Control or Devil
I am the boat, built by calloused hands to leave and arrive, existing between origin and destination. The docks I depart are made for the ocean, never rendering it vain. We, the passenger and I, sit upon the heart of the sea, upheld by the epithelium separating liquid from sky. My blue board flesh nicked and knowing, is stilled by the water’s unnatural silence. The passenger does not share in my calm, he shifts uneasily, knowing what this howling hush harbors. His twitching body tips me port to starboard, port to starboard, port to starboard. The wet world before us animates as the building wind moves upon the face of the waters. At the fore of my bow, a great black blanket billows, swallowing the horizon, belching its foul wind. The ocean field, unbroken moments before, ruptures, spewing white capped swells to cast us through the trough where we violently collide with hell. The man lashes his body to my bench, and I hold him close as the devil plays its game. The beast screams in flashes of eerie purple, illuminating the downpour. Below my sole, the waters twist and pull, digging up the bones of ships and departed travelers, baptized but abandoned. Above, we rise and fall.
In one ending, we are consumed, cracked and capsized, joining those below as bleached shells, resting side by side upon a bed of clay. As generations pass, we hold the storms above. One day we are unearthed, beheld by a new race, who marvel at the primitive mysteries that came before.
In another ending, we stay afloat, sailing through the storm until we are touched by the pink flesh of the morn. The passenger unties, lifts his gaze, and looks toward the horizon, where it sits, always distant.