Shipwrecked

I crawled up onto the beach exhausted, wet and cold. Never having learned to swim, it was panic that got me there. Flailing away at the water, kicking furiously, the gods must have been with me.
Growing up on the coast, you would think swimming a natural passion. Many of my friends were fish. It just never interested me.
My head was exploding and fog enveloped my mind, as it had my life for the past two months. Rain pounded me as I lay disoriented.  What the hell just happened?
Took a while to catch my breath and allow my heart to stop the drum solo playing viciously within my chest. The storm stopped as abruptly as it began and I laid there, eyes closed, soaking up the sun's warmth as its presence became bolder and more intense. Trying to focus some energy. Kill the panic.
The urgent glow reflecting from the water finally forced me to sit up to see a boat on fire. My boat.
I was crushed.
The boat was my passion last year. Deciding to build it was a strange move for me because I am not a handyman. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I sweat blood with tools in my hand. You have to tilt your head to get a good look at the pictures I have hung in my house. Tells you everything you need to know.
But I was strangely driven by this project, somehow outside of myself, inspired in spirit and by spirit. It was something I had to do, like Richard Dreyfus and his mashed potato sculptures in Close Encounters. It felt good because it was so far outside of my comfort zone, yet it came together nicely.
I put enormous effort and energy into it. Enormous belief and commitment.
And when it was done I was surprised, amazed and proud.
Today was the maiden voyage and the feeling of freedom and accomplishment was overwhelming and so satisfying. I don't ever remember feeling this good about myself. It felt like I earned this reward, like I set a course, made all the right decisions and followed through. Felt like a lifetime of struggle was about to end.
Until the storm whipped up out of no where. The wind and waves frightened me, but worse than that, beyond my ability to comprehend such a thing, lightening struck the boat. I jumped and you know the rest.
As I stood on the beach, flaming embers dropped into the sea as the boat collapsed and left something floating at the waters edge.
I walked down and picked up the hand carved nameplate that had been attached to the stern.
Hope.
I would burn it tonight to keep warm.