I'm Back! I hope I didn't make you guys wait too long! Enjoy!
Working on the deck of a crabbing boat in the Bering Sea was normally considered a fairly treacherous career and it broke many men far stronger than Jake Harris. Where Jake surpassed most was in his strength of heart and character, that enabled him to be a highly skilled and competent deckhand and inevitably, soon to grow into one of the best in the fleet. The deck of the Cornelia Marie had become a second home to Jake and he worked with a sense of great ease and belonging.
But today things were drastically different. Jake felt no sense of purpose or achievement in his work but instead found every task as simple as putting one foot in front of the other, a significant challenge. Every muscle in his body ached, as they never had before after even a 36-hour run. He found himself alternating between feverish sweats and uncontrollable shivering and had to consistently fight down the urge to vomit. Several times his stomach got the better of him and he heaved painfully into one of the bins as his fellow deck-mates watched and shook their heads at Jake's misery. Through all of the other symptoms, Jake could easily decide, if allowed the choice, to eliminate the most excruciating element—the headaches that made him feel as though someone was splitting open his skull with a crowbar.
His greatest battle was to combat the urge to lie down on the deck and scream for the coastguard or merely jump over the rail and silence his misery beneath the icy sea. He had absolutely no notion of how long they had been working, and sadly realized that even though it seemed he had been working for all eternity, it probably had only been several hours.
Josh had been closely watching his brother throughout the day and had noticed many of the pained grimaces and head clutching. He felt helpless in his indecision. His head told him to tattle on Jake to their father and get Jake the medical attention he clearly needed, but his heart couldn't bear to betray his brother's trust. And so he watched and waited for the decision to be forced.
It didn't take long.
They were hauling their first test pot and both Jake and Josh were working the rail. At this point Jake was merely content to be still standing and Josh was getting increasingly worried by his brother's sluggish performance. As the pot rose above the water a hoot of happiness erupted from the deckhands who were ecstatic to see nearly a full pot of opilio crab. Jake managed only a meek smile and reached his hands out to grab hold of the right side of the pot that he was responsible for. Just as his hand formed it's grip a shock of pain exploded in Jake's head like a lightning bolt and he felt the pot slip from his grasp as he fell to the deck.
Josh saw his brother go down and instead of paying increased attention to the pot which was now under only his control, he lost focus, and the wildly swinging pot clipped him squarely in the shoulder before knocking him on his butt and continuing it's path of destruction.
"Oh shit!" Dave yelled as he made a wild attempt to stop the pot that was careening back to the rail of the boat. Freddie scrambled to help and they were able to contain it back in the block, as Murray ran to check Josh and Phil's frightened shout was amplified over the boat:
"What the fuck is going on down there? Jake you nearly killed your brother!" Phil was scared shitless as he had just watched both of his sons seemingly taken down by a rogue pot and his usual response in times of panic, was anger.
Down on deck, Murray had helped Josh to his feet, who appeared to be okay, although shaken and fairly bruised.
"Naw, I'm okay," Josh muttered as he gripped his battered shoulder, "It's definitely not broken, just sore."
"Well I'm glad. That was a really close call," Murray replied as he continued to watch Josh.
Jake meanwhile had struggled back to his feet and hurried to his brother's side.
"Josh! I'm really sorry man, I don't know what happened, I must have slipped," Jake apologized quickly with a nervous look on his face. If Josh was truly hurt after a mistake that was clearly his own, he didn't know how he could ever live with it. And although he felt nearly delirious, he had still heard his father's harsh reprimand and was duly ashamed.
"Jake, I'm fine," Josh replied quickly taking in Jake's frantic countenance. "It's just a bump. It woke me up," he continued attempting to laugh.
"Hah, good," Jake attempted to laugh too but instead it turned into a coughing fit that left him nearly breathless.
"You okay there bud? You took a pretty good hit there too," Dave asked concerned as he slapped Jake on his back in an attempt to ease his coughing.
"No… I just slipped…" Jake managed in between coughs.
"Is everyone okay down there? Or should I just sit here and wonder?" Phil called out, obviously annoyed with the crew's disregard.
"We're fine Dad!" Josh shouted while waving a thumbs-up over his head.
"Alrighty, back to work then," Phil replied and sat back in this chair.
The men moved back to work, and Josh informed Murray that he was going down to grab ice for his shoulder. As he was making his way across the deck he heard Dave's voice asking Jake a question. He couldn't hear a response so he looked over his shoulder and saw the sight that he knew would haunt him forever.
Jake stood in the exact same place where he had last seen him, his posture sunken and defeated. His face was hauntingly pale and he was looking at Dave as if trying to respond to his question but instead he just blinked. Josh began walking back towards his brother, beginning to panic but not quite sure why.
"Jake?" Josh called as he made his way across the deck. As he neared his brother he saw that there was something on his face, something dark, blood. Blood dripping from his brother's nose, no not dripping, streaming and dropping in puddles to the deck below.
"Jake!" Josh yelled and felt himself break into a run. Josh felt like he was running through mountains of sand, he couldn't move his feet fast enough and everything was in thundering slow motion.
Jake slowly turned to look toward Josh as he heard his scream and wanted desperately to reply, to tell his brother that everything was fine, but he couldn't. His eyes were heavy and he could hear a voice in his head cleverly suggest he close his eyes. And since that seemed like such a good idea, he did.
And everything went black.
Okay… don't worry. Jake is not dead….yet. lol JK! I would never do that…well maybe.
Anyway, please review! I love to hear all opinions!