Red Sky At Morning

I see a ship on the horizon.

As I draw nearer, the browns and whites and blues focus and differentiate into planks and masts and sails.

But when I look away—when I blink—it outruns me, and back to the horizon it returns.

I rest my face against the rough planks of my rowboat, adrift on waters that never move.

I forget.

I rest my face against the side and look out over the blue water and I forget, are the clouds in the sky, or are they in the sea? Does the sky reflect the water? A cool breeze flickers across the tip of my ear that has crept from the shroud of my headwrap--a white bed sheet that, now in long, slender strips, wraps the bare skin of my arms, my neck, my torso, my face. The ever-present breeze pushes my little boat back and bites through the fabric of my shirt, but it saves me from roasting. The exposed tip of my ear blisters and flakes, but it is good.

It’s good.

It burns like the tip of a cigarette glowing on a front porch at night: hot and singularly. The rest of my burnt skin throbs beneath my mummy wraps, but the tip of my ear… it speaks to me… no… it calls to me. It draws me like a lighthouse, and I follow it.

The oars are long gone. I don’t think they ever made it onto the boat to begin with, or they slipped from the sides and down into the black water below as I crashed into the ocean like it was a solid thing. I scooped the water from the bottom with bare hands, sloshing it out even with my feet, and all while somebody screamed and screamed. I bailed the water from my little boat, but when I went to grab the oars to rescue the person that was making that awful, keening, sound, they were long gone, and I discovered that the screaming came from my own throat. My throat burned from the exertion, ripped raw like roadkill torn by buzzards.

It burns.

My feet stung with salt from where I battered them bloody, scraped and flayed by hard wood and stray heads of nails.

They do not sting.

Somebody else’s feet talk, in a painful language that tries as it may to communicate something--I cannot hear what. They are not mine.

I follow my eartip, and I watch the ship on the horizon, all browns and whites and blues.

Browns and whites and blues.

Blue the color of the morning sky that stretches above and around me--above and below--as I sit between them, listing on the single plane that breaks the difference between above and below.

What is the difference?

Above and below?

It seems to me that it is only a matter of perspective.

I can see the blue designs against the white sails now, a negative space around a pure white mound--perhaps a mountain. A ship from the House of the Mountain would be nice. Mountains are land. Solid land where there is no down---only up, and up, and up. And then I look down, through the blue water, down and down and down, and it seems to me it is only a matter of perspective, for I am falling into the sky, amongst clouds that drift like stray sheep.

The ship is on the horizon again, and I cannot see that blue and white design across its sail.

I follow my ear that burns like a beacon. It pulls me towards that ship and I flex my wrist that I remember, now, dangles my fingers into the water. Three fingers flick through the brine, once, twice, thrice; only, the thrice may have been in my head. I paddle myself a little closer and then I stop, and I watch the ship. The breeze that licks my ear drives it ever onward, and it drives me ever back.

But if I do not stop, I cannot help but catch up eventually.

I hold a splinter of wood in one hand, the size of my wrist, and with it I scratch the bottom of my boat, scoring and scoring. I can feel the roughness growing by the hour, or the day, or the week. The bottom of the boat feels feathered, like rough-hewn boards, and splinters litter the bottom of the hull like sawdust. I scratch the boat like a prisoner marks his cell wall. One mark for every day. One scratch for every moment. And when they find me, and I drag this boat onto the shore, I can tell them, “this is how many moments I was on the water,” suspended between here and there like a fly suspended in a web, caught between two sides of freedom. And how much more impressive, a million moments, than a hundred days.

I cannot say the words now, because my throat is too dry. It does not hurt. It will not move. My lips once drooled when I could no longer keep them closed, but now they do not, and thank goodness for that. I need to conserve my water.

Scratch.

The ship draws nearer, and I can see the rippled pattern of the boards, so unlike the straight planks of the ships I have seen before. It looks exotic. My eyes sting as I keep them open, and keep them open I must, for if I close them, then that ship will outrun me again. I must catch it.

My wrist flicks, once, twice, thrice; only, the twice and the thrice may have been in my head.

My beautiful girl waits for me at home. Elzbeth in her yellow gown as she gazes out the window, waiting for the bread to rise. She can smell the ocean through the window. It is my ocean. My scent fills the water from my hand that trails in it. She can smell me, so far away. I must remember to write to her, for she must surely be worried.

I scratch my reassurances on the bottom of the boat. “I am coming, Beth. Do not worry. I have been delayed, but I will be home to you soon.” The effort makes somebody’s wrist ache. The muscles and the tendons stretch like the arms of a tree in a gale, threatening to snap. He stops scratching and rests.

I blink, and the ship has returned to the horizon. So close, but just out of reach.

Scratch.

I ate soggy crackers yesterday, but the salt from the sky--or is it the salt from the sea?--made them delicious, like salted roast. So tender and moist. So full of flavor. The trailing end of my turban drifts in the water by my fingers, wicking the water from below to above, cooling somebody’s head. Their head pounded once, but no longer. The pounding had come, “one-two, three-four, five-six.” Then it came, “one-two-three, four-five-six, seven-eight-nine.”

Now it comes, “One.” And that One fills it. That One is it. There no longer is a head, it is only One. It does not think--it only is--and that is good, because it is better than pounding.

I suck on the white strip of fabric, and the salt fills my mouth like a salted roast--so moist, so flavorful. My mouth cannot water, and that is good.

I need to conserve my water.

My eyes sting now as I near the ship, and it is so close that I can see the portholes. The sails tower above, and I see that the image is not of a mountain. It is of a cloud. The planks of the hull shimmer and wave like the fingers of the ocean, rising and falling, and they are not brown, but the most beautiful shades of red and lavender that line the horizon of an ocean at morning.

“Red sky at morning.”

The storm is on its way back. I need to warn the crew or they will be pounded to pieces.

I try to flick my wrist, but somebody’s joint only creaks woodenly. It aches, and somebody’s head pounds: “One.”

Scratch.

Elzbeth will be so happy to see me when I finally get home. I have been gone for so long, out here on the water. She will cry tears of joy like she does when she holds a baby or sees a young kitten carried through the market. Or perhaps she will scold me and berate me for being gone for so long. For making her worry. I will love for her to scold me, and then I can sleep in the barn, surrounded by earth and by life. Perhaps she will make me dinner, a salted roast--so flavorful, so moist--and we will return to the bedroom and we will love each other until the morning sun, rose and lavender, rises through the window.

She will cry tears of joy when I walk through the door, though my skin will be a frightful red. But that will not matter. She had not seen me at all since she died, and redness will fade.

“Red sky in morning.”

I must warn the ship, or they will be battered to pieces.

Flick.

Creak.

Scratch.

I flick my wrist, once, twice, thrice.

But the once, the twice, and the thrice may have only been in my head.