Creative (discovery) stimulus (2015, porthole and bottled message)

Muscles burning! I cant breathe! This drag is too much.

Fading light. The sea is so salty; how did I get here this far out? Im so
tired too tired to call out. Theres nothing at the edge of the light.
*

He drove slowly into the carpark. The engine throbbed as he pulled into a
vacant space; he wondered how he had got there. He glanced down at his
watch; his Rolex gleamed in the afternoon light. It had been five hours
since he last looked. The car door thudded behind him and he stood, his
eyes raking the stretch of pristine coastline in search of anything familiar.
The young, strong man, the perfect human specimen; the mirror had
always been his friend.
But, that had changed. The anger still fizzed through him. He had been
labelled. Beaten at his own game, hed lost everything. The crash had
caught everyone unawares - he hadnt been the only one who had
sweated their way through the nights trading and he knew there was
nowhere to hide now, he knew he was exposed. Everything would had
been okay if that hadnt happened. Everything would have been okay.
He looked along the flawlessly shaped seashore, only to be reminded of
happier times, when he and his sister enjoyed the salty breeze and
building kingdoms of sand castles out of the ever changing sand. He
reminisced, bitter as he idealised this moment of joy and light against his
actions of the night before - a bloodied fist and the cracked, one-sided
mirror.
*

The wind was cool. I could taste the salt spray veneering my lips. We
played all morning, making transient angels in the sand.
Rob, I wish we could play forever.
She grinned. She took out a small roll of paper, enveloping an old fountain
pen.
Promise me, youll never change, so it can feel like this always.
I grin, and embraced her. We pledged, we promisedI promised.
She picked up a drunken bottle from the swaying shallows as we walked
together along the waters edge, poured its contents back into the sea,
before ceremoniously placing the contract inside. We sealed it in. Hands
united, we threw the bottle into the rip. And watched it drift against the
pull, beyond the breakers and out to sea.
*

He was the eldest child. Hed always lusted for independence, creating an
idealised self-importance. He had enjoyed life. Prodigious, extravagant,
the lure of all things extraordinary to his ordinary upbringing. The endless
flow of partying, money, waste. He looked around his apartment and saw
the evidence of desire. A view to the horizon, unobstructed, and rarefied,
epitomised what he consciously rejected. But in the dark night hours, his
subconscious betrayed him. His fathers hand just out of reach, his
nonnas pasta bitter to taste, the unnaturally muted conversation between
siblings, the pantomime of family table card battles. Distorted and distant;
disparate memories.
And that was the way the end began. The electrified numbers lit the board
and they had been impossibly inflated, the figures mind-blowing and
irresistible. The floor had danced with expectation of a profit landside
and they had all been naively seduced by it. The funds at the click of a
key had been irresistible.
It was at that moment that he imploded.
*

Im going to drown.
Sinking. Like everything else. Im freezing; the suffocation burns. What has
happened to me?
Promise me.
I broke the bond. I regret that. Indulgence, the greed. I miss childhood,
the innocence and the peace. Im not what I was meant to be, only what I
wanted to have. Ignorance is bliss, until the walls fall down.
Im staying awake.
The light is blinding; the stench of salt - childhood again. I shouldnt have
done it, another betrayal, other families; I tore them apart as I did my
own. Choices, all over again. It wasnt okay - the families had trusted him,
with everything they had. And hed squandered it. It wasnt about him
anymore.
*

Rob saw her then. The figure on the beach running towards the waters
edge. Familiar, unfamiliar, necessary, neglected. Worlds collided, past with
present.
His sister waded into the surf, oblivious to the threat. She was the lifeline.
Choices.
Made.
He turned against the rip, towards the breakers, towards her hand.

By Alexander Olivieri