From The Well House

Tom heard a slight noise. It reminded him of the last time his wife tried to sneak up on him in her soft-soled slippers. She had tried to scare him in order to start the family tickle wars which he so fondly remembered. He momentarily smiled, then decided he had better walk the deck to make sure that everything was still in order before his memories got in the way of doing his job.

It was a silent night. The sea was calm for the time being. There was no moon to shed any light, tonight. The deck was bathed in the type of darkness which only a person who had spent months out to sea without a glimmer of landfall could possibly understand. Pitch dark, some people called it. Pitch?  He wondered why the word “pitch” was used, and how it came to be used in cases of total darkness.

Tom found that since he had joined the Navy, he asked more questions than he had ever before. He didn’t understand his sudden need to know how everything worked, now. He had not ever wanted to know those things, before. The fleet psychologist had explained to him that it was his way of dealing with the feelings of loss which he and other sailors experience when they have to be away from their loved ones and everything they know as familiar. “Everyone has a coping mechanism,” the psychologist explained. “It is perfectly normal to feel loss and loneliness and to find a way to deal with it. Don’t worry, Tom. You are perfectly normal.”

He didn’t feel normal. On this dark, dark night, Tom simply felt alone. He counted. “Three more hours until the sun comes up, and then the real fun begins,” Tom quietly said out loud as he took a seat on the deck and breathed in the salty, fresh air. Three more hours, he thought.