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The Vast was a demanding patron. The caress of eternity, nerves alight until even a greedy man sought cessation—it drove many mad, but not Simon. He craved that endlessness, pleasure and horror both. He simply gave in to the wide, icy sky, the dark ocean’s crushing embrace, and all was provided.
Perhaps that made him maddest of all.
Tonight he stood on a pier, wind tousling his hair with playful fingers. He stared at a couple below and gave a little hum. They were bundled up in waterproof jackets and woolen hats, scarves whipping around them. They spoke with the attendant who would charter their doomed vessel. For all that the Lonely liked the sea, the Vast was the sea, down to its deepest volcanic bones.
“Is this safe?” the man below asked.
“Of course!” the attendant replied.
Simon knew their gas would run out miles from shore. There the couple would discover that for all their screams, they were but voices in the Void. Even if they paddled for salvation, they would never reach the horizon. The news would blame the weather when their boat was dredged.
The couple paid the attendant and settled into their boat. They double-checked the console, triple-checked their bags. When they turned back to the bow, Simon watched their supplies fall overboard, sinking unnoticed into the froth left by the rudder. The engine purred as they left the shore.
“Bon voyage,” he said before taking to the air.
The boat gathered speed, and Simon followed. His feet sank into heavy storm clouds, wind picking at his clothes as a drunken lover peels away a suit jacket. So greedy. He demurred, keeping watch on the boat below. Any moment now, the engine would sputter. There would be a flurry of activity after the fuel tank read empty. Tears and yelling, and all around them, dark, deep waters. What lurked beneath? The question would run through their minds as they tried and failed to send a distress signal.
Right on cue, there was a cough, a choke, then silence.
“The gas ran out!”
Simon chuckled. So it began.
The wind plucked at him again, no longer content to sit apart from the chaos enfolding below. It wound its way through the gaps in his shirt, cold and insistent. Waves crashed against the boat’s hull, pounding with the gleeful certainty as panic set in.
“The radio isn’t working.”
“Send a flare!”
Simon closed his eyes, settling into shuddery, shivery skin. Wind and cloud alike grabbed him with a leviathan’s grip, unyielding, pulling him deeper into their fold.
“Our bags are gone.”
“They were there—”
“Shit, shit!”
Sobs and screams, howls and roars, and beneath it all, a whisper of praise.
The clouds engulfed him, a reclamation, a reminder that he was infinitesimally small. He let go as the wind swept him away.