He used to sojourn here often, sit in the empty carriage under the midnight moon and survey the sleeping town. The stars in the heavens would wink wearily over him and he would tuck his knees up under his chin and hug them. He would cast his eyes over the water where no blinking green light would summon him; his story was not poignant enough for a tragedy so profound. Instead, he would see himself afloat in the dark ink of the vast sea, limitless and beautiful, at peace in the perfect solitude. The whispering winds would knock waves against the boat that even the harbourmaster would not know, and the sea salt would wash over the gentle child’s skin he had not yet grown out of. No seagulls would cry overhead for him like vultures for even they knew that this boy was not lost or dying, merely wandering the lightless abandon and resting out here among the riches of Solomon’s great temple in the sea.
He visits now again, his knees tucked under his chin as they did in his youth. Stubble frames his coarse face, and wrinkles begin to contort his eyes in ways he had never imagined. Still he sits, cushioned and blanketed and remembering, wondering where that tide took him, and where it will leave him next. The boat isn’t empty any more; the company is as profound and perfect as once the darkness was, but still the waves carry them, still the wind whispers to them, and still they rely on the water’s generous buoyancy.
But the silence becomes desperate and the vultures appear, and the salt water that runs down his cheek is not of the sea, and this cord of three strands is strong but a fourth would bring completion, and there’s space in this small boat for small company, and how beautiful it would be to hold knees other than his own, even if just in the palm of his hand. How profound it would be to be the wind that whispers or the waves which knock or the tides which carry. For so long he was a small body afloat, alone, then company came, and now he longs to be the waters upon which a tiny body may float and rely on his buoyancy and find his limits as the stars wink kindly down upon them.
Still he floats, but not without hope.