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Oceans Apart
By M. Elaine Moore


An ocean lies between them. She's on one island and he's on another. It could be thousands of miles, or hundreds of yards. Neither knows, has any way of knowing. But a current runs between them, one that carries their messages back and forth, bobbing along on the open sea. The messages sustain them, keep them sane and alive and with hope. She's alone. He's alone. But they're not. Through the messages, they have each other.

The small plane carrying them to different vacations went down over the ocean with twelve passengers and a pilot onboard. Only the two of them survived, the currents carrying them in separate directions, God knows how far apart. He knows she exists, she knows the same of him. They try to remember each other from the flight. Is she the blonde or the brunette? Is he the businessman or the surfer guy? Neither knows exactly who they're dealing with, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they do exist, and one found a barnacle-encrusted bottle washed up onshore one day.

A briefcase also lay on the beach, likely washed up from the crash. It contained legal pads, pens, documents, and a calculator. Though the contents started out soggy, he laid them in the sun to dry. He rations the paper carefully, though there's enough to last years if he's careful to use small pieces in his notes. He always includes a blank piece and a pen inside the bottle so she can reply. It didn't start out that way. Once he found the bottle, he wrote a note begging whoever found it to help him. He was shocked to get the bottle back a week later with a new note scrawled on the back in what appeared to be eyeliner.

"I'm stranded as well," the note read. "I'm on an island alone, the victim of a plane crash. If you are rescued, please send help. ~Mia."

He couldn't believe his eyes. Of all the possibilities, he never imagined the note washing up on another deserted beach, being read by an equally stranded woman. What began as vast disappointment becomes a comfort. He isn't alone after all. For months, the notes move back and forth on that current. They write out their fears, their hopes, their histories. She is in fact, the blonde. He is in fact, the surfer, was on his way to a competition. She is Mia. He is Mardi. She teases him about his name, and it makes him feel human.

Through the notes, they become close. They live for the day they are rescued, no longer just for the sake of rescue, but because on that day, they know they will finally meet face-to-face. They know they can survive indefinitely on their separate islands. Food and water are not a problem, with fruit trees and crabs and freshwater springs abundant. Rescue is no longer about survival. It's about seeing whom it is that has kept them each alive through this hopeless ordeal, one which should have driven them mad, and caused them to give up.

They look up at the same dark sky at night, gaze at the same stars, make the same wishes. They touch the same warm seawater each time they put that bottle back in the current, and they touch each other's souls with what's written inside.

He is rescued, months and months after the crash. He asks the captain of the fishing boat who found him, where the current leads. He begs him to follow it, to rescue the woman he is now certain he's in love with. The captain knows the current well, is more than happy to follow it to the small island where it leads, miles and miles away.

As they motor into the little cove, his heart pounds. Then he sees her. She wades into the water wearing shorts and a tank top, and tosses the bottle in, blowing a kiss after it. Her blonde hair flies in the breeze, a sharp contrast to the dark tan of her skin. He watches her spot the boat and wave frantically. As they near, he jumps in and swims to shore, catching the bottle in his hand. His racing heart makes him dizzy. Coming out of the water, he smiles at her. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

"I believe this is yours," he says, and offers her the bottle. "I got your messages. I'm here to rescue you. Sorry it took me so long," he smiles, nodding over his shoulder. "I had to find a ride."

She smiles back, laughing. She throws her arms around him at last and presses her lips against his. "I would have waited for you forever."


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M. Elaine Moore is a fiction writer and poet. She has written one novel and is at work on another. Her work can be seen at Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Four and Twenty Poetry, The Camel Saloon, Fifty-Word Stories, The Island Breeze, Three Line Poetry, Apollo's Lyre, Pond Ripples, One Forty Fiction, the Journal of Microliterature, and in Lady Ink Magazine.