Desperation in the Storm

A storm at sea, tall waves capped in frothing white blades of foam. A lone ship, a little boat at best, climbs the swells and rides the slopes into the valleys. Darkness without breaks only in white-blue light for multiple seconds at a time as sharp, serpent-tongued lightning licks the ocean. Candlelight within the cabin illuminates the lone sailor as he sits stooped over a tall crate used this night as a writing desk. The candle hangs in an open lantern which dangled from a hook in the center of the cabin ceiling.

He has only one sheet of paper to write upon and that had stuck on the back to some unseen substance on the surface of the crate, unable to flip over. Other than the page and the pen which the sailor holds in his hand, a porcelain cup half full of cold coffee rests in the upper right corner of the crate wedged within a ninety-degree angle support beam of wood two inches thick, soon to slide with the next rise and fall of the sea to the opposite corner and splash a little more coffee onto the floor wet with the imposing sea.

The sailor writes small so as not to take up more room than necessary on his one page. He writes about himself, a subject he could never discuss aloud as all those around him claimed to know him. He forces the words at first but then they flow as though the pen had stabbed into his wrist and used his veins as its abundant source of warm ink to fill the page in his childish letters. But as the cup hits its barrier to the right of the crate for the thousandth time, the sailor reaches the end of the page. He has more to write, more to say to the world about the truth of him, but he cannot turn the page and has no other sheets.

He continues the narrative truth between the lines. Then, he reaches the bottom of the page as the cup crashes into the barrier to the left again. He writes more in the margins and meets with the edges of the page as well as the top and bottom. More truths of him, things none other than he has ever known, await telling. The crate will not absorb the ink, only the page.

No other options available, the sailor continues to write his truths by placing words between what already fills the page. He finds the paper full with more words inside, so he carries on by writing the new words atop the old.

Rising and falling, the cup slides from one side to the next without knowledge of the frustrations of the sailor, who continues in his plight to finally reveal himself to those who claim to know him. Soon, he finds the page black, not a speck of white remains. The ink bleeds onto the crate and spills over his lap onto the floor and the cup taps against the barrier again.

The sailor cries as he smears his wasted words to his skin and hurls the cup against the porthole. Coffee stains the rusted walls as the porcelain and glass fall in splinters to the floor, wet with salt water, coffee and ink.

The storm tears through the open hole, dousing the light and drowning the sailor’s scream, the words lost in the roar of the crashing waves.