A YEAR SPENT FACING INTO THE WIND

I stayed on the upper deck, next to the helmsman and the wheel.  She hove to briskly each time I gave the order.  Her clean lines made her responsive, and she carried as much sail as we could ballast for.  She could run as fast as any, but like all the rest, we were at the mercy of the winds.

I watched the characters working on the decks below me.  I shouted my orders and they snapped to it—each one of them seeming to think that the success of the voyage rested on his or her shoulders alone.  There were no slackers among the crew.

I had designed the ship the previous year.  I constantly puzzled over the compromises of cargo and speed.  We could not remain afloat forever.  We must reach a finish.  Yet, how much freight was enough became my constant refrain.

We were well underway through February and March.  Then the novel advanced slowly, creeping forward unnoticed like the vernal advance of the spring itself.  From time to time, it would overtake doldrums and stall, with slack sails luffing in a listless sea.  The next, it would dash forward, sailing close hauled, the canvas full, the rigging complaining against the wind.  As spring turned into May, we began making surprising progress.  Each time I turned, there was a long white wake astern for me to see.

I had written the final chapter, and so the destination was known by me all along the way.  Oddly, what was not known was whether the port we’d shipped from was home or if it was the one ahead, the one to which we bent all of our labor.

I had only a general idea of how we would get there.  There were no charts in this area of the ocean.  That was the reason that we had put to sea—to be the first to get from here to there.  Let others make the same run they had last year.  We gladly ventured to the edges of the charts, to the places marked only by the coiling of sea monsters, and by warnings written in other languages.

At the end, I shall have only the vaguest idea of what our cargo might be worth.  To the dockhands at the end, this might only be more of what they already had in plenty.

Still, the venture would never be a failure.  We would have the voyage, at least, if not a profit at the end.  We must wait to see what Report From Mali brings us.  I see the harbor ahead, a stillness beyond the whitecaps.

Offered by the Booktender of the Good Story Saloon - August 23, 2013