THE BRIGHT SHIP’S LOG
No. 10
Adam Skerrett | Far West of Dumnonia
Artist: John Elliot, from the book, “The Great Sea Horse”
This is how it was for him. The waking up:
He was stuck in his room. The curtains had not been opened for weeks. There was nothing. He was boxed into greyness. Everything was drab. Nothing had colour or feature. All was hopeless. All was closed within and without.
And he had the lucidity to know that he was this room, that this was his life. And he despaired. There was no way out of this image. This was it.
Except.
Except that there was something behind the curtains, something beyond the veil. And he didn't know why and he didn't know how, but the curtains came to be opened. The curtains were opened and he began to see through a window. And what he saw changed everything.
He saw the ocean.
His room was on a ship. And he was sailing into a fjord. And all about him was beauty. Beauty in vibrant colour. Great forested mountains rose from the water; Venetian style cities came into view. And he realised that this is where he was going.
The first revelation was that he was already aboard the ship. He just hadn’t been awake to that. He had made a comfort zone in despair, in unrequited love for the way things were.
So, he had the curtains open. He had the window ajar. He could see the view. He was awake upon the ship. Now what about actually leaving his cabin? I mean, he could rest on his laurels that he got this far. Draw up an easy chair and take in the view. Read some excellent books in front of it. Write some poems even. But that’s not what the waking up was for. I mean writing poems is absolutely a part of it, but to get your sea legs, you also have to take your turn out on deck, and he did.
It’s just that, it takes a lot of effort to hold up this vision. To be honest, he wanted a hand.
But he found he was the only one awake on his ship. There were people posing as cargo who were meant to be crew. There were sleeping bodies lying on deck. And he got lonely out there on the sea. And after a time, without people, he slowly began to give up again. To stop raising the sail – the blasted thing was black anyway – and to stop sailing his vessel. To just drift. Because without them it was no use, when he looked at the world. He wanted them to wake up. The sun was crisping the seaweed upon the gun rails, the deck needed scrubbing, there was a crust of salt about each porthole waiting to be wiped clear.
Everyone, as it was said, had their name on the roll call of the crew. Finally one and then another woke up.
And each tied their own colour to the mast.
The banner over them all was love, but love had sustained such heavy losses that at least an inch of the risen sea levels must have been made from tears.
In the morning they awoke in time to watch the dawn. Each island they visited felt like it was born anew. For so much of their world was now water, one could sail long enough that one began to doubt the existence of land, and each fresh sighting never failed to hold out its hand in the hope of wonder. Too often the reality proved bleak.
There were some islands that held particular significance though, the lands that were not supposed to be there, the ones that they'd been told were lost.
The fact is, that though a lot had been lost, they were not all gone. And the ones that still remained they now appreciated all the more. These worlds were precious to them.
And maybe, just maybe, this gloaming was the time when something magical would occur, something miraculous, even as consequences washed over the earth.