A Hand Clasped In The Storm

So he pulled a hand from the storm. The hand was a lover pulled out of chaos. He was so happy for the one who had been pulled out. She persisted and they lived happily, but from time to time he could glimpse the storm in her eye. He could tell she had not left it, and it had not left her. She had been rarified in the tide, to be sure, but the waves never subsided. Just as he had seen a hand extended to be saved, he now glimpsed another standing beneath his love, shoulders to her feet, overwhelmed and overwashed, but hoping she would be saved, sacrificing what he had to see it so. It was this one she felt from time to time, unable, on some level unwilling, to separate, for she knew he shared her soul in a way. She knew the chaos she still wrestled was the chaos he knew well. While a hand pulled from the mass could be like a dream, the mass remained a nightmare. While she could count herself a lucky one, she knew he would be counted a loss. Just as he needed her, she needed him, and so he needed her stranger as well, to reconcile this equation complete. Only through a chain of hands grasped and a chain of souls saved could any in the equation be justified. The war waged with each palm clasped tight, but it was a war that felt like it had a silver lining; it tore itself apart, but in her eyes he saw a sailor's sunset and knew there was hope.