A Short Short Story — A Long Sea Journey

Let us go on a long sea journey. For I believe now that we are ready. We’ll rent a boat. And then we can take… Bob. And that girl that Bob is always trying to get to sleep with him. (Perhaps in the confined quarters of a boat, she’ll have less resistance to his highly-wavering charm; charm that’s like a dog that slobbers all over your knees, a slobbering that you find to be adorable right up until the precise second that you don’t.)

But enough about Bob. We’ll also take Carl. And then maybe Allie and Elle (to balance out the guy/girl ratio). And then a cooler full of beer. …And probably some food also, as well.

For I have grown weary of life on the land. Do you realize how many bad things happen on land? Most of them. Nearly all of them:  Wars, persecutions, earthquakes, landslides; the Tea Party, brunches with people that you don’t really want to have brunch with, texting, the entire second season of House of Cards; all of these things took place on land, and I, for one, am ready to be rid of them.

Of course some bad things take place in the water too: Undertows, sharks, tidal waves, very bad sex. But on the whole — taken all in all — there are many fewer bad things that take place on the water. …And so, we are off!

…And so, we have been off, for lo these many months now! For we rented a boat, and the plan worked. (Though the plan didn’t work out so well for Bob, in fact. He hasn’t been able to get with that girl — what the fuck is her name? …Carrie? …Carrie; right. He hasn’t been able to get with Carrie, no matter how hard he tries; not even when he plays the acoustic guitar and does various comedic impersonations. …Just consign yourself to a life of failure and disappointment, Bob. And sorry about all of this, Bob.)

We have roamed the sea. We have even discovered a very small island, which provides us with fresh spring water, and coconuts, and also monkeys. (We kill the monkeys, chop their heads off, and then roast them on a spit, when we get very tired of just eating coconuts. …Do not feel so bad about this. These are not cute monkeys. These are not, say, adorable Japanese monkeys who bathe in hot steam geysers. These are dreadful, ugly, shrieking, feces-throwing monkeys who are not pleasant in any way. We are glad that we have eaten many of them. Even Elle — who was originally a vegetarian until she got so very tired of coconuts — even Elle has eaten some monkey-meat, and she does not feel so very bad about it.)

So there’s that. And that’s that. But–

…But.

But do I feel any happier now? That’s the main question; the main thing that would solve so many things. …Do I feel any happier with my life at sea than I did with my life on land? Certainly there is no more dealing with brunches, and texting, and shitty scanners at your job that utterly fail to scan a photograph correctly when you really need it to. Certainly there is none of that.

And but; and yet.

Am I any happier now?

I would have to say with total honesty that I do not know. Some things are better, some things are worse. (And I have begun to feel, with a vague tremble of unease, that this is all the wisdom that there ever is in the world. …Try changing something. Okay; now you’ve changed it. Now, some things are better, while other different things are worse. And that’s it: that’s it for human wisdom and learning and knowledge. And at these moments, I curse god.)

I curse god a lot anyway. It’s fun to do. If you don’t curse god, every chance that you get — well; why don’t you? It’s highly cathartic, and I highly recommend it. I curse him for many things. I curse him, often, for the lack of colors out here. …For at least back on land — even though I disliked the land — but at least back on land we had green and then we had blue. …But out here, we only have blue, and then we only have blue.

Blue and then blue. And so we sail; we sail, the four or five of us — sail into possible eternity. That line hovering before us — that line, looming in the distance — that line is the horizon line; another one of god’s little jokes. There is no actual horizon line that you can reach; it’s just a trick — a trick of human perception.

The horizon recedes forever as we approach it. Sort of like Carrie does with Bob and his acoustic guitar. …And so, nought nowhere is never reached.

And so instead, we have the blue and the blue.

With that line in the center.

That line in the center is the horizon line.

…The blue above the horizon line is the sky; the sky, which stays mostly blue. And so; the blue above is mostly blue — the blue below and I are too.