I have published and Unpublished this post numerous times.
It bothers me to tell a fictional story, to indulge myself in a type of whimsy. However it is something I seem to do - a very real form of daydreaming I suppose. Working through a narrative transposing events or characters into another setting then pressing 'play' and seeing what unfolds.
I find it useful enough to do - not often - but more than occasionally. It can be quite revealing, sometimes, about what is really going on as I draw unconscious parallels and extrapolate what might happen if certain behaviors continue, sometimes I wince at the self indulgent nature of it.
Just Over a year on from estrangement I find myself telling this story again - it is the same story, but from a new perspective brought about by a little more time and acceptance.
This time I am on a ship, an old fashioned galleon, my mother is the captain - my father steers, spinning the great wooden wheel.
It is crewed - but I'm not sure who by other than me.
The ship journeys endlessly around the rim of a great vortex, a huge whirlpool in the sea, and everyone must work to keep its passage around the edge of this safe and steady. Treatment is harsh, conditions are poor. The captain and crew are fixated or the vortex..and why not? It is hard drag your eyes away to the other side of the endlessly circling ship, to where the seas are calmer and there is distant land..the fear of the vortex and the maintaining position is everything.
Inevitably there comes a point where questions about what is happening creep in.
Couldn't we steer further away ? Isn't there something we can do to change course?
Each question is met with punishment, and reasons.
"We cannot risk the crew."
"We are safe here."
The poor conditions take their toll and weariness and depression overwhelm the urge to push on.
Questioning becomes assertion.
"We need to do something else!"
"We need to try to actually save ourselves, or die trying!"
But nothing changes, here, in this half life, we struggle on.
Eventually with nothing to loose, I challenge the captain.
"You are a bad captain - you need to try - please try to save us - if you will not - then let someone else."
and that is enough
I am hurled from the ship into the streaming swirling water,
water... that does not suck me down, or pull me in - but is just water. I shout to the crew trying to tell them, but they make no sign they have heard me.
The towering walls of the ship pass by - impossibly high and so I have no hope but to strike out for safety elsewhere.
Exhausted, battered and beyond thinking, I find myself on land at last. A Rocky peninsular from where I turn to see the ship, still circling the whirlpool.
I watch for far too long, trying to regain myself and eventually wondering about the fear that drives them. Realizing there is nothing else to do I turn to make the difficult journey through the rocks and further onto the land.
They are beyond my reach. I cannot die from staying here on this bleak rocky shore, frozen by guilt.
I will never know how much they knew. If they know the vortex will not suck them in? Why they choose not to try to save themselves? If they know the whirlpool has no draw..surly they must? But then, why would they throw me overboard..
I have so many questions that will never be answered, but I cannot stay and shout at the distant ship. Whatever answers there are, are beyond my reach and whatever lies ahead will be nothing I have known.
That more than anything gives me a feeling of hope.