TROPIC OF SORROW (Weekend 5-minute Freewrite)

a Weekend 5-minute Freewrite by A.E. Jackson

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If you'll permit me, I am going to challenge myself to stay in the same story for all the 5-minute Freewrite Prompts for the month of February! Let's see how this turns out...

"I left the house feeling like a piano had been dropped on my head. The taxi stood waiting for me. It was an incredible night with my friends," Ilana said. She looked past the old woman sitting in the bus seat beside her.

"Oh dear," the old woman said. "That does sound exciting." She blotted her pursed lips with a crisp, white handkerchief. Her face objected even if her words did not.

As the bus rounded the corner Ilana could see the line of buses that trailed behind. A caravan of sixteen coach buses, filled with passengers and crew, headed for the dock. Fifteen minutes ago they were holed up in the hotel, but the cruise line said it was time to move to the docks. So they boarded the buses, and they rode through the vacant port town.

Ilana was excited to be headed for adventure. She ran her thumb over the token in her left palm. The gold coin had served as a worry stone since the terrible day at the coffee shop. The cold metal was a constant reminder that Breck didn't love her, and was gone from her life for good.

---

The only forces now in play were the hurricane winds flinging everything in their way towards their shelter. Breck had warned her against going on the cruise. He told her tropical weather could be unpredictable. But had she listened? No.

Ilana was convinced that Breck wanted just one thing from her in the end. She refused to give herself to a man like Breck. How could she have been so foolish in the first place?

She watched palm trees bend and swipe their fronds against the tops of parked cars. It had been his smooth talk. It had been his rousing confidence. It had been his chiseled abs. He was irresistible.

Ilana fell hard. Too bad Breck hadn't followed. Now she was crushed, all alone, at the bottom of a ravine.

"We will move you in groups of eight to the gangplank. Follow me!"

---

Hair wet, clothes drenched, bags dripping, Ilana handed her token to the attendant at the check in counter. The massive room was more subdued than she'd imagined. Of the dozen kiosks used to check passengers into the cruise, just three were operational. The bulk of the ship's manifest waited in a shelter dockside.

"Thank you ma'am," said the pleasant Asian woman. Fear danced in her eyes as she looked beyond Ilana at the torrential rain. Once noticed, her eyes darted to the reservation, then to Ilana's face, and once again back outside. She lifted a hand toward the starboard side of the ship, and nodded to a waiting attendant. "Terrance will show you to your cabin."

As Ilana walked into the spacious ocean view cabin her breath caught, and her heart skipped a beat. This would have been the room she and Breck shared. This would have been their sacred bed. But not after the way he acted. The decision to make up now optional, she resolved their relationship was not to be restore.

As Terrance closed the thick door with a soft thud, Ilana stripped out of her wet clothes. She stepped to the window and watched the hurricane outside rage.

T O B E C O N T I N U E D . . .

© 2019, A.E. Jackson. All rights reserved.

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