… j oin the adventure .. .

… you reallyreallyreally need a break, a new adventure, a turning away from all the wearisome human noise. So: board a boat, let the fresh ocean air cleanse your mind.

To get to the port city, book passage on a train. After a midnight ride, the train arrives in a smoke-smeared station, deep winter, and you leap from the car door, rushing toward the docks.

As you pass through local society, you observe several notable things: an odd trio, the first of whom is a handsome cad leaning insouciantly against the brick walls of a pharmacy, a malice in his eyes. Steps past is another man, similarly hungry-eyed, though this man’s gaze has the gaunt cast of desperation. Just beyond him sits a girl reading a magazine. The object of the both men’s attentions, they gaze at her lewdly. The girl ignores the second sad man: twice, though, she peers over the magazine, making eyes at the first.

There is a violence here you do not want to touch; hurry along.

Your pulse quickens as you carry on; avoiding another leering glare, this comging from a suited man behind an office window, high white collar stiff about his neck—carry on—

Finally the dock, filled with a motley crew of ships. From the old ship’s stern, a man hails you. “Coming aboard then, ye good lad?” Elderly, rugged and hale and sun-stained. You assent, and he points toward a plank, and a moment later, you are aboard.

Let’s hit the high seas, shall we?

Or might you prefer to go back in town and more closely consider the strange trio?

Or what about the office man?