Though at first a kind of interesting guy—all that big sea-captain-madness-in-the-eyes-energy—
how can anyone be more interesting than the self?
You want him to shut up so you can think more on your past. What is this childhood memory, in the car, on the beach? Who was that other holding you beneath the waves?
But the Captain keeps talking, about spies and cargo, about the price he’ll pay you for your loyalty, blah blah blah, you don’t care about any of that. Much greater things than plot are here at work: meaning and depth. History, memory, emotional complexity. Sure it’s fun when weird violent sexy strange things happen … but if it doesn’t mean anything, then it doesn’t mean anything, right?
Ask yourself: Why did you even go to the town to begin with? What was your life before all this?
That damn memory. Who was it? Who was your tormenter?
And what if he hasn’t stopped tormenting you?
“So then I told that fat-headed bozo,” continues the Captain, “and I didn’t even know who he was when—”
You fake a yawn and check your watch, and the Captain shrugs in some disappointment. “Oh, I get it, sometimes I go on too long, you don’t have to be rude. Fine,” he says, standing and offering his hand, “but remember—”
Enough. Before he can finish, you produce the dagger recently slipped into your hand. The small one-eyed head turns away as you slice elegantly beneath the Captain’s chin, gentle as an afternoon shave. He slumps forward; the final redness ushers; the candles snuffed; the room dark.
You can finally see ahead now, and clearly:
You will get off this ship.
You will return to land.
And you will find the other.
The sailor who put the blade into your hands is your best lead. First stop next stop. You smile. You have a sense of purpose now—all anyone can ask for. Maybe plot is better than meaning after all, and you open the cabin door and go onto the deck. It is night. The seas have calmed. The stars look down upon you with loveliness. There is beauty in this, you think –
– as another blade gleams, and almost the last thing you see is your own blood, trickling into the ocean … and then the ocean itself, coming closer and closer, like a voyage home, like a longlost memory, and down into it you plummet, deeper and deeper, until ….
