Seaside Funeral

As soon as my eyes closed the dream started. The same dream I’ve had since it happened. The dream about Jaquiline. The chopper’s sounds were completely drowned out by the rain pounding on its hard exterior. The rotor blades desperately trying to stay airborne. I was sitting on the jumping zone gear on and ready to go.

“Five minutes out Vandt!” The pilot has to scream into his head piece just to be heard over the storm.

“Copy that,” I answer. We are headed to the scene of a party boat that got caught up in the hurricane. Some kids on spring break vacation had decided to stay out despite the ominous and dark storm clouds threatening to tear them apart. If there’s one thing they taught you in the Coast Guard it was never challenge the sea, because it’ll always win.

“Ship in sight!” The pilot screams. I look out the door where the chopper’s beam light is reflecting a small boat with four lives desperately clinging onto it.

“I’m going down!” I scream.

“May Poseidon guard you son,” the pilot says. I jumped my feet stretched out in front of me. I landed hard and broke surface seconds later. I patted my head with my right hand signaling I was ok and started to swim towards the boat. I reached the boat and clung to the side as the storm tossed it relentlessly. I pulled myself onto the dock and saw life one. Female with red hair.

“Help!!!” she screamed.

“Ma’am I’m a Coast Guard rescue swimmer how many are you?” I ask. She’s crying now. I motion for the chopper to drop the carrier.

“There was seven of us but some of them just, I don’t know the waves just, it just took them,” she sobs. I grab the rails and put my arms around her. The carrier takes thirty precious seconds to come down. I load life one in first as she goes up a wave crashes into the ship and life two, blonde male, comes flying at me. I grab the rail hard with my left hand and brace my right arm to catch the guy. He hits me with more force than I had anticipated. It takes all of my strength not to lose grip with my left hand. Life two was unconscious. I moved him into my left arm and grabbed a flash light from my right pocket and used it to check his pupil dilation. He responded. The carrier was back I loaded him and he began to rise.

I searched around and found life three on the opposite side of the deck. I had to use the rail to go all the way around which took a minute of time that I didn’t really have. Life three was female with black hair with red highlights.

“Ma’am my name is Tristan Vandt and I’m a coast guard rescue swimmer. Are you hurt?” I asked.

“Get me the hell off his boat Tristan,” she said and punched me on my arm. It took all of three seconds for my brain to place the voice and the face.

“Jaquiline!” I screamed. She smiled as we both held onto the boat with all our might.

“Yes! I’m the last the body back there is dead. Flag pole through his chest,” she said. I looked up to see where the carrier was. I noticed the pilot was having a hard time getting to the opposite side.

“Vandt I have to recall and try approaching from another angle, can you hold on for a few more seconds?” the pilot asks.

“Damn you Vickson you owe me dinner,” I answer. He laughs.

“So you decide to come down to and visit some friends with your leave time?” I ask. Jaquiline had been in my training class to become a rescue swimmer we went neck and neck in the class to be the best. I’d always liked her, and I felt the feeling was mutual, but I never could manage to puck up the courage to ask her out.

“Yeah, saw the clouds but the wind told me the storm was going across the horizon and not towards us. I chose to fight the sea and you know what Commander Kline was right it always wins. Poseidon is one ugly son of a bitch,” she answers. A wave crashed into the boat with an ugly force I lose grip and Jaquiline manages to catch my arm and help me back onto the rail.

“You owe me dinner now,” Jaqueline says smiling.

“How much longer Vickson I have Fluer down here!” I say into the head piece.

“What the hell is Jaquiline doing out here?” he asks. The chopper is being pushed by the wind. A wave crashes onto the tail portion and for a second I panic thinking the chopper was going to go down. It doesn’t.

“Wow that was a close one. Jaquiline pissed off Poseidon,” Vickson says. I can hear the panic dissolving from his voice.

“Dammit I can’t get this chopper to move you’re going to have to come to the carrier and hurry I only have two minutes of fuel,” Vickson says. Now my adrenaline was surging the carrier was being dropped back across the deck. The storm was only getting stronger there was no way we had that kind of time.

“Jaquiline we have to go to the other side. Get in front of me,” I scream over the storm. I allow her to pass. We make it to the other side and both grab onto the carrier.

“Pull us up!” I yell. The carrier starts to lift. A wave crashes into the boat this time the mast is torn off and hits the carrier cable side ways. Jaquiline falls off back onto the dock.

“Jaquiline! Vickson lower me!!! Lower me right now you bastard!” It’s the hardest decision any rescue pilot has to make. Whether or not they can risk losing all on board or just one. The minority always loses. Jaquiline hits the deck hard and slams into the front of the boat. The chopper begins to head for land. The last thing I see is her stretching out her hand weakly, a hand begging to be grabbed.

“Vickson no!!!!” I scream and scream until I’m on board. The boat is now nothing but an ant size blur in the massive sea.

“Another chopper is already on route,” Vickson says. I cry for the third time in my life.

I wake up to the sound of misery business by Paramore screeching in my ears. I slide the screen to make it stop. I can already smell dinner in my room.

“Time to eat,” I say to myself. Outside it’s pitch black and the house next door has but a single light on and a boy playing in a room with what looked like a little red toy jeep.

“Tristan come and eat!” Aunt Kathy beckons.

“En route,” I say and head out of my room.