Sea
Faring
Everything on the ship was encrusted in salt.
My knuckles had it, my beard had it, my mustache had it, the spot on my
head where hair should have been had it, the spot in my ears where hair
shouldn’t have been had it the worst.
All the knobs and dials in front of me that I don’t know by name but do
know by touch were sticky with salt.
It takes a strong captain to man that ship by himself.
The ocean was dark. It
careened into the side of the ship with black fingers, smashing from the north
side, sloshing onto the deck, slithering in erratic patterns with the rocking of
the floor beneath my feet. I’d been
here before. The clouds rushed
towards me, unfurling like a rug with a snap, sending cracks of light through
the sky. They searched like eyes
for my ship, racing through the air with bursts of noise, crackling and shouting
to one another.
The sail flapped its wings, propelling us through the water faster and
faster. I braced my hands on the
wheel to stay onboard. Fish
streamed from the ocean into the sky leaving incandescent trails of water
sparkling in the air, suspended.
They glanced off of the window shield, spinning wildly off into the dampness and
the salt.
I looked to the left just in time to see an enormous rubber ducky pass
slowly by the ship. It bobbed in
the current, orange beak curved up in a smile, eyes forward.
“HOME” is printed in fading black letters on the wing.
I brushed some of the crust off of my hands.
I remember chewing on a duck like that when I was very little.
Back when I was bald and it was still acceptable.
It tasted like rubber and water and faintly of soap but not unpleasantly.
Bubbles had started to appear all around the boat, soapy suds washing
against it’s sides. They started
appearing in ones and twos but soon my boat and I were speeding through
thousands of them. Piles and piles
of shining bubbles grew together.
They slowed the boat so that it plodded now, barely moving.
Bubbles were encompassing the boat, rising over the top, and cutting off
the sky. Rainbows scattered through
their layers, floating down to rest on the deck, illuminating the wheel.
I breathed in deep, colors filling my lungs.
It smelled like the sidewalk after a rainstorm.
My shoulders relaxed and I gazed out in the melting bubbles.
At the horizon the seals were migrating.
Thousands of them, wind-up seals, gathered twice every winter at the
horizons to make their journey.
Stragglers who had unwound too soon bumped against my boat with dejected
expressions. I wanted to reach down
and pluck them out, wind them up again and set them free, but my hands were
painted onto my peg shaped body. My
mustache twittered anxiously.
I peered over the boat, be-spectacled eyes narrowing against the glare.
The water was clear, clear and pale and lovely.
You could see right to the bottom.
The sea floor was alive, glittering with sand-dollars and marbles that
sparkled and shone so much the entire bottom was moving.
They rose to the surface, bobbling and moving, clumping together like a
massive crowd all moving in the same direction.
They pushed my boat further forward, backward, leftward, whatever
direction they were flowing.
Huge white cliffs contained the ocean, but we didn’t seem to be moving
towards them. Water lapped at their
bases placidly. They were smooth
and perfectly vertical like a cliff diver’s fantasy rock.
I imagined hundreds of cliff divers jumping from their rounded tops, some
sliding down their face, and making satisfying plinking sounds as they hit the
water. If I could have I would have
leaned over the side of the ship to put my ear to the water.
That way I could hear them as they touched the bottom: tink, tink, tink,
tink. But there were no cliff
divers, just my steady movement.
The water was warm, I could tell without touching it.
It flowed and swirled instead of shattering and splintering against its
self. I wanted to bob in it along
with the glittering sea floor (which had long since vanished) but I was stuck,
glued quite literally to my captain’s spot.
The wheel no longer turned but the boat seemed to be moving of its own
accord. I was unconcerned.
I trusted my boat, it was sturdy.
It was made for voyages like this.
I felt giddy. I wanted my boat to
speed through the water. I wanted
the water to crest up against the side of the boat, clear and sparkling and
carbonated. I bobbled around to the
other side of the ship with my peg-shaped body and tilted to the side to inspect
the sail. It was at full mast but
wasn’t catching any of the wind. It
was hard, thick, red plastic. It
didn’t serve a mechanical purpose anymore but I liked it.
It reminded me of myself. I
bobbled back to my captain’s quarters.
Everything was smooth.
Smooth and simple. The bottom of my
peg fit perfectly into the circular indentation in front of the steering wheel.
My mustache wriggled contently.
I shifted my weight to the left and managed to turn far enough to see the
other horizon. It was raining 50
feet off the port side, the boat was occasionally being sprinkled by the stirred
up water, which came in where the windshield should be and dotted my dashboard
in tiny pearlescent semi spheres. I
lowered my head fondly to get a better look at them.
I imagined the droplets were a city, all made up of tiny drops and big
drops, occasionally flowing together to create the impressive town halls and
chapels of my youth. There was
where
I smiled so wide the paint almost chipped right off of my face.
I missed home. I’d be back
soon.
The wind picked up a little and my boat rocked forward in the water,
dipping slowly like it was in gel.
The water rose in a hill of liquid and then buoyantly, the boat popped back up,
scattering ringlets and patters on the surrounding surface.
The waves were small but erratic, coming from all different sides,
amplifying as they ricocheted off of the cliff walls.
I decided to go with it. It
had been a while since I’d had any kind of adventure.
I closed my eyes and let the water take me.
Adventures never begin while you’re paying attention.
***********************************************************************
When I woke up I was sideways, or the rest of the world was vertical.
With a huge amount of effort I bumped myself up to a standing position
and was almost immediately knocked down again.
Wind ripped through all of the holes in my boat where glass should be.
It shot through the portholes and windows and the windshield.
It sent spray gunning through the cabin.
Everything was drenched in water, mounds of it pooled in the weak spots
on the floor and in the corners. I
shook my head to clear my vision, thanking my maker for only giving me painted
on glasses, and not real ones.
I tried to steer the boat but I no longer had control over it.
It turned in wide circles, increasing speed each time around.
The water at the center of the turnabout churned and oozed, swallowing
the occasional weakened wind-up seal.
The center started to open up slowly, like a giant, toothless mouth
sucking at the air through its soft gums.
My boat turned faster and faster in ever tightening circles.
We, my boat and I, were getting closer to the lip of the whirlpool, which
lapped and flayed wildly. I braced
myself. Was it for impact?
Was it for a fall? I was
never really sure. I don’t know
what happens inside of a vortex.
What I do know is this: a huge wave surged up from behind me, knocking me
forward. I keeled over out of my
round indented peg hold, hitting the wheel hard.
A giant naked toddler grabbed me before I was rammed into one of the
white cliffs by the wave and peered through the ship at me.
His hands were plump and over saturated with water.
The ridges on his fingers had swelled and wrinkled, they poked into my
cabin gracelessly and slid over the wheel and propping me back up.
I was happy to be back in my notch in the floor.
The child looked at me with giant eyes and a grin with a few too few
teeth.
“Good Evening, Captain Thomas,” I said.
Bubbles of spittle gurgled out of his mouth, and some soap suds still
clung to hair. “Thank you for the
rescue,” I said. “I’m ready to go home, now.”
Captain Thomas chortled with a heavy smile and placed me down on the
counter in between the massive bottle of shampoo (seeping a little from the top,
and pooling water at its bottom) and one of the wind up seals.
We all dripped in unison.
We’d finished our migration, we were home.