Turkish Delight

This story was inspired by the prompt "Something in the Ocean." My husband has renamed this piece "The LIberal Agenda"

“Just let me--” with a crinkle of the metallic wrapper, Peter shoved the rest of his chocolate-covered fruit and nut bar in his mouth and looked around for a place to discard the waste.

“Dude, I told you to eat that on the ride,” Shane shifted his grip to the carry handle of his paddleboard, feeling his feet sink into the warm sand. “You’re gonna cramp up.”

“Can you just...” Peter held out the wrapper to his friend.

“No way, man! I’m not carrying your garbage, you’ve got pockets, too.”

“It’ll be all weird and chaffing the whole time,” Peter protested.

“Oh, so you want me to be the one who’s all uncomfortable and shit?”

“Come-on, just this once.” In answer, Shane shook his head and walked faster to the shoreline. “Hey, man, I’ll remember that.” Even though no one was looking, Peter pretended to put the trash in his pocket, but instead flung it into a patch of sea oates. He watched the seabreeze catch the reflective surface for a moment like a tiny kite and carry it further into the dunes. The glint of the sun flickered across Peter’s face as it tumbled out of sight.

He brushed his hands off on his swim trunks, and ran to catch up with his friend.

Peter shifted his paddle to his right hand, setting his sights on his fleshy target. He wound back and smacked Shane hard on the butt with a satisfying thwack!

“Agh! Are you kidding me?” Shane winced and grabbed at the spot while chuckling. He swung out at Peter, who nimbly jumped aside, pulling his board in between them. “You’re such a shithead, you know that?” Shane kicked some sand up at Peter, who tittered from behind the board.

The sun glinted off the water, as Peter began tramping through the shallows. He heard his friend adjust the velcro Sup leash on his ankle. The first waves crashed gently around his shins. Both guys aimed their paddleboards at the oncoming waves until they were thigh high. Then they hopped on, beginning to paddle from their knees past the surf zone.

Shane shifted to his feet first, keeping the nose of the board lifted above the oncoming waves. Not to be outdone, Peter popped up, feeling his core muscles engage as he attempted to keep his balance on the shifting surf. He stroked the water with his scull propelling himself forward into an oncoming wave, leaning into his toes. As the white water crashed over his lifted board, he stroked once more to maintain his equilibrium.

It was Peter’s first perfect launch into the ocean, and he was feeling more than a little disappointed that, other than Shane, there was no one around to see it. The surf was unusually calm that evening. A light breeze played along his shoulders, urging him to paddle further. That’s when something glinted in the water a bit further out, catching his eye. It wasn’t the sun shimmering off the surface but something else.

“You see that?” he called to Shane, but his friend was already riding the waves, and didn’t hear. With his left hand on the grip and his right halfway down the shaft of his paddle, Peter set out, seeing another item waggling near the first. Anything valuable would have sunk below the waves, but still, his curiosity drove him to paddle on.

It seemed the further he traveled, the further the shimmering object moved. A stitch in his left side needled at him, just under his ribs. Moving his hand to the spot, he glanced back at the coast. Peter twisted his torso in time with a skillful stroke of the paddle to see that he had drifted out further than ever before.

Without a beach towel or umbrella on the sand, he soon lost track of where he had entered the ocean. Looking around, he didn’t see Shane, either. The beach just stretched on continuously in either direction, the sky, now spotted with clouds. He turned back once more to see the shiny wink, closer than before. His arms and stomach were starting to ache with the strain of balancing on the board, but it was just a little further.

He pushed on until his muscles burned, because he could almost make out what he was seeing. Out of breath, Peter leaned towards the front of his board, and reached his paddle out towards the object to fish it out of the water. As he lifted his paddle, he read the gleaming letters, “Turkish Delight,” inscribed on the reflective surface of a purple candy wrapper.

Feeling let down and exhausted, Peter tossed it back in the water. He decided to sit on deck for a bit to rest in the calm waters, dangling his feet over the sides of the board. He closed his eyes to listen to the small lapping sounds that the water was making as it clapped against the rails.

When he opened his eye, he saw some seaweed float past him. Upon closer inspection, he saw it was a fishing net with shells and junk knit up in it. The wind started to pick up, as Peter spotted a plastic bottle, then a soda can bobbing in the water nearby. Before he knew it he was surrounded by floating refuse.

Clouds started to form overhead, casting a large shadow in the water to his right. Something with brushed against his foot. A bit spooked, Peter started to lift his feet out of the water when his left toe caught on something.

He felt a pressure, then a pinch, “Ah!”

Jerking his foot up on deck caused the board to careen from side to side. Detritus drifted over the tail of his board, catching on the lead plug as he nearly flipped backwards. Peter clung onto the rails and leaned forward until he balanced out.

Between his knees, red smeared across his white and blue board in a smoky haze. From all fours, Peter looked down at the source. There was a hairline slice in his toe that would have been hard to see among the whitened, wrinkled toe flesh if not for the crimson pulses slipping out of it and onto his board. The salt water burned as it played along the edges of his wound.

Shit. Water took on a murky brown color all around his board. Shit! SHIT!

“Shane!” Peter’s heart leaped, as his mind immediately jumped to sharks and orca whales. He swiveled around on his board with a newfound urgency to get a better look at the

shoreline. Still, no sign of his friend. He needed to get out before his foot started attracting any unwanted aquatic attention.

“SHANE!” Peter knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain his balance and put weight on that foot at the same time. Kneeling on the deck pad of his board, he peeled and pulled at the ocean to angle himself in the right direction.

The watery shadow was moving closer like a dark stain in the sea. Peter titled his face to the sky, seeing the clouds weren’t big enough to cast a shadow like that. SH-it!

“SHAANE!!” He didn’t stop to listen for a response. Digging his oar into the trash-strewn water, he tried for the beach, but it was like the ocean had become a treadmill. Now you’re gonna hit me with a Riptide??

The water to Peter’s right bulged and lifted, then dropped suddenly, causing waves to cascade towards him at an angle he wasn’t prepared for. Shark? Peter braced himself, somehow managing to stay afloat. No. No dorsal fin. Still, his paddle cut into the water more aggressively, batting away bottles and cut plastic rings that floated around him like spectors in the wash. More and more plastic apparitions seemed to move in on him.

“SHANNE!!” His panic-stricken stroking intensified the stitch in his side. Then the paddle seemed to catch on something. It nearly slipped out of his water-aged fingers as he tried to retrieve it. The blade had hooked into the distended loop of a plastic bag that had grown pregnant with water. Peter choke his oar up to the throat to tear the plastic free.

In his periphery, he could see a trail of murky water flowing from his toe’s gash.

Peter fought against his straining muscles, knowing his life could very well depend on how quickly he made it back to the shore. Focusing on his paddling, he poured everything into his movements. Shifting forward and back, forward and back, switching sides with his oar.

No air burst forth from a blow hole. No fin erupted from the waves, but a few yards to his right, the water bulged once more. The shadowy leviathan nearly breached the surface, before dropping just as abruptly.

This time, when it splashed the wave in his direction, another plastic bag washed over and hooked onto the nose of his board, pulling it under. Peter lurched forward to free his board. A second wave struck his paddle, which flipped up and into his face with an agonizing crunch before disappearing into the umbral depths.

Blinded by pain, Peter grabbed his face. His board slipped out from under him, and he was swallowed by the unforgiving waves. He sputtered and gasped as another blast pulled him under. He blindly groped around in the watery expanse. His feet kicked out, connected with flotsam and jetsam caught in the roiling surf. Reaching frantically for his board, his fingers sunk instead into the free-floating netting.

Batting it aside, he fought to free himself. Forcing his eyes open, he watched the betrayal of bubbles slip from his nose and retreated in a dance to the surface. Peter tried to propel himself after them towards the light. He desperately needed to break the surface of the water, to ease the fire in his aching lungs, but his arms felt weighed down.

He grabbed at his Sup leash, climbing it to his board on the surface. The searing fire raged on in his lungs, as his hands found the tail of his board. Just as his face broke through the waves, and his lungs rejoiced at the sweet taste of the sea air, another wave crashed over Peter. Mid-inhale, he felt the water invade his throat. He coughed violently, expelling the water, and what little air he has gathered in his gulp. His body automatically begged for more air to replace it, when something else slip over his mouth and nose. It fluttered in his ears like wings in the wash.

He felt a swirling, shifting around his legs-- a strange sucking sensation, as he fought harder to rise above the waves. Clawing at his face, he felt the slick plastic stretch taut across his mouth-- shrink wrapping and suctioning to him with malevolent intent. Peter clawed at his eyes and face. He pinched at the wrinkled surface of his new skin to get a grip.

His head jounced at the surface. There was light and crisp feel of tantalizing air all around him, but couldn’t manage to get to it. Sticking his fingers into his gaping mouth, he tried to puncture the plastic bag with his fingernails. Impossibly, it didn’t break, but only forced its way deeper into his mouth and throat. His eyes watered, and chest screamed.

Suddenly, a solid force smashed into his body tearing him away from the light and sound of the surface. He tried punching out at it, but his fists clattered against the fractious surface as if in slow motion. The wrangling motions did more damage to his hands than to the dark mass. The tension caused his breakaway leash to tear free from his ankle strap, severing his last remaining tether to the surface.

Peter’s motions slowed. His ears popped and vision faded, as the world disappeared in a rush of bubbles.

It had only been a few minutes before Shane came up from a great ride, to find that Peter was out of sight. When the blue and white paddleboard blasted up 20 feet into the air like a breaching whale, slapping the water with its tail on its descent, Shane was thrown from his own board by the shock. He was even more disturbed to find that his friend didn’t surface shortly after. Upon reaching the board, Shane grabbed at the leash floating in the waves alongside, noting the plastic ring sticking out of the lead plug.

After Peter’s body washed up on shore, the coroner’s report cited blocked airways as the cause of death, despite the number of bites inflicted by scavenger fish. The family was shocked to hear that plastic bottle caps and other waste had been discovered in his distended stomach, including a shiny purple wrapper reading, “Turkish Delight.”