By Jack Mullen, Y11
The woman stands at the bow of a great ship, leaning slightly over the railing, giving herself the look of a shadowy figurehead. No wind runs through her shoulder length hair as she contemplates the placid stretch of infinite water before her. The sun that hours ago had been obscured by a roiling storm now settles on the offing to be consumed like a drop of heat into the ocean. The empty sky stains orange to purple to ink black; stars bore their way through the darkness and reflect off the water, lighting up the world in soft not-quite sunlight. In the distance, water and air meld so that the woman can no longer distinguish between up and down, sea and sky.
She turns back to the boat and walks down to the main deck. Directly opposite where she had been standing on the bow, three different people fight over the wheel.
“North is that way, I’ll steer that direction!” shouts one of the sailors, pointing vigorously.
“With all due respect,” interjects a second, “Your compass is crap.”
She turns away before the third one has a chance to get involved and heads inside. Under the carapace of the deck, hammocks are slung between columns, and torn pieces of maps litter the floor with bent compass needles and discarded bottles of whiskey. In a few hammocks some sleep, some read, others drink. Scattered groups play cards by the light of feeble yellow candles in an equally feeble manner. There are some lonely characters that fashion themselves intellectuals using compasses and rulers to fit together map shreds. The woman sits down in her hammock and instantly stands up again, the heat is stifling here. She always feels more lonely when surrounded by people.
She leaves the sleeping quarters and starts climbing the mast to the crows nest; words from the argument over the wheel carry over and invade her ears unwillingly. She had grown tired of these meaningless debates each night; every person including herself had once fought for the right to steer the ship, but she reserves the right to judge those who have not yet given up.
She reaches the crows nest and feels the stars around her. In the distance a fresh storm strikes out a bolt of lightning and ten seconds pass until the thunder reaches the boat. She has time. This is how the crew lives: day by day, storm by storm — killing for the right to steer a hunk of rotting wood through a sea of stars. In the crows nest, she looks down on her home from afar; watching the dangling ropes and the tattered sails lie almost impossibly still — silence but for the occasional outbreaks from the cabins hidden beneath the hull.
She takes off her stiff clothes slowly and with difficulty, then stands there trying to sense the stars caress her skin. She climbs over the nests’ bars, and jumps. Free, she falls into the star speckled sky. Dives into the darkness of space and breaths in the universe. The stars usually so far away press down on her body, crushing her in a light touch, trickling over her skin like water.
The stars guide her under the boat and she sees the moldy base on which her life depends, worse still, she sees emptiness where the rudder should be. The boat was just floating at the whims of currents, winds and fate; ever so slowly foundering in the dark and bright universe.
