Horizon Found – an excerpt of a published short story.
_
From the long leather golf bag he selected a club. He slid off the tasseled cover revealing the large head and ridged face of the driver. He took a deep breath, stretched, and stepped up to the first ball. As he addressed the ball, he shook out his legs and adjusted his hips and back, aligning his spine and turning and locking his elbows. He allowed the club to rest on the carpet in front of the ball. He adjusted his interlocking grip once more and looked out over the freight containers to the sea beyond. With one last exhale, he took a fraction of a step forward and placed the club face behind the ball, and adjusted the bend in his knees. He drew the club all the way back, over his shoulder, tightening his grip and all of his muscles, letting them reach full tension, with his eye only on the ball. And then he released.
As his swing descended, with perfect arc and fluid motion, the sun broke over the horizon to meet the ball as it soared up and out over the deck and over the wash and out over the sea – 100, 200, 300 meters before it fell out of sight into the ocean. Ball after ball was blasted into the blue water below. His swing a thing of beauty. His silhouette against the dawn shades of red, yellow and violet added life and energy to the rigid angular silhouette of the ship. This was now his sanctuary, and this would become his private routine. For some men this would have been no consolation, but for him this simple repetitive motion fully extended him physically and spiritually. This was his cathedral, his only worship, his life and joy and freedom. He knew he had found a way to survive. He feared he had lost it forever, that he no longer had his swing, but here it was, just as his father had taught him. He would determine the trajectory of his own life and he knew everything would be fine.
He watched the last ball lift over the deck, the nylon filament catching the dawn light as it tracked the arc of his longest drive yet, and for the first time in a long time, Felix effortlessly smiled.