All the stories had to be lies. They were daydreams conjured up to make me want to spend a large portion of my life standing, staring out at window at an expansive, blue nothing. They told me it was going to be fun. It would be the adventure and experience to drift around the world on a deteriorating box. It might have been fun, if the box had been made of cardboard and had half the regulations of this one. My box was made of steel, mostly. It also had wires connected to buttons that could be pushed to make noises silent, or to make noises happen. There were also blankets, sheets, pillows, and beds. Sailors were supposed to sleep on these beds. I was temporarily given one, I was a temporary sailor. I don’t know if anyone ever slept on mine. It seems very unlikely, I certainly can’t be the only human forced to stay awake while water crickets crept into the empty spaces of my mind.
My mind had a lot of empty space. The concept was for me to fill it with knowledge while I floated in the middle of my blue nowhere. I find it easiest to acquire information from a book, when I am interested in the material; however, repetition and intimidation seemed to be the only methods of learning available. I was apparently only capable of repeating mistakes. I wanted it to end. Not just the very act of sailing, but the feeling of complete inadequacy caused by my constant missteps. It could be over whenever I wanted it to be; however, my natural sense of responsibility and obligation left me chained to all the routines I hated. Life was no longer anything spectacular. It once held potential for beauty and progress, now it only showed broken dreams and a lost sense of willpower.
My mind, which should have been dead ahead, was three points off the port quarter.
Most of my idle time was spent on the bridge. This was where I was supposed to be training the most. This was where my life was taking me. The wheelhouse was a jumble of buttons and switches surrounding the almighty helm. The sounds of changing charts, erasing unwanted pencil marks, and the clicking of computer keys were the only musical devices that accompanied me in my solitary confinement. An unsteady awkwardness, formed from my natural nervousness, made the atmosphere heavy and difficult to communicate in. The mates, my infinite wells of knowledge, seemed unreachable due to barriers I had set up around myself. So much of what I failed to learn was important. So much of what I actually learned was worthless.
It was important to know what button made each noise go away. Screeching noises were not allowed on the bridge. They meant something was wrong. They meant the engineers would have to do work. One morning, as we sat off the brown, litter-infested coast of New Jersey, we had the good fortune to have the starting air pressure fail. It was the glorious day I was supposed to sign off. Murphy’s Law never seemed so unnaturally sadistic in my life. Before we went further into the harbor every crew member had to take a breathalyzer test. They thought alcohol would make the starting air pressure fail. It didn’t. It was actually a little rubber ring that had broken off. This was much less of a scandal, and much less fun.
It was also highly imperative to intersect two lines at least once an hour. These would confirm where the ship was. She was nowhere. I could prove it. Sometimes we went from nowhere to somewhere. All the somewheres looked alike. They were the overcrowded, forgotten places where all the world’s wishes and desires were stacked. There was nothing there. Apparently I was seeing the world. It was beginning to all look the same. It was all an upward perspective of rundown countries and alcoholic officers. Their perspective was through a beer bottle.
The maritime industry’s greatest fall, whether it is considered up or down, is the ridiculously significant presence of alcohol in an environment where none should exist. The ever popular motto, “don’t get caught”, became a catch phrase for the guilty and an escape for the wise. Free wine was presented to sailors in Algecerias; MARPOL Wine. The irony is too great to explain or accurately fathom in words. The innocent often took more blame than the guilty. Those who should have been taking the fall were much too accomplished in the skill of avoiding punishment. Morals are lost at sea.
As we sat in our nowhere, the indigenous people came to us. They were supposed to make sure all the containers stayed on our ship. They liked to take things off our ship.
The population of this unholy profession was mainly male. I was the only female out of almost thirty people that ran the rust-bucket we floated on. It was unnatural to see a different gender. I might have been the Ebola virus. I was either avoided, or pursued. Neither amused me. One man took it upon himself to believe that every movement I made was a flirtatious gesture in his direction. When I pointed out the fallacies in his assumptions, he only proceeded to blame my maturity level. Obviously my level of maturity had developed in his head, along with any advances I had made toward him. It’s reassuring to know that men change very little from ages seventeen to forty-five. From his infinite well of wisdom, he offered me advice to be less enticing on the next ship I am assigned to. I will continue to spread my Ebola virus; however, it will now be with mutated bitterness and a slight hint of an incredibly unpleasant attitude.
The atmosphere of loneliness was torture and bliss coinciding on the same plane. To be alone, far away from everyone and everything that caused discomfort and emotional crisis was perfection. However, when I was in love the torture had a greater hold on me. I would hang on every word and electronic romantic wavelength he could sent me. Thankfully I am not in love anymore. Torture cannot exist for me.
Love, for me, was that disgusting state of mind where I believed for unconceivable reasons that the world might actually be a decent place. It was the reason for so many of my downfalls, emotionally and physically. This emotional phenomenon is the reason I once weighed below 100 pounds and the motivation for several inspired acts of lost self-control and reasoning skills. I could have been on Broadway, or at least stirred someone I met in those days to open another section to the nearest insane asylum. Padded rooms were calling me.
Love turns every situation into a potentially sadistic fairytale, complete with tragic lyrics and slow rock songs. A plane ride becomes another chance at a plane crash, and my mind is set at ease. A drive to the store is now a collision waiting to happen, and I have never felt safer in my commute. Lives, life and living are all meaningless. Nothing matters now that I lost the man I love. I am simply waiting to die.
My advice is to never give your heart to another person. They will eagerly stomp on it if given the opportunity, pretend to pick it up and brush it off, then proceed to only crush it ruthlessly between their palms and dig their nails into the parts that might have remained complete. But that story is an entirely different wavelength, and will not be examined in this narrative. At sea, all that the world pushed on me and forced me to endure can be forgotten and forgiven. Nothing is quite as large or significant as it seems when I can pretend I no longer exist. Like the green flash, most of life is far too exaggerated.
And now, here I sit wanting to go back to that ocean. I desire to return to the emptiness where I find my peace and solace. Where I can sit for hours, remember who I was and who I wanted to become. The one place where being trapped and free coincides. I still yearn to be in the middle of the Atlantic, surrounded by nothing, with no cares but to watch the sun rise and set in the middle of my great, blue nowhere.
The world is desperate for a purpose. As the struggle continues, it becomes hysterically apparent that the world does not have a purpose. Everything anyone has ever yearned for is meaningless. I have given my heart to the middle of nowhere. It is a passive aggressive form of suicide, and I have never felt more alive.
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Submission Name: Lies ... Edited Again
