Death #46:
Not Your Ordinary Bucket List
By Jen
Nick
was standing on his boat, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Tour had
just ended and he had been itching to get out alone on his boat. Pulling on the
heavy oxygen tank into place on his back, he was completely decked out in his
newly purchased SCUBA gear. It had been so long since he’d been diving
due to his heavy touring schedule that he finally took the time to do it again.
He missed the serenity and peacefulness of diving. Tour had been hectic
and with all the forest fires going on in surrounding areas of his home, he
just wanted to get away from it all.
Walking over carefully to the edge of the boat with
this flipped feet, he turned around and fell backwards into the ocean.
Nick righted himself quickly, getting acclimated to the water, then diving deep
down to the depths of the ocean.
Nick swam around for about an hour, taking in the
beauty the sea floor had to offer, from brightly colored, funny looking fish,
to gorgeous, color-bursting sea plants. Just as he was about about to
break the surface, Nick saw something through his goggles coming at him.
Before he knew what was happening, what he had seen was upon him. A huge,
metal bucket of some sort. It scooped him up and out of the water in a
flash. Coming up from the water, he quickly realized the bucket was
attached to a helicopter flying high above him. The noise from the
chopper was so loud they could not hear his screams for help.
In the distance, Nick could see thick, black smoke
rising from a nearby forest fire that was savaging his beloved forest not far
from his home. It has saddened him that such beautiful land was being
destroyed by some human’s stupid mistake. Animals were looking their
homes and now human’s were in threat of loosing theirs.
A sudden thought rushed through his brain.
He had realized just what kind of danger he was in. He was about to be
dumped onto the fire! He screamed and waved his arms to no
avail. The ropes on one side of the bucket became slack and he found
himself flowing with the water over the edge of the bucket.
Two days later, after his boat had been found
abandoned by the coast guard, two fireman stumbled across a burnt beyond
recognition body encased in a melted wet suit. They were completely
perplexed in how a SCUBA diver had come to be in a burnt area of the
forest. After a investigation was done, it was suspected that he had been
scooped up in the ocean and dumped onto the fire by mistake.
Dental records were the only way to discover the
body’s identity of one Nickolas Gene Carter.
***