Though at first a kind of interesting guy—all that sea-captain-madness-in-the-eyes-energy—
how can anyone be more interesting than the self?
What is this childhood memory, in the car, on the beach? Who was the other, holding you beneath the waves?
The Captain keeps talking, about spies and cargo, about the price he’ll pay you for your loyalty, but you don’t care about any of that. You sense greater things at work: more than plot: meaning and depth. History, memory, emotional complexity. 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 I told that bozo,” continues the Captain, “I didn’t even know who he was when—”
You fake a yawn and check your watch, and the Captain shrugs in some disappointment. “Very well then,” he says, standing and offering his hand, “but remember—”
Enough with all these silly words. Before he can finish, you produce the dagger that the traitor sailor slipped into your hand. The one-eyed head turns away as you slice elegantly beneath the Captain’s chin, gentle as a 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. 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 –
– and a 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, and you plummet into it, deeper and deeper, until ….
home 