Jacob Thomas Roper - Issue 35

Jacob Thomas Roper is a new filmmaker and writer from the Norfolk broads. He graduated from Norwich University of the arts with a degree in film and has since continued making films and writing as a passion and for the love of art and its importance in life. 

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Mud Island

East of the river Yare near a secluded body of water on the Norfolk broads under monochrome skies, the third-generation boat of the Ashworth family slept on the water while its sole helmsman Victor Ashworth wrestled with an orchestra of tormenting thoughts. 

The small broad, the Ashworth boat approached , was only vast enough for a half-dozen boats to comfortably anchor.  Dubbed by many, ‘Mud Island’ was framed unusually in misery, as fog hung over the trees that lined the banks. In my childhood despite only a brief visit, I have always remembered how the greens of the trees and pastel reeds soared far above my head and captured those in the broad into another world. The only way a view of what was beyond the broad could ever be seen would require a person to climb a mast to the very top and even then why would any man want to? This small bit of the world was the happiest of prisons, often cast in golden light but now drowned in harsh clouds and the encroaching thunder. 

Victor Ashworth had for many months been avoiding his sail out to Mud Island. His fear of the place was well established from a young age, after on the small river passage just adjacent he bore witness to the decomposing corpse of a duck. Despite his mothers love and his own attempt to rationalise seeing the duck, the image had burned within the man for many decades and still clung to him like a scar. It was said by his mother that her sons eyes were altered from that moment on and the once bright green in them faded to murky brown. In spite of this fear his journey to the broad could not be prolonged any further; he had business to attend to, and it would not go away. The families boat was well maintained and had been the occasion for much love and treasured times, well-worn in and marked with stories, a large chip on the decking where his grandfather dropped the mast too quickly, or the chipped edge of the stern that his father used to open beer bottles. Victor had viewed the vessel as a mosaic of memories he had treasured from those long departed and touched them like velvet as he passed each one while setting the boat to sail. 

Perfect conditions awaited the voyage to the broad, the sails caught in the wind like silk laundry in summer and fluttered with grace, but as each wave passed under the boat and each tack was taken the sound of organs formed in Victors ears and a cacophony of thunder conducted the greying skies. A large heron with hollow eyes like glass and a sagging stomach stood on matchstick legs at the river bank by the small entrance to the broad in the distance. Victor looked from the boat with sickness in the back of his throat as his thoughts turned to fear and his breath became sharp and broken. He wished he could turn back and run but his required business on the other side of the broad was simply too important and promised so much for him and his life. With every alteration in the boats movements the mind of Victor Ashworth swirled in dread and dismay as he looked into the blackening sky and longingly back to only moments ago down river. As he crossed into the entrance of the broad, the storm approached over the boat, and the temperature plummeted. The cold chill that occurs before a storm set into the air and Victor’s bones. Ice crystals formed in the stitching of his skin, and the hollow eyes of the dead duck and heron mirrored his. 

On the bank, the heron looked at Victor with a smug grin stapled on its vulgar visage as the boat passed and it stretched a welcoming wing out to the guest of Mud Island. Then with haste it flew up and above the boat ushering in Victors arrival to the broad. Victor could only stare in shock as the heron glided above the sail into the threatening sky. He felt compelled to speak to the bird but as his mouth opened not even the breath of a flower escaped from him, staring only at the bird in the sky in bewilderment. His eyes momentarily averted from the scene before him to the moment he passed his childhood memory of the rotting duck carcass, studying the river and its banks; he was not sure if seeing it or not would be the preferable outcome. As the broad grew ever closer and into sight, the orchestra of thoughts in his mind burned on him like ardent flames in a fire and the sound of the approaching rain on the water blended with the thumping heart in his chest in a cacophony of fear. Blood drained from his head and hands as his body turned pale, his skin wrapped round his bones like lace and his muscles froze. 

Mud Island was now only mere meters away from Victor. He had built up this moment so much in his mind, spending years dreading and avoiding it, allowing it to occupy so much of his mind to the point of exhaustion that now when it was only seconds away he knew not what to think or say. He looked ahead into the broad and thought of only how many other ideas he could have had, how much time he had wasted for all of it to come to this moment that he could barely even focus on. 

As the boat crossed into the broad the rain started teeming down. It fell with such vengeful passion, Victors clothes were soaked in a matter of seconds. The cold that ran through his body as he approached the broad now became more manageable as he adjusted to the feeling. The heron had dived undercover of trees and watched Victor like a play at the theatre. The storm clouds swirled above in elegant patterns like milk poured into espresso as the trees and reeds thrashed thunderously in the wind, Victor Ashworth sat motionless on the deck. It was as though he has been cast in stone. Sixty years in dread and was now amidst the exact scenario he had lost so much sleep over but stayed completely in inertia. His eyes searched for the heron, but he could see nothing through the pouring rain that fell with such terrible vigour. The sails howled with anger in the wind till they ripped, and pieces flew off into the black. The boat rocked from port to starboard over and over as the wood started, in the weaker areas to come loose. It splintered off in daggers and shrapnel and sped across the broad like they were fired from a grenade on a battlefield. 

While knowing he had to cross the broad and finish his journey, he realised in that moment he had nowhere else to be. Victor Ashworth sat in stone for some time, savouring the rain and the thunder of the storm that did not once relent till ultimately his face turned from horror to blankness and finally to a wry smile. For the first time in sixty-years Victor felt he could think clearly, and the moment was like the sweetest nectar, the rain continued to lash down and while it still pained his skin he felt as though he may never want to leave. The heron watched on under the cover of the violently crashing trees in frustration though there was nothing he could do but this was surely the longest anyone had waited in the storm for. 

Victor looked up  into the blackness and at the sails that were still getting ripped up from the wind and felt a crescendo of warmth move throughout his body as he stood up and walked down the boat to the mast passing each one of his memories on the boat as he did so. On reaching the mast he looked around at the broad and the storm swept landscape and saw what great painters must have seen for many years; instead of misery and anguish the colours of life came cascading into his eyes. Ecstatic ardent colour came leaping into the broad and Victor Ashworth was greedy for it. 

He looked around in idyllic love at the once dreaded landscape and felt his creativity flow within his heart. The reeds and trees covered the view and promised a hidden eldorado all around, Victor had seen life for the first time and did not want to miss this. He hastily climbed the mast, slippery from the rain. As he slid down tears welled in his eyes as the boat and wind carried him forward toward the exit of the broad and away from the storm. Victor raced against the wind and climbed faster and faster digging his soul into the moment desperate to see above the trees and across the landscape, just as quickly though the boat moved forward and edged further and further away from the storm. Tears welled in Victors eyes as he neared the top of the mast, and the boat neared the exit of the storm. As the boat crossed over the exit of the broad Victor reached the summit and turned back to see colour and life, a smile ran across his face as the heron flew back across the broad to the entrance. The boat and Victor left the broad as the suns bright light shone across the sky once more and met Victors eyes.