can a frustrated single mom and failed big city journalist save her family and salvage her career by returning to a town run by a gang of bungling thugs?


“The Resurrection of Puerto Cielo” is a novella published in serial form, 43 posts.




7


“Ayeyouga! Ayeyouga! All hands on deck! All hands on deck! Ayeyouga!” The klaxon sound shattered the still morning.

The lump nestled in the hammock stirred, rolled, and crashed onto the deck.

“Ow!” the lump croaked, “damn you Hook!”

“Ayeyouga! Ayeyouga! All hands on deck!”

Thrashing about, the grizzled face growled, “Hook, I’d have boiled you long ago, but your skinny carcass is too tough to eat.”

“Shiver me timbers!”

Crawling, the man knocked empty beer bottles into the water below then propped himself against the rough wall of the shack. He felt around, hoping for  any bottle with even a few swallows of beer, but his hands found only the dry remains of a two week drunk.

Fingers touched a baseball cap. He pulled it on over thinning gray hair and felt his face. Sandpaper rough.

When was the last time I shaved, he thought.

“Good morning, boys,” soothed a deep voice from the open doorway. A smiling black face eyed the chaos in front of him. “Don’t forget to feed the captain, we don’t want him to start swearing.”

“No shit! no shit!” 

There was a chuckle and a hand reached out with a slice of mango. The large gray parrot with the bone crushing beak eagerly snapped up the fruit.

“I hear your daughter’s back in town,” said the fading voice.

No response.

Feeling the morning sun warm on his face, the fallen man wriggled his toes. Nice to know some things still work.

Everything except my life, he thought.

Today was the anniversary of her death. One year, one long, lonely year without the woman who’d been his wife, his partner, his only love.

One terrible, aching year.

***

The lagoon’s mirror surface reflected the clear blue sky above. Floating, splashing, fluttering about, waterfowl were everywhere. A squadron of pelicans glided in graceful formation overhead. The Rio Serpente poured into one end of the estuary and the ocean tides went in and out at the other. On the far side, once covered with farms on rich delta soil, stood the newly constructed mansions and vivid green golf course of the Palm Estates.

Life on the lagoon paid no attention to the solitary man sobbing on the deck of the run down shack. Perched on stilts at the water’s edge, it was hard to see amidst the backdrop of the dense mangrove jungle. An outpost on the edge of wildness, it was a short walk through tangled vines and  foliage to Main Street.

The man  wiped away tears with the back of his hand,

How am I going to live without you, Sophia?

***

To be continued-

Copyright 2024 Tio Stib