A Journey Westward
By Richard Paul


Jason had worked on his raft from February to May, stopping only to eat, sleep, forage and re-read.

He lived and worked on a small shingle beach at the South-western coast of England, in a city once known as Plymouth. The small community of people left alive in the ruins tolerated his presence only because he assured them he was leaving. He would build his boat and go across the waves and if he did return, he would of course be dead and then they could eat his shattered corpse with his blessings.

On the 23rd of May he had declared his work finished. The logs were tightly bound together and he has tested them successfully on the shallows. The sail, fashioned from a red nylon bed sheet, could catch the wind when there was wind and for when there wasn’t he had procured two workable oars from the skeletal hands of a drowned canoeist.

Supplies remained a problem; he could not barter for food and water from the city tribe. He had been living on what few small fish he could catch, as well as canned vegetables and bottled drinks snatched from a corner shop which the people avoided because, it was said, a Spider-fiend had set up residence there. If that were true than Jason had yet to see it.

He had his fishing pole, whether he could catch anything in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean only Odin knew. The drink and tins however would not last long. The raft couldn’t carry too much, and what it could would never last him to America.

Try as he might, Jason could find no solution to this problem. He would just have to hope that one presented itself when he was out at sea.

The sun was setting; in the morning he would set off. With the last of the light Jason re-read the message from Sandra. The paper was thin and threatening to tear in a dozen places and the words were heavily faded. For the most part however, the young rafter was reading from memory.

I can’t believe we’re finally going to meet face to face.

It’s been five years Jason, and I don’t even know what your voice sounds like. Now at last though we’re going to have a month together (for a start). We get to do this properly and make up for a lot of lost time.

Sorry if I sound a bit hallmark-head-in-the-clouds-ish, but this is important. I love you, and I get misty eyed every time I think of our first real kiss when I see you at the airport in June.

There will be so much for us. I know that doesn’t make sense exactly, but you know what I mean.

*sigh*

- Sandra

Jason had printed that off on the final day of January, the day before the world was profaned. There was no plane now to convey him to Georgia, where the woman he loved either awaited him or was... or didn’t. He would make his way to that airport though, because he had to. If he died at sea or arrived to find only fiend-pecked bodies, or even if he arrived to find her waiting for him; this quest, this insane quest with so little chance of success, was the only thing he had left in this world of death which gave him any manner of hope. And if he died, he would be dying for love. He was lucky.

- - -
To the right of me there is a chalice, to the left of me there isn't. Thus ends Richard's tale.