Sunday 6 December 2015

#130 Can't complain

"Carry on bailing out the water!" the first mate yelled. The large ship had long since become a victim of the sea. All that remained visible was the mast, atop which I fancied sat a green Argentinian parrot.

The captain was hardly surprised that the rowing boat was also sinking. Ignorance in unforgiving waters was ignorance in unforgiving waters. He sat there, shivering in his coat. Go down with the ship? Fuck you mate, if I had that much honour, we wouldn't be here in the first place.

The rowers faithfully heaved in what they thought was the direction of the shore. It seemed unlikely that the crew were completely screwed. It was late but it wasn't that late. Dark but not pitch black. It was cold but not so treacherous as say the Arctic or the North Sea.

Thousands of feet above, a jumbo peacefully made its way across the sky. Its lights flickered as the lights of planes normally do in the nighttime cloud. "What the fuck are you looking at?" bellowed a deck hand, knowing well enough the limited emotional impact of his rhetoric. I put the bucket back down into the water and continued to shovel it out of the boat.

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