Story Two

It was around my sixth month at sea that I began this new leg of my troublesome expedition. There was a week of storms, with our ship in a constant state of being beaten and ravaged by the swells. None of my crew made it through that week without becoming terribly ill, even though we were a band of ocean-hardened merchants. However, by the end of that week, their least worry was that of seasickness. On the seventh night, right after we had finished supper below the deck, I heard an excruciating crack. It seemed like thunder surrounded us as a lightning bolt struck the stern of the ship. Unfortunately, the reality was much worse. When we began our journey I had been given this dated ship with a loose pine hull. I remember arguing with the King about sending us off on this trip in such a shambly boat. For six months I had been eating crow because the sailing had been smooth and I had not noticed any negative effects of our vehicle's bow. This would all come crashing down this night, along with the ship itself. There was a great shudder below my feet and I immediately began to feel my whole body shiver as the ship twisted around me. It seemed that this storm would be the reckoning of that hull that I had complained about so long ago. I looked around and in the haze of the chaos, I tried to make sense of what was going on around me. When the ship began to twist, the men around me seemed to jolt out of their late evening haze. Those who had been nodding off after dinner were suddenly looking around, apparently waiting for instructions on what to do next. Even though all of this occurred in only a few seconds, I quickly began to lash out orders. Four of the five crew members in the galley were dispatched to the bow to investigate the damage, as surely this snap was a sign of the boat's hull splintering. Darius, my first mate, ran up the galley stairs to disengage the rudder and try to manually steer us head-on into the chop. Something must have failed in his attempt because as soon as I felt the ship knocking free, the whole galley began to turn violently. I don't remember very much else after that, but there was a palpable sense of dread as the splintering sounds grew louder. To this day it is unclear what exactly happened after I fell. Looking back, I would guess that Darius was unable to hold the bow against the waves and we turned ninety degrees with a swell. As any seasoned seaman would know, having either side of a vessel facing the rise of a wave means that a roll is inevitable. That feeling that told me we were turning hard into the top of a swell is the last thing I remember from that tumultuous week. That seventh night marked the last time I would see any of my crew and the beginning of a much different journey.

Author's Note:

This story is inspired by the series of Sindbad's Voyages. He is a merchant at sea who faces a number of perils, beginning with his abrupt exit from the ship into the water. Each of his trials ends in a somewhat comfortable position; often times Sindbad is left in a better situation than when he started. This seems like a rather generic folklore story, but there are some fascinating literary tools used in this writing. A lot of it surrounds the way that the story focuses internally on the protagonist, and the details of the character's world get lost. I wanted to write a series of pieces that explore this theme of a shipwreck-turned-beneficial, starting with a description filled recollection of an accident at sea. The key here was focusing on the description of the main character's mentality, just like in the stories of Sindbad. The emphasis is supposed to be less on the world of the story, and more on the character and his connection to it. In this scene I wanted the sentiment of the galley to be very clear, with confusion and alertness both present. There should be a sense of dread, but not remorse. I tried to get these points across through a mix of thoughts and explicit descriptions of that is happening around the protagonist.

From:

"The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor," from Lang's The Arabian Nights. Link.