Horror of the Boat- Sailing

 

So…  it was such a dark night that I could not see the person beside me; however, I was alone on that road. I was returning home.

And the rustling of dried leaves approached me. It seemed as if someone was walking toward me. But no issue, who cares? As I could not see correctly in the dark, I kept going.

‘Bro… you don’t get scared in this dark,’ a mild voice came into my ear.

It was horrible for me, and I tried to turn behind, and then…

‘O.. oh… no.. no..o, don’t look back, haven't you heard that one should not look back while going through a deserted place and it dark,’ I heard the same voice again.

‘What the f…,’ I murmured, being hell scared.

‘See, here I am not to scare you, so be relaxed; I want to accompany you to your home; if you wish, I can enter your home too; it's up to you.

I tried to look beside me and see that strange person's face.

His face was looking weird and very scary. I was putting my best effort to hide the horror.

‘Hey, don’t feel weird; I promise you will see a good face once you reach home. However, it depends upon you what face you want to see, so I suggest you change your perspective towards me,’ that strange man tried to make me feel light.

I sighed and said, ‘Why are you here with me in this dark and from where you came, and why are you looking so weird?

‘You will get all the answers, but you have to listen to my story before that. It is a short story and will be finished before reaching home.’

‘Okay, tell me your story, I will listen,’ I had no option but to listen to his story.

‘Bro, I don’t know how I would cross the sea in an ordinary boat with one engine used for tubewells. What if the boat's engine fails, and we get estranged? Karma was speculating things to his friend Samay as he was nervous to cross the sea to get to the other side.

He was immersed in these negative thoughts, and all of a sudden, Karma unknowingly put his feet in the muddy water; for a moment, Karma got scared; he thought he had drowned in the sea because he was immersed in the thought where he was seeing his journey being scared of getting drowned. 

Samay tried alleviating Karma, saying, ‘Don’t be so nervous, Karma, we have yet to cross the sea.

They both reached the sea beach. It was not an indefinitely stretched breadth sea but a 7-km-long sea passage.  

‘Bro, why is this sea so calm here,’ Karma asked.

"It's calm because it's deep here," Karma looked sternly at the Samay.

Karma became calm at that moment. He was scared of upcoming things, but he stopped ranting about it.

But it could not last for more time, though he tried his best not to rant.

They both reached the boat; Samay happily watched the ship, boarded it, and inspected the engine and shaft. On the other hand, Karma was disgusted after seeing an ordinary boat. 

‘Bro, I have nominal training for driving such a boat; how will I drive it?’ Karma finally spoke as he had done earlier.

I will teach you while we surf into the sea to reach another edge.

‘Huh, what nonsense, it is a skill, not a mantra that I can mug up in a few minutes; it needs practice,’ Karma put a counter statement.

‘A caterpillar does not practice flying from the beginning; it just eats, eats, and eats, and one day, the outer layer of it gets digested, and it starts flying in the form of a butterfly. So have patience; I will teach you on the way.’

Samay started the engine by showing it to Karma. However, Karma knew how to start such an engine using a handle.

The boat started inching forward from the edge, for a moment boay swayed robustly, and again, Karma was afraid of crossing the sea.

‘We have to take care of balancing this boat in the water,’ and something passed through the Karma again.

 The boat left the sea's shore and started rowing smoothly.

‘Do you know one fact about this sea?’ Samay asked Karma.

‘No, I know nothing about it,’ Karma answered.

‘This sea is very unpredictable about the speed of the water; sometimes it flows at the normal or the slowest speed, and sometimes, it becomes so fast that we either need to control the engine's speed or turn it off. But it is good that we have most of the control over it. Karma carefully watched Samay as he sailed through the sea. 

‘Why we can not sail through in a straight line; instead, we take a long curve to cross the sea?’ Karma asked.

‘Good question. You know, there are few sea passages where you can sail in a straight line, but in others, we have to align our path with the flow of the sea. We have to sail accordingly to make sailing easier and more economical. This boat can’t handle much adversity; hence, we must align with the sea stream’.

Karma got his answer.

After some time, an incident happened on the boat; a beautiful colored fish hopped. It was so lovely that Karma took it with his hand, gently put it in the bucket, and filled it with water. He was mesmerized by the winsome appearance of that fish. 

He said he would keep that fish in a colossal aquarium and feed and keep it alive. The fish was also quiet inside the bucket and it was not trying to get out of the bucket; it might be that the fish was enjoying the new place and had found Karma's plan, passionating. 

Karma forgot everything and started playing with the fish, and he tried to feed his food to the fish. Karma loved this aquatic immensely and was not scared of anything as he was busy with the fish. 

Things were going smoothly, and suddenly, Karma saw a Shark type of appearance in the sea, which was coming fast towards the boat. 

He told Samay about it, but Samay said it was not a Shark; it may be some wood log or debris. But Karama once again became restless. He started rushing back and forth. 

It was imbalancing the boat. Samay warned him for making the wrong speculation, but Karma was restless. When he saw that the shark-type thing was coming faster, he lost his patience and went to increase the engine's speed. Then Karma took the shaft in his hand and started jabbing it in the water to stop the Shark as he thought. He did not realize he had disrupted the boat's balance during this chaos. Speed was high, and because of his frantic action, the boat started swaying fast and became uncontrolled.

That ordinary boat lost its control and took a 180-degree turn.

Yes, the boat got capsized.

Samay showed his intellect; first, he tried to save the Karma by holding him in his hand.

They both were flowing with the boat; fortunately, Karma had some essential swimming skills. 

Samay asked him not to leave the boat's edge; otherwise, they couldn’t cross the river without the ship. And after some time, that Shark type of thing came closer, and it was nothing but the heavy wood log. Samay took the recourse of that log and tried to turn the boat in its proper position with the help of Karma. Somehow, they were successful and boarded the ship.

‘ I said not to overthink and let it come first, but you don’t have patience and belief.’.

Karma had nothing to say at that moment to respond to Samay.

Karma was trying to tranquilize himself from this horrific accident. And all of a sudden, he realized something. He saw that he had lost the fish.

And he started mourning about the fish.

Karma regretted his action, and then he saw the bucket flowing in the water, but it was going far from the boat diagonally on the left side.

Something happened inside the Karma; he jumped off the boat without caring about any mishap. And he started swimming towards that bucket. It was not so far, and the stream could have been faster. He reached for the bucket, but there was no fish inside it. He returned in despair and sat on the boat.

‘You know Karma, love makes people fearless and powerful,’ Samay said to Karma.

Karma could not speak.

‘Sometimes things are not in our control; they get controlled by the situation; hence, we have let things happen in its way. Sometimes, we have to let the thing go away. Samay again tried to alleviate the pain of Karma. Karma just looked at the Samay and kept quiet.

Then the engine stopped working because water entered the engine.

They have yet to go further 3KM to reach, but this time, Karma did not feel uneasy. He was now calm. He started kicking the edge of the boat and extirpated the border of the ship. He succeeded and started sailing manually. Samay and Karma both were sailing through the sea. 

The wind started blowing fast, so Karma took off his shirt and asked Samay for his shirt. He tied both shirts so that it obstructed the path of the wind and increased the speed of the boat. 

Samay smiled and said, ‘Do you remember what I said at the beginning of the journey that I would teach you sailing? ‘

Karma finally smiled.

They both reached the shore of the sea. 

Karma was not the same Karma.

I felt terrific after hearing the story of that weird man, and I turned towards him once again and said, ‘Great story, bro, it was an amazing journey of transformation,’ and then I saw him, now he was looking handsome. His face had a great aura. I could see his face clearly in the dark.

I had reached my home by then. I asked him...

‘Could you tell me the answers what you promised earlier and what you did to your face that you are now looking pleasing?

‘I changed your perspective; when you met me, it was not me, it’s you only; now what you see is also you.’

He disappeared.

Thank You!