Saturdays

Duncan hated Saturdays. They were his dad’s day off, but that wasn’t the problem. Dad had always believed in quality over quantity regarding time, and for the last forty years, Saturday had been devoted to him. Each week would bring the best adventure money could buy to fully cement their father-son bond.

However, Duncan’s knees had a creak they hadn’t twenty years ago. When he turned just right, his back twinged, and a vein above his left eye would throb for “reasons unexplained.” His wife called it a nervous tic.

It throbbed now as his kayak floated too near dripping veins of lava. The newly formed island was a black mass spiderwebbed by molten orange, and steam hissed where infant rock licked the ocean. The cloud embraced Dad and hid him from cowardly eyes.

“We should go back to the yacht!”

Dad didn’t look back. “Where’s your spirit of adventure? We’ll see this beauty from all angles, then circle back if we’ve had enough.”

Teeth grit, Duncan clutched his paddle. No physical leash kept him here, but how could he explain to his mother, let alone the board of investors, that he had gone back without the old man?

“Captain Diego told us not to pass the buoys.”

“You only live once.”

With a glance at the captain’s warning markers behind him, Duncan dug the paddle into the water. “That’s what worries me.”