Ishmael and the kayak

 Ishmael stood at the edge of the dock, gripping the worn paddle like it was the only thing anchoring him to the earth. The kayak bobbed gently in the morning tide, its sleek frame glinting under the rising sun. The water stretched out endlessly before him, blue, totally unknowable, and almost alive.

He hated that feeling. Not the water itself, but what it stirred in him.

Everyone said kayaking was peaceful, being totally free even. But all Ishmael could picture were waves swelling larger than his tiny boat, the way water could turn from friend to threat in a heartbeat. His mind swarmed with worst-case scenarios: being flipped over, stuck beneath, swallowed by silence.

“You okay?” asked Jules, his cousin, already seated in her kayak with an ease that made him feel foolish. “We don’t have to go far. Just around the cove.”

Ishmael nodded, not because he was okay, but because he was tired of letting the voice in his head win.

He lowered himself into the kayak with trembling hands. The boat shifted beneath him, and his stomach clenched. He focused on Jules' voice, steady and warm. She pointed toward the rocky edge of the cove, where seabirds hovered and the wind tugged playfully at the water.

“Just follow me.”

He paddled. Hesitantly at first, his strokes short and uncertain. But as the boat moved, something shifted. The fear was still there, coiled tight in his chest, but a rhythm began to form. The dip and pull of the paddle, the way the kayak sliced through the water, the sound of each gentle splash. He was moving.

Halfway through the cove, he dared to look up. The vastness was still there. The water still deep, still mysterious. But he was floating on it, part of it. Not in control, but not powerless either.

Jules turned and smiled. “See? You’re doing it.”

Ishmael didn’t answer. He just breathed. The fear hadn’t vanished, but it had loosened its grip and made room for something else: awe.

And for the first time, he believed he might come back tomorrow.