If you are looking for something to read that will take your mind off of some of the hot days of summer, here is my short little story that I am linking to the blog hop, Six Sentence Stories - Twist, hosted by Denise of Girlie on the Edge's Blog.
The experience wasn’t one he had sought, but he obligingly accepted the offer when it presented itself.
After all, it would allow him to use some of his skills as a surgeon on The Hope, a whaling ship in the Arctic, following his third year of study in medical school.
Although it is not unusual for doctors to have to deal with life threatening ordeals of their patients, Conan came close to losing his own life in the Arctic one day when he was working on a floating mass of ice out of sight of of any of the other crewmen .
As he was skinning a dead seal, he accidentally took a step backward and took a frightening fall into the freezing ocean below.
He was unable to grab hold of the slippery ice above to pull himself out of the water and the only other option was to grab the seal’s flipper and hope his exertion didn’t cause the seal to slide into the water too.
Perhaps it was a twist of fate, or of a flipper, that his life was spared enabling him to not only complete his education and become a doctor, but to go on to become a renown writer of crime fiction.
Well, I learned something today!
ReplyDeleteAs did I when I was thinking about what I could write.
DeleteVery realistic description of his fall into the ocean and how he narrowly got out.
ReplyDeleteSo vivid. So good. Great six.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteWhat an interesting story!
ReplyDeleteHe was a very interesting man!
Deletedid the seal die for him or did his killing save his life?
ReplyDelete(Speaking from a certain writers group known to be active on weekends, a valid question might be, wherefrom should we consider the true source of gratitude)
... foggy September morning, what can I say?
lol
Good Six.
hey, being a fan of reality-based fiction, is this Conan a 'real' guy or what?
In this case I think the fact the seal was already dead did save his life. Whether or not he was the one who actually killed it, I do not know.
DeleteThe true source of gratitude. . .ah, that is the question each one needs to discover for himself.
Oh, this Conan was very much a real guy. See https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=Memories_and_Adventures#IV._WHALING_IN_THE_ARCTIC_OCEAN
oh!! that! very cool
DeleteDeath gives unto life. And what luck for Conan that it did that day! Thank you for the link, Pat. Will check it out for sure.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, a very enjoyable 6 :)
Thank you. It was his lucky day.
DeleteA great story and fun to know there is real history behind it! It’s good to be back among blogging friends!
ReplyDeleteThank you. So glad to see that you are back to blogging at the SSS again.
DeleteCool! I had no idea of the story behind the writer.
ReplyDeleteVery well done. I had no idea who it was about until the end. That's quite a story, and brilliant you adapted it into a 6SS!
ReplyDeleteFord, TVTA