day afterwards. Expected to hear his smooth, velvety voice on the other end of the line, making light of my grief, my guilt, the desperate, aching lonely void beginning to open in my chest. I fully expected to get a package, a letter, an e-mail message any day - the usual taunts and teasing jibes, inviting me to rejoin the chase.
And I would have been sarcastic, belittling, caustic on the surface. Inside, I would be battling tears of relief.
But the word never came, the phone never rang. The clinking of the ice in my glass was the only thing filling the silence.
Sydney drank, too. Too much.
I left The Centre, eventually. They had no use for me anymore. It took me a long time to sort out my feelings about the situation, about him...took me a long time to climb out of the pit of depression and alcoholism I fell into, the ocean of blackness I drowned in along with Jarod.
It took a long time for the nightmares to stop; the dreams where my lungs filled with water and I held Jarod's hand as we faced death together in the hold of a sinking ship.
Sometimes I actually wonder whether I preferred to believe he was dead. The alternative being that he'd left me without a backward glance, disappeared gladly without a trace, perhaps even purposely faked his demise. That he really cared nothing about me after all. And why should he? It took me years to even entertain that thought.
***
Then I saw him.
I was at Harvard Square in Boston waiting to catch a train out of the City, to meet Paul for dinner. Normally I'd drive, or take a cab, but that day my car was being repaired and I decided to live dangerously. So there I was waiting on the dirty subway platform among the students in baseball hats, the shoppers with their bags, the business suits.
I glanced across the rails at the faces waiting on the other side, and felt my heart stop.
He was staring at me, and I stared right back.
Oh, he looked a little different - a close-cropped beard with distinguished streaks of silver, and round, wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing an expensive double-breasted suit, a black overcoat over one arm, carrying an attache.
But I'd know those warm, brown eyes anywhere.
My mouth must have dropped open; I could hardly breathe and my heart began pounding in my chest.
He didn't move, didn't speak, didn't wave - but he did smile. Not a smirk, not a "gotcha" grin, just a gentle smile of pleased surprise, of recognition.
I smiled back even as tears welled in my eyes, and I pressed my hand to my lips to keep from gasping, crying out his name.
With a scream and a rush of steel and glass, the inbound train suddenly passed between us, obscuring him from my sight. I stood there frozen, riveted in place as a sea of humanity poured in and out of the cars; my eyes darted from face to face as I desperately sought another glimpse of him.
Then the train pulled away, and the crowd on the opposite platform began to dissolve... and he was gone.
I stood there stunned for several more moments, emotions whirling in my head. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, to leave or stay. Finally, feeling numb, I made my way back up to the street and sat down hard on a nearby bench.
That's when the girl found me.
"Excuse me, miss?" she said hesitantly. "Are you Miss Parker?"
I looked up at her wide-eyed. No one called me that anymore.
"I used to be," I said dully.
"A man just told me to give you this," she said, and giggled. "Don't ask me why. He said you looked like you could use cheering up."
She pulled her hand out of her pocket and pressed something hard and plastic into my palm, then turned and walked away.
It was a Popeye Pez dispenser.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Dominatrix
I saw him yesterday.
I know it was him, even though I can scarcely believe it. Even though he was the last person I expected to see. The way he looked at me, the way my heart nearly leapt out of my chest... it had to be him.
I know it was him.
That day on the Coast Guard Cutter, six years ago, I refused to believe he was gone; but there was the evidence floating all around us. Shattered pieces of hull, personal flotation devices, bait boxes bobbed in the cold Atlantic waters below. A crumpled, uninflated life raft. The orange lifesaving ring with the words "Mary C." painted in black letters.
A battered silver haliburton, emptied of its contents.
The commanding officer shook his head. "It was a bad storm, but someone with his experience, his knowledge of the sea... something must have gone dreadfully wrong."
***
Jarod "Saylor" had been masquerading as the captain of a small fishing vessel out of Gloucester. I don't even remember what he'd been trying to prove. He and his two-man crew were on day four of a five-day trip, many miles offshore, when the storm hit.
It was a bad one, but not the worst the fleet had seen that year. The weather forecasts had been wrong, however - only predicting squalls. What they got was a near hurricane, with seas raging to 60 feet.
I played the tape of Jarod's 9:35 pm distress call over and over. To the casual listener, he sounded relatively calm, in control, optimistic, even though he was shouting to be heard over the din of the crashing seas. But I knew his voice, and I could hear the edge of fear in his tone. He didn't want to die.
"Can anyone hear me? This is the Mary C. We're taking on water..."
They'd found the wreckage of the Mary C. the next morning, floating off Georges Bank. Of the three men onboard, only one body was ever found - it wasn't Jarod's.
We tried to be optimistic - Sydney and Broots and I. After all, this was Jarod. Our Houdini, the cat with nine lives. The Coast Guard only collected two empty survival suits floating in the ocean; one was never found. Perhaps Jarod had managed to survive a night in the storm, then been rescued by another boat before dawn, we decided. Or perhaps a helicopter.
But nearby vessels who had tried to respond to the Mary C. reported no other ships in the area. All other vessels were accounted for.
Somebody had to be lying, I said. Jarod is still alive, somewhere, somehow.
And I fully expected the phone to ring every night, every day afterwards. Expected to hear his smooth, velvety voice on the other end of the line, making light of my grief, my guilt, the desperate, aching lonely void beginning to open in my chest. I fully expected to get a package, a letter, an e-mail message any day - the usual taunts and teasing jibes, inviting me to rejoin the chase.
And I would have been sarcastic, belittling, caustic on the surface. Inside, I would be battling tears of relief.
But the word never came, the phone never rang. The clinking of the ice in my glass was the only thing filling the silence.
Sydney drank, too. Too much.
I left The Centre, eventually. They had no use for me anymore. It took me a long time to sort out my feelings about the situation, about him...took me a long time to climb out of the pit of depression and alcoholism I fell into, the ocean of blackness I drowned in along with Jarod.
It took a long time for the nightmares to stop; the dreams where my lungs filled with water and I held Jarod's hand as we faced death together in the hold of a sinking ship.
Sometimes I actually wonder whether I preferred to believe he was dead. The alternative being that he'd left me without a backward glance, disappeared gladly without a trace, perhaps even purposely faked his demise. That he really cared nothing about me after all. And why should he? It took me years to even entertain that thought.
***
Then I saw him.
I was at Harvard Square in Boston waiting to catch a train out of the City, to meet Paul for dinner. Normally I'd drive, or take a cab, but that day my car was being repaired and I decided to live dangerously. So there I was waiting on the dirty subway platform among the students in baseball hats, the shoppers with their bags, the business suits.
I glanced across the rails at the faces waiting on the other side, and felt my heart stop.
He was staring at me, and I stared right back.
Oh, he looked a little different - a close-cropped beard with distinguished streaks of silver, and round, wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing an expensive double-breasted suit, a black overcoat over one arm, carrying an attache.
But I'd know those warm, brown eyes anywhere.
My mouth must have dropped open; I could hardly breathe and my heart began pounding in my chest.
He didn't move, didn't speak, didn't wave - but he did smile. Not a smirk, not a "gotcha" grin, just a gentle smile of pleased surprise, of recognition.
I smiled back even as tears welled in my eyes, and I pressed my hand to my lips to keep from gasping, crying out his name.
With a scream and a rush of steel and glass, the inbound train suddenly passed between us, obscuring him from my sight. I stood there frozen, riveted in place as a sea of humanity poured in and out of the cars; my eyes darted from face to face as I desperately sought another glimpse of him.
Then the train pulled away, and the crowd on the opposite platform began to dissolve... and he was gone.
I stood there stunned for several more moments, emotions whirling in my head. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, to leave or stay. Finally, feeling numb, I made my way back up to the street and sat down hard on a nearby bench.
That's when the girl found me.
"Excuse me, miss?" she said hesitantly. "Are you Miss Parker?"
I looked up at her wide-eyed. No one called me that anymore.
"I used to be," I said dully.
"A man just told me to give you this," she said, and giggled. "Don't ask me why. He said you looked like you could use cheering up."
She pulled her hand out of her pocket and pressed something hard and plastic into my palm, then turned and walked away.
It was a Popeye Pez dispenser.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
