Lonely Stories by Xavier St John (best management books of all time .txt) 📕

lay atop my sheets which were now vibrating with the force of an exploding volcano. Not only did this convince the neighbors once and for all that me and that pizza girl had something going on (we didn’t) it also convinced me for a brief moment that the end was nigh (it wasn’t). Smacking blindly to my right, I stabbed myself with a drawing pin before finally thumping the off button. Opening one eye, I read 6:00 in orange, neon numbers before checking to see the damage to my hand. The pin was embedded in my palm, a blue monument jutting out of a red sea. I jumped out of bed as some blood dripped onto my sheets – that’s going to be hell to wash out. Still half-asleep, I ripped the pin out of my hand, allowing a geyser of blood to erupt. Frantically sucking the wound, my eyes darted around the room as I searched for plasters – there were none. Great!

The docks were busier than I thought they would be. Even at 8 o'clock on a Saturday, they had the hustle and bustle of a shopping mall as crates of fish swept past, leaving a stench that choked the air behind them. I could see the little red tug, its new paint glimmering in the early morning sun, yet there was no Susie. Not even any other biologists. As I walked further towards the boat, a stack of lopsided wooden pallets became visible. Upon closer inspection, the pallets were also snoring. An old shoe stuck out from the corner behind the pallets. Slowly, I made my way round to discover a happily drunk man sitting in those shoes and a pile of vomit, fast asleep as the fishermen were running forwards and backwards around him, hoisting their cargo and singing and laughing. Must be blissful to be that oblivious. Shaking the man awake, I knelt down to try and support him as he tipped over sideways and faceplanted into the vomit, which of course splattered. All over me.

After a few hugs and a small conversation, the man was on his feet and stumbling around the docks. Swaying like a pendulum, he lurched into the side of the crimson tug and dragged himself along the handrail until he got to the boarding plank. That was when it hit me; this was the man who would be keeping me safe at sea.

This day gets better and better.

Once upright and aboard his boat, the captain smiled at me and beckoned me up with a wobbling finger and a grin. No sooner had I stepped aboard, my vision suddenly turned yellow - I grabbed at my face and clawed at the damp cloth, muttered a thankyou to the captain and made a half-hearted attempt to wipe the sick from my nice trousers I was wearing in hope of impressing Susie – who still wasn’t here. I followed the drunk up the stairs and into the cockpit of the tug, which had more dials than you could count and twice as many levers. How anyone could control this, no less the drunk man I had found sleeping in his vomit 15 minutes ago, I had no idea. Brandishing a clipboard, the man swirled around melodramatically, slipping slightly as he did so and overbalancing onto his control panel with a crunch. He recovered, cleared his throat and asked:

“Kevin?”,

to which I replied

“Present.”

“Good, we can get going quickly then.” My head swam with confusion, then filled with worry and finally hit with the gut-punch of realization:

“It’s just me?”

The captain nodded, smiled and tottered back out of the cockpit. I was alone. Again.

The beginning of the trip was largely unremarkable. A few gusts or wind and a light shower greeted us as we sailed out of the docks, but even the weather seemed to be avoiding this incredibly boring excursion. If only Susie was here! She's probably having a much better time than me, probably sleeping or eating pancakes or something better than this. Our destination, should we reach it before death from boredom, was the middle of the Channel. This was the furthest point from land, so theoretically there should be a plethora of marine life waiting for us – theoretically. I turned to watch the captain drain the final drops from his bottle, glancing at the land slipping away behind us as we headed into the depths.

“Kevin! You got a camera on you?” yelled the captain. Brandishing my Nikon, I jogged across the deck, trying to guess what it might be. A school of fish? A very lost dolphin? Maybe even a jellyfish if we’re really lucky? Leaning over the side and following the pointing of the captain, I stared into the murky sea, searching for some life – there was nothing. The only thing that really stood out was a strange rod protruding from the water, half-rotted and green with algae.

“that, my friend, is a shipwreck.”

The captain did his best to hold the ship at its position – no anchor was long enough to reach the seabed here. Quickly rifling through the navigational charts, I finally found the area we were in. We were almost at the dead centre of the Channel. The map also marked the routes of ferries to prevent any collision between small boats like ours and the supermassive people carriers. Peculiarly, the routes all seemed to bend around this point, snaking away and then back again like tracing the outline of a circle with us at the centre. Checking the shipwreck catalogue (yes, there really is a shipwreck catalogue), there was nothing marked here at all, in fact a distinct lack of shipwrecks compared to the other sections of the sea. I went back up on deck to find the captain steering in very slow donuts around the post, churning the water into a frothy storm around us. I showed the captain the charts, and he brought the boat to a sudden halt.

“Kevin, this doesn’t make any sense. The shipwreck isn’t on the maps.” he said.

“Maybe the maps are out of date?”. The captain shook his head, flipping the map over to its front and pointing at the sticker.

“The map was made this year,” the captain murmured. His eyes widened, and he ran to the cockpit.

“Wait!” I shouted, chasing him over the soggy wooden boards and up the stairs. Shouldering the door to the cockpit, I found the captain, desperately flicking levers and pressing buttons in a frenzy.

“It’s too deep to weigh anchor,” said the captain with wide eyes and shaking hands clutching the ignition.

“So?”

“A shipwreck sinks to the bottom of the seabed. Why can we see this one?”

“oh.” I stuttered. My second realization of the day smacked me square in the face.

“Something is holding it up...”

I looked out to the mast, poking up from the deeps as white foam crashed over it aggressively as though the ocean itself was enraged.

I turned to the captain and asked him quietly,

“We’ve stopped, right? We aren’t moving, our propeller isn’t turning?”

He nodded.

“So why is the water still frothing?”

 

The pole began to rise.

 

A tidal wave erupted from below the tugboat. Knocked violently sideways as the boat tilted vertical, a deafening cracking filled the air. Grabbing blindly, my left hand found a lever and I clung on, channeling all the strength I had in my body through those fingertips. We were high in the air, half our boat sticking out of the sea like the pole. My eyes locked onto the source of the noise assaulting my ears, and through the broken glass of the cockpit window I saw what was left of the other half ship, the shards of wood and lumps of deck being clawed down into the sea by dark tendrils as long as the tug was. The captain lay against the door as I dangled from the control panel, flailing like a fish out of water above him. The door’s porthole began to crack as the oak groaned. I met eyes with the captain. The door exploded below him and the captain fell, screaming until he crashed against the water. A shadow grew around him, rising from the deep. The man swam furiously away but he couldn’t outrun the shape below him. Two ebony outcrops jutted out of the dark either side of him. He opened his mouth but, before he could scream one last time, the white juts snapped shut around him. The monster rose out of the sea, revealing a beak atop a humanoid body, tentacles swarming its skin and latching onto the boat. The ship jerked towards the creature. My hand slipped from the lever. I fell. I hit the water with a crash and saw the beast towering out of the ocean, the remnants of the shipwreck on his shoulder and a new one in front of him.

Time slowed as the monster bent down, its beak sliding open to engulf me. I realized one final thing as the darkness within the monster’s mouth filled my view. One final little thing as the tips of the beak pierced the sea I floated on. A faint smile blossomed across my face as the jaws closed around me.

At least I'd discovered something new.

The Trek

 

 

The Trek 

 

The tree whistled in the wind, its branches bobbing gracefully to every bounce of turbulence. Of course, all the leaves had been lost after the seasons had stopped. The tree was now just a hollow spine of wood jutting out of the earth, a lonely spire which was the last foothold of nature, the only landmark near the hill. The tree was thin but large, with roots flowing deep into the barren soil and it would once have been beautiful in bloom. Once. 

The tree root that jutted into the heel of his boot was painful. Grunting, the Nomad looked behind him, checking the train of followers were still in eyesight. He had always been known as the Nomad, ever since he first started his long voyage across the barren sands, keeping to the eye of the unstoppable megastorm. Nobody knew him. Even he had forgotten his name, because what use are names when you are walking? Walking. Walking his whole life. And he couldn't stop now. He couldn't lose any more. The winds were howling, a sure sign that the group were falling behind, but they had no choice but to keep walking. The hundreds of people, treading in his footsteps, could not drown out the howls of the storm with their cries. After the hill, the valley should keep them safe from the winds, and the Trek could finally stop; but until then, the Nomad could not stop. He had never stopped before, which was why he was still alive. 

The baby's cries could be heard down the hallway. He was crying for food. Everyone was, but you couldn't hear it when the adults cried, as they had learnt that crying just wasted water. The corridor was old and worn, and home to the refugees who had once lived in the city, in their big mansions or sky-high apartments. Unfortunately, the baby would be crying for a long time. Food was running low. Dangerously low. Low enough to kill. Many had tried to go outside, but that was effectively the