“Floating Light Over the Waves” • by Brandon Case

After weeks at heaving sea, I arrived at Tristan da Cunha, the world’s most remote inhabited island. 

I came burnt out, seeking solitude. But the isolation was heavier than I imagined.

The quiet howled. The calm was a hurricane of absence.

Lost, I stood in the island’s small harbor.

An old fisherman approached, his eyes wrinkled like nets pulled from the ocean. He said, “Son, your heart sinks, but modern loneliness has no place here. Visit our potato patch and help a family harvest.” Into a little red boat, he departed alone but light, floating over the waves.

I did as bidden, helping with the potatoes of one family, then another. When a roof needed repair, I lent my hands.

Little by little, my heart quieted enough to accept the island’s stillness. A balm found not in solitude but community—at the remote edge of empire, where neighbors still rely on each other.

Of the old fisherman, none of the islanders knew.

But on quiet evenings, I often glimpse a little red boat, floating light over the waves.

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Brandon Case is an erstwhile government cog who fled the doldrums into unsettling worlds of science and magic. He has recent or forthcoming work in Escape Pod, Air and Nothingness Press, and The Dread Machine, among others. You can catch his alpine adventures on Twitter and Instagram @BrandonCase101.

P.S. If you appreciated this one, be sure to check out Brandon’s other recent contributions to Stupefying Stories, “Divided Sky, Stolen Life,” “Leave the Plasma Gun, Take the Cannoli,” “Writers Strike Reaches the Office of Predestination.”, “Spin Drive Class with Captain Ryan,” and more!

 

Most recently, his flash fiction piece “Astronaut Countdown” got a lot of love from readers of Stupefying Stories. Check it out!

 

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The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.