Work Text:
But there's this one particular harbor
So far but yet so near
Where I see the days as they fade away
And finally disappear
The wind lifted her hair from her forehead, blowing it first to the right, then straight back before it settled into something almost steady from the southeast. The boat rocked under her, soothing away any troubled thoughts as she rubbed her thumb over the fabric of her hammock, feeling the warp and weft as she scratched her nail along a seam. The sound was louder for the lack of competition; the only other thing to listen to was the sound of the waves against the fiberglass of the hull. And she was content with that, or at least she told herself that she was.
Her cell phone vibrated -- she had no idea how the damn thing still got service -- but it was too far away for her to bother to end the call, so she just ignored it, silently hoping that it might vibrate its way into the ocean. It wasn't close enough to the edge, but a girl could dream. There wasn't anyone that she wanted to talk to. Not Susan (who probably wouldn't call), not Keith (who probably would), not her parents or her bosses or anyone else. She was on vacation. She was enjoying herself. And if the world fell apart, someone else could cover it.
She was content there, with her fishing poles and her ripped jeans and enough salt water on her skin that it didn't itch anymore. Jimmy Buffett wasn't really her style, but he seemed appropriate, so she'd bought every CD she could find before she left port and she was very slowly working her way through them. Half way through the first one she started wishing she had thought to bring something else. Most of them were still in the cellophane. She didn't mind much though because booze was more important than music anyway, and she had plenty of that: rum for the daiquiris and rye for when the daiquiris weren't strong enough. The only thing that might drag her back in was if her stash of limes started to turn or she had a really bad string of luck with the fish.
She thought about getting up and going into the cabin to sleep, but in the end, even that proved to be too much of an effort. It wouldn't be the first night she slept in the hammock on deck and it probably wouldn't be the last. She had another three days before she needed to get back to the island and head back to New York. Three more days of southeast winds and fishing from a hammock and worrying about nothing more important than the amount of space left in the freezer.