Rowing Beyond

• Isabeau Turner, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2022

Many stories find a beginning; a starting point for their tale. This one contains an ending. It is my ending, but it is his too, for sometimes we seem to be entirely different people. The line between life and death separates us, as it does for everyone in the beyond. So I shall tell this ending as if for someone else, someone who was ready to leave the world he had lived in for so long.

If you peer through the blurry mists of time and space, you might see him seated in his beloved rowing boat, floating proudly on the storm-cloud coloured sea. His eyes are bright, blue as a summer sky over a calm ocean, and his skin is stained with brine. He has breathed the sea air all his life, been raised with the waves and the tides - the water a constant companion.

There is nobody at the harbour, waving him off. He has held on so long, longer than all of his family, his friends, and eventually, his town. All of them are distant memories now - shrouded in fog and forgetfulness. He is the last to leave. He notes, with sadness and relief, that he'll never step on that pier again, never dock his boat. There is a finality in the air as he sets out on this last journey. He feels free, untethered.

The friendly waves lap at his boat as he rows, his wrinkled hands clutching the weather beaten oars. It's a clear, frosty winter’s morning, and the weak sunlight sparks on the icy water, flashes dancing - a parade of final farewell. The ocean stretches out in front of him - the horizon a blurry line he will never cross. At this moment, everything seems so full of wonder that he cannot comprehend it. It is fathomless.

He doesn’t look back as he rows and rows. Onwards, with only the company of the soaring gulls and the quietly splashing sea. Gradually, he feels himself growing weaker, much weaker, until he can barely lift the oars. His arms are heavy, his eyelids heavier. He is close, he knows it. This will not be his end though. Not yet. Not quite. He summons a final surge of strength, pushing stubbornly, fiercely onwards.

Now as he rows, the impossible happens. A miracle of sky and sea. The bow of his boat slowly lifts up. He’s skimming above the water, then floating, then flying! Faster and faster, currents of air lifting him up and pushing him forwards. He soars through clouds and the mist clings to his skin. Even if he is close to death, he has never felt more alive.

And so I sailed across the sky in my little rowing boat. And that is the ending I was looking for. Although, perhaps death is not always final. So look up at night, when the stars are bright and the seas are flat and glassy, and maybe you will see me, rowing towards my new beginning.