The Sound of Engines

Author: Jon Anderson

Email: andersonjon29@gmail.com

Title: The Sound of Engines

Word Count: ~1,510

Genre: Literary Fiction

The Sound of Engines

by Jon Anderson

The sea stopped being blue three days ago. Now it’s the color of bruises—purple and gray, with a faint shimmer of oil spreading from the overturned hull beside me. The raft groans when I shift, as if it resents my weight, as if it knows it’s the only thing between me and silence.

The air tastes like salt and rubber. My lips have split in three places. When I speak, the cracks sting, but I keep talking anyway. Talking makes it harder for the quiet to win. “Any minute now,” I whisper to the horizon. “They’ll come. They always come.”

The sun answers with heat that feels cruel, deliberate. I try to remember what shade feels like—cool, soft, something other than burning. There’s a bucket beside me, half full of rainwater collected during the storm. I take a mouthful, swish it, swallow half, and let the rest fall back. Rationing. Always rationing.

The gulls stopped circling yesterday. Maybe they got tired of disappointment. Or maybe they know something I don’t—that I’m not long for this place.

When the wind blows, the raft creaks like an old door. Sometimes I imagine I’m back home, standing on the porch, the boards shifting under my feet as the breeze rustles the oak leaves. I can almost hear the soft tap of rain on the tin roof, the faint hum of the refrigerator inside. It’s a cruel trick of memory—the mind painting comfort in saltwater and sunlight.

At night, I count the stars. First as company. Then as witnesses. Each one a flare fired by some invisible hand, saying: Hold on. But the longer I stare, the more I realize how cold they look—uncaring eyes that only watch.

On the second night, I thought I heard engines. A deep, distant hum that vibrated through my bones. I screamed until my throat bled, waving the useless flashlight I’d been saving for that moment. The light flickered once, then died. The sound faded, swallowed by the ocean. The sea loves its little cruelties.

I tried to pray after that. Not for rescue—just for the strength to believe rescue was still possible.

Now I just wait. That’s all there is left to do: wait, breathe, and hope someone still remembers I exist.

The sky is merciless during the day, but it’s the nights that undo me. The dark presses down heavy, endless. I listen to the water slap against the rubber sides of the raft, and sometimes I think I hear voices in the rhythm. Words I can’t quite make out. I know it’s only the sea, but it’s easier to believe it’s something else. Something human.

Sometimes I imagine I’m back home—on the porch, watching rain slide down the window glass. My daughter’s laughter echoing from the living room. My wife humming as she cooks. I can almost smell garlic and onions. I remember the way she’d look over her shoulder at me, smiling faintly, her hair tied back, her sleeves rolled to her elbows. Then the smell twists—salt, rot, decay—and the vision slips away.

The ocean has no mercy for nostalgia.

This morning, I saw a glint far off, something catching sunlight. My heart leapt before my mind could stop it. I waved until my arm felt like it would tear from the socket. I screamed until black spots danced at the edge of my vision. The glint vanished. Maybe it was just the ocean, playing tricks again. Maybe hope is the cruelest illusion of all.

Time here doesn’t behave like it should. I sleep in fragments—ten minutes, maybe twenty—always half-awake, always listening. My dreams bleed into waking thought. In one, I’m standing knee-deep in the surf, watching my own body drift away. In another, I’m already home, the news showing the wreck on TV, my face among the missing. My wife stares blankly at the screen. My daughter asks if I’m coming back. No one answers her.

The storm that took the boat came out of nowhere. I remember the sound first—a roar, low and distant, building until it felt like the sky itself was cracking. The deck tilted, ropes snapped, and the captain’s voice turned sharp and panicked. I remember grabbing the rail, my fingers slipping on rain and foam. The world went white with lightning, then black. When I surfaced, the ship was already gone.

There were others in the water. I saw shapes—arms flailing, voices shouting—but the waves swallowed them faster than I could move. For a long time, I floated among ghosts. I don’t know how I found the raft. Or maybe it found me.

By the fourth day, my skin is blistered, my lips raw. I ration the water carefully, but it won’t last much longer. My stomach growls, but hunger has dulled into something quieter, something heavy and tired.

Sometimes I talk to the sea itself. “You’ve got me,” I tell it. “You win.” But it doesn’t answer. The sea never answers—it only takes.

That evening, the sky turns the color of rust. Clouds gather on the horizon like bruises that haven’t yet broken. I tie what’s left of my jacket around the bucket, hoping for rain, but the storm passes north. I can smell it, though—the sweetness of fresh water carried on the wind. So close.

I think of the life I promised I’d return to. Of my wife’s voice when I left. She’d kissed me, then whispered, “Come back safe.” I told her I would. It was an easy promise then. They always are, when land is still under your feet.

When night falls, I hear it again. The sound that’s haunted my dreams since the second day—a hum, low and steady. Engines. Real this time.

I sit up too fast, the raft wobbling beneath me. I wave. I scream. I flash the dead flashlight as if sheer desperation might coax it back to life. The sound grows louder. Closer.

And then… it drifts past.

No change in direction. No lights turning my way. Just the steady thrum of salvation passing by.

I slump back, chest heaving, the sound fading into the dark. For a long time, I don’t move. The stars blur above me—cold witnesses again.

I think about the word rescue. How it used to mean someone’s coming. Now it just means keep waiting.

The raft rocks gently, as if trying to soothe me. My hands are cracked, bleeding. I stare at them in the starlight—how foreign they look, swollen and pale. These are not the hands that built my daughter’s treehouse, that held my wife in the dark, that steered a boat with certainty and pride. These are the hands of a ghost waiting to be forgotten.

The sea murmurs softly beneath me, lapping at the rubber edge like a heartbeat. It sounds almost kind. Almost sorry.

I close my eyes. The engines are gone. But I can still hear them.

And still, I wave. Because waiting is all I know now.