Fractured Tales 8 – Not Knowing

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She walked slowly out across the dock and sat on the end… arms resting lightly on the rope that stretched between the corner posts.
Her legs dangled over the edge… jeans rolled up to her knees… bare feet reaching just below the surface of the cool water of the Atlantic Ocean.

A small boat was moored off to the left… its painter lifting and falling as the boat bobbed gently with the light swell of the water.
A small red and white buoy, closer back towards the shore, also rocked with the tide. She had no idea what its purpose was… but she felt sure it was there for some specific reason… possibly a marker of some sort.

Ahead of her… way off on the horizon… she could see three land formations.
They appeared flat but she knew that was an illusion… it had something to do with one’s visual perspective… due to the eye being curved. She didn’t know exactly how it worked… she just knew that it did because she had read it somewhere.

It was a beautiful day… blue sky overhead… blue water that was almost flat calm… warm, but not too hot.
Surely, it would not happen today… not on a day when she was surrounded only by peace and tranquility… but one never knew what lay ahead.

Her heart beat faster… and faster… until the sound of the blood rushing through her body became a deafening roar in her ears.
Her face contorted into an almost painful grimace as she squeezed her eyes shut tightly… and her hands balled into fists… fingernails digging into the palms.
She tried in vain to breathe deeply and slowly… attempting to calm her nerves and restore the serenity. It worked… for maybe two seconds.

Slowly, she opened her eyes… and wiped damp, clammy hands on the worn denim fabric of her jeans.
Her eyes began to focus normally and… there they were… just as she had known they would be.
Tiny black dots against the blue sky… rising swiftly from the land way off on the horizon.

She did not know where they came from or what they were. They simply looked like little black dots… but, they were a long way off… so she knew they could be much larger than they appeared.

However, there was one question burning in her brain… what were they and what was their purpose? She was uncomfortable with the ‘not knowing’ aspect. It made her uneasy.

From her position they resembled little puffs of black smoke, dissipating as they rose higher in the atmosphere… or it could be birds flying up from their nesting sites and going off in search of food. Then again, perhaps they were some sort of alien life form, flying off to designated points around the planet to do… what?

[Would they establish secret colonies for some nefarious purpose? Were they here to learn from the human race… perhaps to be of some benefit… or to cause destruction in some way? The ‘not knowing’ part was driving her crazy… what she was witnessing… where it was coming from… or going to… or what it’s purpose was. ]

That was precisely why she had vowed to herself that she would not sit on the dock anymore. She did not really need to know the answer… because she did not want to be here if they came in her direction.

But, despite her fears, every day she found herself out here… sitting in the same spot again. She likened it to some strange kind of addiction… a bad habit that she could not seem to break… and now it was happening…

Maybe they had realized that she was aware of them… and now they were coming for her.

She knew she could not run fast enough to escape, but still she tried and… she had reached the shoreline when they descended around her.

Landing silently, they surrounded her… hundreds of them… strong claws digging deep into the sand… large beak-like mouths open wide… black feathers glistening in the bright sun… her ‘not knowing’ was about to end.

Suddenly, she shook her head and laughed out loud… her mother had always told her that her curiosity and her imagination would drive her crazy one day. She watched them feasting on something in the sand. Had her mother been right?