16 November 2010

Use the following paragraph in the story:

He opened his eyes very slowly. Everything was going to be alright. Or was it? Why didn’t he recognize the lampshade swinging lazily, directly above him?

A Change in Plans

It had been a wonderful vacation for Charles. He had long planned this escape from his job at the Insurance company in the city. “Actuarial Statistician” read the words on his business card. Charles was a very precise man. He figured the odds on everything, mostly so that he could always be safe. Which route home would take the least amount of time? Which hat and coat to wear given the day’s weather forecast? Which sandwich shop had the best price and most meat on the bun? How many calculations it would take during the course of a day at work before he could head back home at precisely 5:00 PM. Everything in his 42 years had been lived by formulas and rules.

He had married after calculating the odds that said married men lived longer. Margaret had been enamored with his steady way… initially. But after 4 years of Charles’ constant evaluation of price and value and necessity, she had found herself bored and frustrated. She never liked having to review all the adverts for the supermarkets and clipping coupons to save pennies on a bottle of dishwashing liquid or ketchup or any number of household items. Figured into her budget, doled out weekly by Charles, was the amount of gasoline required to make her route through the various stores she had to visit in order to redeem the coupons. And heaven forbid if she took the wrong route and ended up driving more miles than had been calculated by Charles. What was the point she thought of having enough money if all it represented was a constant game of math formulas for living.

Charles had forgotten to add in the human factor to his marriage and so was surprised by the serving of the divorce papers. But then he thought, “That’s ok, I can live more cheaply alone than as a couple.” He even calculated that his divorce settlement would be paid for and he would be back in the black after 7.3 years of singlehood. And it was now, fifteen years after his divorce that he had decided he had earned that special vacation. But where should he go? He couldn’t just get on a plane or train and go anywhere. It would have to provide that truly unique experience that would justify the expense.

So the analysis began. Coastline or mountains? Europe or Africa? Asia or India? He read countless travel books. Reviewed travel blogs and cruise brochures. Of course there was the government safety list of places to avoid and threat levels and tips for ensuring he would not be endangered. All was included in his obsession with finding just the right level of experience. After all, this was his once in a lifetime adventure, for a man whom adventure meant deciding to stop and have a single whiskey on his way back to his flat rather than coming straight home to his computer and television.

Actually, it was by watching TV one evening that he found his perfect vacation spot, Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. It was French, which he spoke, and it was safe. There was regular airline service from Paris so transportation would not be a problem. It was slightly exotic as most people did not know of it and when he would tell people where he was going, it always produced an amazed response and a question of why there. So it gave this very “averaged” man something he had never possessed, unusualness.

In the planning of it, he performed his usual obsessive attention to details of scheduling and price differentials and maximum use of his time, even to the level of sleep he would require each night. Restaurant lists were reviewed and reservations made. Hotels inquired of and room amenities checked. All the efforts he undertook to make his adventure, routine when he arrived.

And it had gone well for him from the start. He picked up the correct bus at the air terminal to his hotel, connected with his tour group the next morning and began following the intricate schedule that he had so meticulously laid out. It had been with only 3 days left, that he had gone off on his one unscheduled afternoon, which of course he had scheduled. Why not, he thought, wander down to the docks and visit the harbor and find a small restaurant for the evening. Yes, be open for some adventure.

He hailed a taxi from the front of his hotel and asked the Cabby to take him down to the port, to someplace he might be able to have a drink and enjoy the sunset. The driver smiled reassuringly and told Charles he knew just the place. And though Charles did begin to have a few doubts as the streets became less familiar and the buildings farther apart as the driver left the city’s edge and began to head into the forest that covered this piece of rock in the Indian Ocean. Just as he was about to tell the driver to head back, they arrived at a dilapidated pier which thrust out over the water. It was a small cove surrounded by cliffs and trees which cosseted the pristine beach. And it was just what he had hoped to find. There was a small restaurant bar at the end of the pier and he saw the sun heading for the horizon opposite.

After paying off the driver he walked along the pier and entered the “Dernier Chance” Café. The clientele was not at all what he expected, mostly men of indeterminate background. But he was welcomed by an attractive hostess and sat at a table next to the open window. I’ll have a whiskey” he ordered. “But of course” she said with a smile that flashed perfect white teeth. Oh that smile. It had been so long since he had been smiled at. So he ordered a second, along with his meal. And in a real shot of bravado, a third. The hostess began to chat him up and time passed and he did not notice the boat which came idling up to the pier.

As the sun had set and darkness came, he asked for a taxi to be called and began to walk back down the pier to the road. And that was the last he remembered until he awoke. He opened his eyes very slowly. “Why is that lampshade swinging back and forth over me?” he thought. His head ached and his stomach was unsettled. And then he heard the lap of the water against the side of a boat and realized that he was not on dry land.

“Get up! Get up”, a man screamed at him. All of a sudden he was thrown out of the bed and forced up a steep ladder to the deck. Land was no where to be seen. He started to ask the huge dark man yelling at him where he was but was shouted at again and cuffed about the head. “Here, take this bucket and begin to clean up the deck”. “We paid a lot of money to get you. It will be a long time before you work off your debt. And don’t think you will be able to escape. There are no rules out here.”