95. Away All Boats!

I never got to know The Kid very well, but I ran into him years later at a gas station.  He had stayed clean and sober.

“It tore my heart out, but I got far away from my family,” he said.  “You know what opened my eyes? An old war movie.  The captain of this merchant ship insisted they weren’t in any danger right up until the German torpedo hit.  The sailors swam away so they wouldn’t get caught in the undertow when the ship sank.  My family was like that ship, cruising along, refusing to see they were in dangerous waters. The only difference between me and those sailors is I didn’t wait for the ship to get torpedoed.”

 

Today I won’t wait for the torpedo.

Sober Not Somber © 2015, 2016 by Ken Montrose

(Just a reminder: Sober Not Somber is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance between the characters and someone you might know is purely coincidental.)