Story

To Sea

David August

09 Dec 2025 — 3 min read

Water Sea Caribbean by Michelle Pitzel from Pixabay

He woke up, looking forward to finally fishing. He’s retired, even though he feels like he could keep doing the work, and now, finally, he has the chance to go out on his boat, with a beer and his rod to catch something. Maybe if he catches enough he can fill the whole freezer set up in the basement. Fresh frozen fish for months.

The ocean was calm, oddly almost like glass, once he was out a bit from the coast. Caribbean breeze and the movement of the motorboat, a fast mover, running wind through his hair. In a few minutes he’d cut the engines and he could finally start to fish.

The calm water, the gentle breeze and…that sound.

It wasn’t the sort of low whirl and squidgy bass of a Black Hawk. It was more of a whoosh over a high-speed putt putt: a turboprop. A Reaper came for him, again. 66 foot wide wings, and its multi-spectral sensor was looking at him, staring at him, through him. It saw him. Really saw him.

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Too late to run. Even in a go fast boat, the killer machine could go more than 200 miles per hour faster. Its hellfire faster than the speed of sound.

And he can’t outlast it: it’s ready to stay above him, watching, taunting, judging, for more than a day.

Then the burst of static sound. Hellfire missile launched, coming his way. The arc of flames coming out of its back, as he watched it slide through the air at its quarry, him.

The beer in his hand stung his skin. The breeze seemed like it was whipping grit at his cheeks now. He’d done it, again.

Arriving before its sound, hellfire struck the bow of the boat transforming it to wreck in an instant.

The ocean is like an endless warm bath now. The Caribbean is force-feeding him salt water. He’ll never see land again. How many more minutes would it be now.

The Reaper was certainly circling, looking through the smoke and flames that dance on what used to be the boat and sees him: a man shaped warmth suspended in the water just a bit cooler than his body temperature. That’s what the Reaper almost gleefully transmits to a screen more than 2,000 miles to the north in a room he used to think of like a special game room in the basement of what’s left of a white house.

Now he’s the NPC, the non-player character, for some past him to toy with. For forty-one minutes the ocean laps and licks at him, not laughing, not mocking, just waiting for the next hellfire’s rage and stinging his eyes. Will it burn his skin, he wonders now, or will it shatter his body before his nerves can tell his brain he’s in pain? Will his mind realize he’s gone before its neurons are incinerated?

He just wanted to fish.

He knows it is coming, they hadn’t. He knows 100 thousand dollars of anti-tank high-explosive is going to wipe him from the world. His namesake will never let him escape this hellfire.

He’s alone, at least they weren’t. He thought that must be nicer somehow, to be adrift like that: waiting for hoped rescue, together, not knowing between the two of you what was really coming. He was alone, facing no rescue, no reprieve, never. Alone.

He felt it coming in his gut more than hearing it. It felt right. Forty-one minutes must have passed, he was almost done.

This one he tried to breathe in on impact. His dread vanished in a flash.

He woke up, looking forward to finally fishing. Again, like he had every time before, and would every time again.

David August is an award-winning actor, acting coach, writer, director, and producer. He plays a role in the movie Dependent’s Day, and after its theatrical run, it’s now out on Amazon (affiliate link). He has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, on the TV show Ghost Town, and many others. His artwork has been used and featured by multiple writers, filmmakers, theatre practitioners, and others to express visually. Off-screen, he has worked at ad agencies, start-ups, production companies, and major studios, helping them tell stories their customers and clients adore. He has guest lectured at USC’s Marshall School of Business about the Internet.