A captain wakes up. Stirringly, lifts his body from the tiny bed in the crew's main room. He walks towards the mirror. Rinses his face with the porcelain base's water. He winks at the ocean. He dresses in minutes, barely disturbed by the ship's rocking. Back and forth it goes. He remains firm. He barely notices.
These waters are his ground. These waters are like firm stone. And so on he walks to the wooden deck. He makes a grand entry at oh-six-hundred. He knows he likes to be there first. Steadfast. Sharp. Caressing the waters below in silence. Before the crew starts the day. Before the seven seas are conquered.
And so, an hours goes by. And no one has step forth. No soul on the deck. Other than his. He thinks to himself "how unacceptable it is that only I stand to wake the day." He blames them. Blames them for all the inefficiencies. For the rom that remains. For the fished uncaught. Drunk they must be.
He dusks off the impatience off of his mind. And decides to lift the sails himself. That a pleasure it was. To get his hands on the ropes, to see his boat, his massive wreck of wood ship, start taking speed. Because, once again, after many years it is him that is setting it in motion. That part of his brain felt unused. Rusty.
As captain, he grew accustomed to giving orders. Yelling orders. And other times, simply starring at the sailors. Starring through them. And that was enough to command discipline. He knew, townspeople, portspeople, commended him, oh captain, for his speed, his natural nautical ability. He knew he was better than the rest. He was humble. Smiled. To the women, specially. With the men, he bonded. No one dare interfere his course.
Nobody was keeping records of mileage. Nods. Distance travelled.
As the morning grew old, nothing distracted him from the chartered way he drafted in the morning. Hours later, he realised "his" hundred men had not woken up. He thought a war must have happened. Had he forgotten it? Were they all dead? And had he not noticed?
Laughing it off, he descended the sails and walked down to the crew's quarters. As he walked in he found thirteen block solid statues in perfect alignment. They were made of rusted marble, seaweeds trapped them, they were no longer white. These sculptures were lying down on the the ground. They had fallen flat. These, he thought, are the the putrifiedsoulds of his wreck. Did he know the sailors had stonified? Was he the culprit? Did he have, indeed, a crew?
Paranoid and concerned, he devised a mirror at the end of the room. A mirror with a gem mozaic at its edges. Diamonds. Emeralds. Saphires. All gleaming life. He saw an image in he mirror. It called him. It spoke directly at him: silently.
Look into your paranoia, it said, look into your eyes. And so he did. At oh-fifteen-hundred.
An hour into this exercise, the boat approached a current. The ends of its days. There was a sign. A large neon sign on the ocean, pointing at the current, blinking, bright, annoyingly bright, saying: "Danger, terminal current ahead" but noone was on deck to read it. Captain startled turned, into the mirror he looked again, his eyes betrayed him. He wondered: "when and how did you grow into this? Into this version of you. Old. Terminated".
It was the first time he recognized himself. At the time, no mirrors existed. His ending. No one there to repproach him.
Solitude enters the oval shaped windows. The breeze, turns into tornadoes of water that wash his body. A seagull comes in and whisks his captain hat off his head. He stops breathing.
The large sail cracked. The mast went down and onto the deck. It crushed it. And went straight into the crew's room. The captain turned, looked up. The mirror broke. A gem killed him. A green emerald into his skull. Unpolished bastard. The one he received many years ago as a gift from his conscience. In signals, for hope. Indicating green: change.
And so, Mister Captain, how can you go off? Killing hope like this? So easy.
Unsatisfied with a crew-less boat?
Is it that you necessitate incestuous company?
Of a crew?
Can you not, Mister Captain, with all your experience charter the course around neon signs?
The water?
How simple do you choose your ending journey to be?
Was it the tanned skin and the wrinkled lines?
Was it the lack of music or the lines of rum all colliding at the perfect hour, to finish you?
Barely capable, collapsing, headless body, surrendering to time, a step ahead of death were you not.
Of time, disparate within the silence.
Little knowledge does man have that souls die to tornadoes in wrecked ships.
Little faith do men have at first gazing into mirrors.
Images will always linger.
You are not allowed to leave loveless, no Captain.
You are not allowed to go into voids, no Captain.
You are not allowed without your body, no Captain.
You are simply not allowed.
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