by Micah Castle
“So?”
Thomas ran across the room, but as he neared the child he realized that the child was far larger than himself. Thomas was six feet, but the boy seemed to be at least a hundred feet tall. The room grew as well, becoming an enormous place, nearly as big as the solar system itself. His movement slowly stopped as he stood at the foot of the boy. The drive to know what or why his home was taken pushed away the slowly growing fear inching up the back of his mind.
“Why… Why would you do this?”
“Because I want to. The ceiling is bare.”
“So?”
“Exactly.”
The boy took the chain, which shook the ground, and dropped its ends into the hole.
It sounded dumb, but it was the only question Thomas could think of to ask. “Can you put it back?”
The child shook his head as he eyed the hole, waiting patiently for more patterns to place upon his ceiling.
Thomas moved over to the gigantic hole, which looked like an ocean of blackness. He glanced down and saw the nothingness of space.
“Where is this place? And who are you? Are you God?” he asked, without turning to the child.
“This is my room, and I am me.”
“And you are what?”
“Me.”
He knew he should be more terrified of the situation, he should be swimming in a sea of madness, his brain should’ve exploded at the mere thought that his planet being plucked from a puddle like an origami bird, but all he became was frustrated by the boy. He was a child, an uncaring, selfish child that couldn’t give a straight answer. And below this annoyance, he wondered what he should do next.
Thomas could leap into the dark ocean or remain in the room with the child. This is what his life came to, and he felt a pang of regret in his stomach for taking matters into his own hands and scaling down into the hole.
The boy pulled the chain up through the hole and set it on the ground. One by one he pulled papery planets from the ends.
“Is there a way to get back?”
“To where?”
“Where I came from.”
“No, but you can jump in and see what happens.” The child said as he gathered the planets and walked over to where the solar system was plastered.
He didn’t think the boy deserved to be thanked. He stood on the edge of the black ocean and closed his eyes. Thomas formed fists as perspiration covered him and he whispered a small prayer, then jumped into the abyss before him.
“Goodbye,” was the last thing Thomas heard before consciousness swam away from him.
The White Sea
As I looked out from the White Sea, a schooner of modest size with three sails flapping in the warm wind, across the gray ocean waters and under the dark blue of the sky, there was a faint speck on the horizon. It was darker than both what laid below and above. I believed it to be a ship, but this was normal. I was on the ocean! Traveling from a harbor in California to Alaska, there were bound to be more ships moving hither and thither.
Still… it left an unsettling feeling in my gut. The dark spot gave me the impression that it was watching us, perhaps following the ship. Why did I feel this foreboding? Pirates had not existed in decades, as far as I knew, though the stories I had once read as a child lingered in my mind. Those pirates, those swashbucklers, were not the kind one would find out on the ocean anyway, pirates with large bushy beards, golden teeth, eye patches and peg legs. My rationality piped in, reminding me that the black speck on the vista was in all likelihood an island.
Moving away from the side of the ship, weaving passed the crewmen mopping the deck, I returned to my small cabin below the poop deck. In one corner lay my bag, containing extra clothes and snacks, while in another stood a short table with a partially used candle atop. My bed was too small and stiff, and my ankles dangled out over the mattress when I tried to lie flat. There was only one circular window, unable to be opened.
When I sat down onto the hard bed, I thought about my deceased parents. Grateful, I was, for the money they left me, the same money I used to afford this trip on the schooner and travel across the sea from one state to another. Just to enjoy myself, experience adventure, and perhaps gather enough inspiration and information to start my next book. The last one, He Who Controls the Light, did not do well, and my publisher, House & Holmes Publishing, dropped me like a rock. So… I had to find and write something worthwhile. I could not live on inheritance forever.
Laying back against the wooden wall behind the mattress, I pulled my journal out from underneath the yellowed flat pillow and wrote what transpired up to that point. Then, I placed the small book into my bag, returned to bed, and curled up underneath the thin blanket, forcing myself to sleep.
II
Before dawn, the Captain’s shouting woke me. His heavy German accent engulfed his English words, so much so he would simply use the German word in place of the English one mid-sentence. Perhaps it was easier this way for him?
I got out of bed, felt a sharp pain coming up my lower back, did my best to mend it by stretching, then finally left the cabin. There were three men mopping the deck, while two large men raised the mainsail, and another raised the jib. They all looked the same with greasy blonde hair, suntanned skin underneath a stained shirt and brown pants, and calloused hands. For a reason beyond my understanding, they lowered it the night before.
Yawning, I moved passed the men, and went up the set of stairs to the poop deck, where the kitchenette was. The large, ebony chef moved with grace and speed inside, minding to the enormous steel bubbling pot and the metal carafe on the adjacent burner. The smell of what I believed to be stew lingered out through the half-opened sliding door. The cook saw me staring in, leered at me with his beady eyes, and with a swish of a ladle, told me to get away.
I apologized and continued across the poop, up another set of stairs that turned to the left and came to the wheelhouse. The Captain stood next to the man holding the wheel, speaking in German. Captain Richter stood nearly six feet tall, with long graying hair, piercing gray blue eyes, and his body, albeit small, was a mass of muscle. The one thing that stood out the most was his large nose.
He noticed me coming in and walked over.
“What are you doing up here?”
I said I was coming up to ask if we were any closer to Alaska.
“Of course, we are, dummkopf, but not by much, it has only been two days since you last asked.”
The man who steered the ship peered over his shoulder, and I could see his wide, red-rimmed eyes. His cheeks were sunken, and his hair was askew. He looked like he had not slept for weeks or had just seen the foulest thing. Captain Richter saw him look over as well and quickly walked over to him, cursing in German.
I left the wheelhouse, returned to the lower deck to find the sail flapping in the cold wind, and the men no longer mopping. For some unknown reason, I felt unsettled, an eerie feeling washed over me and the ship. The sky was a sheet of gray. The dull water frothed against the ship. It started to drizzle and specks of it splashed against me. All at once everything appeared overwhelmingly immense, larger than the world itself, and I was like the raindrops, an insignificant tiny morsel.
The immensity of it all began to consume my mind. My body felt numb, imbalanced, and tingly. I stumbled but caught myself on the stairs, and I slowly breathed in air. I read it was normal to feel like this sometimes out at sea. The enormous ocean surrounding you, nothing to see beyond the water to put reality into perspective. I pushed the feeling down as far as it would allow, and after a few moments I returned to my cabin. As the hours passed, the feeling did too.
III
“Stew's on!” I heard the Cook shout.
Although I had paid quite a bit to have my own cabin on the schooner and could eat by myself, I decided to join the crew for supper. A narrow corridor, inlaid with bunks for the crew, next to my cabin lead to a small room for dining. Around an old, tarnished smal
l table were ale colored stools, each one filled by one of the crew. A bubbling steel pot sat atop the table, stained and splashed with an orangish red liquid, stinking of onions, horseradish and some sort of meat. I managed to obtain a chipped porcelain bowl and two ladlefuls of the substance.
I spotted the wheelman in the back corner, so I weaved around the men and stood against the wall next to him. He did not eat: he simply sat there and stared aimlessly into his empty bowl.
“You sick?” I asked loudly, trying to be heard over the rowdiness in the room.
“Nay,” he replied, shaking his head.
“Why do you not eat?”
“Can't.”
Taken aback by his response, I asked. “What do you mean you cannot eat? Does your mouth not work?”
“My body won't allow it. Nay, my stomach is closed to anything but the air.”
“How come?" I felt stupid asking. Was I being an annoyance?
“I’ve seen things. Things that no man should see. Doesn’t affect the others, like me. But it's my job, I'm a wheelman. I don't know anything else.”
“What kind of things have you seen?”
“Don't you wonder why the mainsail is drawn at night? Or why there are less and less men mopping the deck every dawn? The deck doesn’t get that dirty. Ever wonder why the men here don't fish these waters? A normal man would take no notice, but I have, I can't look away, I must steer at night.”
Confusion and curiosity intertwined in my mind. I wanted to know what he was speaking about, but somewhere in the back of my consciousness was a warning, that if I dared to push him further, that he, like his story, would go mad. I patted him on the shoulder, whispered for him to feel better, then dumped my empty bowl into the large tub of soapy water placed in the corner.
I returned to my cabin, laid down, and mulled over the words the man said. I wished I had asked his name, had asked what he was like before becoming a wheelman, really got to know him on some level beyond storyteller and audience. Alas, I never got the chance. He was gone by next morning.
IV
“Fell ill, passed overnight. We gave him a water burial before dawn broke.” Captain Richter said when I asked the next day, standing in the wheelhouse. A new man steered the ship behind him.
When I passed by the deck, returning to my cabin, I noticed only two men mopped the floor. The mainsail and jib had already been set, flapping in the morning wind. I did not bother to ask the Captain what happened to the missing man, felt like it would have been a waste of time. The wheelman’s story was too crazy to believe.
People get sick out at sea, and with no doctors or proper medical equipment, they were bound to die. Where would one keep them? Underwater, of course. Although the Captain's ways were more brutal than my own, I could not do anything about it. I was a passenger, a spectator, on the ship. I had no power or say over anything that occurred.
Lying on my bed, staring idly at the wooden ceiling, I thought of the man's words once more. I had scribbled them down in my journal, for what, I really did not know. Just one of those things writers do. Jotting some tidbits of knowledge in hopes that it grew into something worthwhile.
After the wheelman, there were no other disappearances on the ship for some weeks. The mainsail and jib were still taken down before nightfall, and more men were assigned to mop the floors. Their numbers remained constant throughout. Moreover, even the new wheelman kept his position. I never bothered to question the Captain… Well, until a month later, when the ship should have been nearing the icy waters of Alaska but was not.
V
Looking out over the sea on deck, I noticed the water appeared the same as it was near California. Also, on the horizon, the tiny, black speck in the distance had grown closer. I could clearly see that it was an island now. Assuming we had not got lost, we should have been nearing Alaska. The water should have become icy, with chunks of white ice bobbing on the surface. Also, the temperature was still warm, hardly below sixty degrees. I bit my lower lip and clenched my fists. Was my money going to waste? Was it being used for some unknown goal the Captain had? I might have been a man who had an easy life, but I was not a fool.
Snapping away from the deck, I ran up to the wheelhouse. I knew the Captain would be there, he seemingly lived there. And of course, there he was, standing next to the wheelman, whispering some words I could not hear.
“Hey!” I shouted.
His eyes darted to me, then he faced me. “What do you want?”
“Why are we not nearing Alaska? It has been a month! The air is not colder, nor is the water! Have you gotten us lost? Or are you fooling us and taking us somewhere else? I did not pay to be taken someplace else!”
The wheelman's shoulders grew tight and his back straightened. Beads of sweat stood out on the back of his neck. If I had been any smarter at the time, I would have taken that as a bad omen. I did not believe anyone before me had talked that way to the Captain, at least not directly.
“Dummkopf, dummkopf, dummkopf, dummkopf. Americans.” He said to the wheelman, then strode over to me. His dark blue jacket swayed with his movements, his hands coiled, veins stood out underneath his suntanned flesh, and although he stood only a few inches taller than me, it felt like he was a giant.
“Do you think just because you have geld, you can decide what or who does what? The White Sea is mine, and mine alone. If I wanted to drive this ship into the fiery pits of Hölle, I would do so, because it is mine.”
“But the agreement we made, before we took off. You agreed to take me to Alaska while your men hunted seal! We agree—!”
“Screw the agreement! This ship, my men, go and do what I say. And as a passenger of my ship, you must do the same. If you don't like it,” he said, pointing towards the sea, “then you can begin swimming.”
Nothing more was said between us. I returned to my cabin and stayed there. Frustration and raged overwhelmed me to the point that tears began to roll down my face. How could I be so foolish? How could I trust this Captain! It was unbelievably hot and confining inside my room, I could not breathe, I could not think, I felt caged, trapped like an animal. Pacing from one end to the other, optimistic rationality began to break through the storm clouds of anger.
I could wait, cause no further issues, and see where the ship went. Perhaps it would reach a port soon, and from there, I could return to California. Or, perhaps, that wherever we were going was more interesting than watching men club and shoot seals on the Alaskan sea? The goal of my trip was to obtain enough experience and information to write a book, which did not require Alaska, just something worth writing about. If we returned to America afterwards, it would be fine, I would be just fine.
VI
Days passed, and the strangeness began again. The jib and mainsail were drawn at night, and the ship began to lose crew members once more. It was as if whatever occurred at night had taken a vacation or needed rest to continue again. I felt that I should not question the crewmen about what occurred at night, and after the bout with Captain Ritcher, I did not even think to ask him. Thus, I decided one day at dawn that I would use what time I had to figure out what happened after dusk.
God, I wish I had not.
VII
When we left California, there were roughly twenty crewmen and the Captain. Now, as I counted throughout the day, there were twelve. The wheelman, the cook, Ritcher, and a mix of men, some who helped the cook and some who were to hunt the seals. I found that none of the men knew anything of the Captain's plans beyond what I knew, or so they lead me to believe. Moreover, the destination of the White Sea was as lost to them as it was to me. Perhaps there was no destination? Perhaps the Captain's goal was only to take the ship out into the sea, though that seemed pointless.
I returned to my cabin before dusk and waited. With my ear to the door, I heard the mainsail and jib withdrawn. Above me, I could hear footsteps and clanking of metal, seemingly the cook putting away his pots and pans for the ni
ght. A few hours passed, then dozens of footsteps echoed into my room. A few moments later, silence fell over everything.
I felt it was the correct time to venture out from my room. Nothing had occurred after the last bout of silence. Carefully I opened the door, revealing the deck. I did not have to venture far to find out what occurred at night. God! How could I describe something so strange? The entire crew were lined up on both sides of the mainmast, looking up. Drawn on the ground were thick, black lines that twisted and tangled together, like roots or branches, and formed a circle. Captain Ritcher stood towards the bow, looking up as well.
He was nude, save for an undergarment that covered his genitals and some of his waist. Black, carved, rune-like symbols covered his skin from his ankles to his waist, then his waist to his neck and wrists. They were not merely tattoos, no, but embedded into his flesh and had healed. Each symbol connected at their ends, forming a queer pattern that looked to be one strange image stretched over his body. The tattoos gave the impression of movement, of rippling upwards as if carved into the surface of the sea.
I slowly moved out onto the deck and peered up to where they were staring. Neither the crew or Captain said a word as I entered the circle. One of the crewmen was tied to the top of the mainmast. The man’s ankles and wrists were bound by rope. The ropes were so tight that blood seeped out underneath the thick yarn, splotching his clothes. Tears streaked his tan face, his mouth was stuffed with cloth, and sweat covered his body. From where I stood, I could see the wheelman behind this poor soul, gripping the wheel, his eyes wide and vacant, his cheeks sunken.
The situation seemed to finally break through the queer daze I was in, and I turned to Ritcher.
“What the hell is going on! Why is that man tied up there?” I screamed, pointing.
The clouds above parted, and moonlight beamed down upon the deck. Captain Ritcher's skin seemed to glisten underneath the luminescence. He looked at me in silence, then nodded. Two of the bigger crewmen stepped forward, and before I could escape, they had pinned my arms to my side, and carried me into the crowd. One of them wrapped a piece of cloth around my head, gagging me. I tried to break away, squirming in their grasp, screaming muffled noises, anything that could potentially set me free. Nothing helped, my jerking movements only made me more terrified.