A PROBLEM AT SEA

My First words should have been higgledy-piggledy—most anyone would think this because of my being female. As an alternative—for dread, literally speaking, my brain, bludgeoned, also could have gone south and employed my mouth with—lets say it should have had some debilitating element about—my dead comrades. Consequently, as I dropped my head I raised my right hand and shook it at the great evanescent azure expanse. I said nothing as I boarded the other ship; I thought gleefully: Company again… finally! The officials arrived, ‘Johnny on the spot,’ before the minute their words had supposed—they arrived long before they said they would—they could have been watching me all that time and I wouldn’t have know the difference (no matter)—when we last spoke; whatever their reason I was glad not to be alone, so soon, anymore. While boarding, I felt the wind, so brisk in its strangeness, its cascades of silk damask fell against my body and I shook a little relief off, but there was more to be aware of. The wind helped me slowly reverse that stormy fear stirred as some panicked sense once built and held inside me. What ever was there—which too, had been vegetated in the garden of my mind—to be afraid of, wisped slowly away. I no longer was hoping that what happened to my dead comrades would not happen to me. What happen to them I know now; as now I believe I know, what I need to do.... They are all gone; not just gone—as I am sure they will never return, but they are dead, no one can be in this icy-cold sea stir in trouble for that long and live. There were ten of us; nine men and one woman, me—Bernice. Our first comrade left—I think, a week ago night before last, the last one—I thought (early this morning) still on board—actually left last night and nobody has come back. I am here alone fifty miles from port; that was supposed to be my last day at sea. Now it will take another day because of the way we have to go to get out of these waters. It’s like a superstitious mystery of the Bermuda Triangle: another sea mystery left alone and unsolvable. The officials believe, somehow I’ve been out here alone; how they think that I can’t figure, but, I’m going to tell them nothing different.

Earlier today I woke up not realizing that I was alone. Saddened, yet in another way happy; actually I would be that, before this day ends. I can only assume the high waves rocked the boat so suddenly and hard I had to wake up. I was also on the floor getting wet from the freezing cold water seeping down into the cabin. God! it was cold. The door was closed but from all the wear and tear of being at sea its water-seal had become pretty much useless. I figured Bill was on deck; surely he was fighting the waves, pulling the sail or doing something to keep the ship going in the right direction; I could hardly figure that he would leave me alone in this small ship… not him. So, instead of going up and speaking to him, letting him know that I was finally up, I went and started the pump to get rid of the water. And while doing, I made breakfast; actually it was more like brunch—by the time I got to it.

We all came from the southern tip of Africa; and we decided to sail toward Australia searching for dugongs, a large marine mammal, one of four living species of the order Sirenia. (I know I need a Q and A here. While seeking out information on the Sirens, from Greek mythology we came upon the mammal and found it interesting. On a dare we decidedly took a sailing trip to find the mammal—well a dare is as good a reason as any for a sailing trip: Right?) After reading about the large mammal we had forgotten about Greek Mythology and Sirens—or whatever spelling disparity catered to western and southern European folklore and mermaids—the siren song of promise to Odysseus &c. Neither did we really consider searching for their isles—the supposed places where these surly women lived. Those—perhaps three to five dangerous bird-women, being off the coast of Italy—supposed Cape Pelorum, a most northerly direction we surely were not heading. We worried not about the subject of finding the "flowery" island Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, or that opposite, locations where these sirens could have been surrounded by some isle precipice of cliffs and rocks.

Behold! And as luck would have it, we didn’t have to:

I’m not saying that while sailing south we didn’t hap upon some few isles that appeared uncharted in these southern seas. Which could pass for such siren islands and although my silly comrades—one by one—took swims in those waters close by that is no reason to think that they heard something of a calling—like the siren song of promise to Odysseus, which somehow removed them from the ship and also somehow influence them to swim toward the isles? I’m not saying that the isles we passed could pass for them because, I heard no words, no music, no lyrics, nor song like we were suppose to; and besides they all jumped ship at night. I read that if anything like that happened it would be when waters were calm, which would be about middle of the day, and we would surely be shipwreck on the rocky coast. The waters were never calm until after nightfall, and besides I never heard any such music. Now of course each morning after seeing this isle, calm waters would pass, night would pass, and one of my comrades came up missing. But Bill is on deck fighting the waves; he would never leave me here on this small ship alone. Besides this evening we’ll be on Australian soil. Sure the other guys—I didn’t have a close relationship with them, there was no need to—hell, we’ve known each other forever.

Don’t think that any of us took the other’s disappearances lightly. We reported it all, and each day by radio. We tried to search the coves (without getting off the ship—I didn’t say we were a brave bunch). After, the last time we did that missing person’s report—Bill and I—I thought, yesterday, the officials seemed to make a joke out of it; telling us that we needed to leave. They said there had been a lot of disappearances around the area of the pacific seas where we were located; we said to ourselves, doubtingly: Yea right! Of course we sailed our regular course—searching for dugongs; last night before my falling asleep Bill and I talked about whether there might have been something to what the officials were saying. Ending the conversation, decidedly, we continued our same route, against the advice of the officials—what they told us to do would have taken us off course and added at least two days to the sea journey and we would have no hope of finding dugongs. We couldn’t do that—I think we should have but we couldn’t do that.

Brunch was finally ready; I thought Bill would have come bounding down the steps with the smell of food alone. No Bill; I yelled for him: William. No answer. I screamed Will; hoping for a rise because I knew how he hated to be called Will; still no answer. Then I got worried. I went up thinking that he was so busy that he couldn’t stop doing what he was doing. The ship was rocking a little but not like it was, or had been in most past days. That is why I thought to leave the food on the table and stove, the way the boat waddled nothing was going anywhere. Up there I could see nothing. I mean literally nothing. It was what I would call roseate night, I could hear the water but could not see where it ended and the horizon began—for that matter the difference between water and ship. I knew I was on water because I could hear it splashing against the hull of the ship—that was all. I heard a distant shore—it was growing close but as I said saw nothing—I could only hear the shore splashing. In the periodic silences I called for Bill; he gave no response. Bill was gone.

The rim of my right ear was tenderly brushed—ever so—I swear, by two cupped hands, side by side. Lips, releasing a warm breath, tickled the inside of my ear with a lofty tongue. The words were soft; my mind almost wrote the words off just before I realized that I actually heard the words “Bill is gone.” Fear does not explain what I felt rising with the goose-bumps heating the chicken-neck flesh under my long auburn hair—which would momentarily raise itself to new heights. Fear does not clarify my sudden change in mood, the expeditious means by which I moved and went nowhere—no depth and measure of zeal can describe my fear. When an overly estranged sphere encompasses the realm of fear what can one do—that is, what can one think? All I could think is that “interest which evil yields is tremendous.”

She touched me again saying in Greek: Βερενίκη, then Veronica. Nobody but my mother ever called me by that name; I wondered how this one knew. My wondering became unimportant—Fear.

I said “my name is Bernice”; response was an inattentive: Uh-huh.

I still had not moved—Fear was allowed—and at this moment random depreciating remarks would have given little help to avert prayer—and prayer was not allowed. I heard these words: It is because of Hera—queen of the gods, the one who first persuaded the Sirens to enter a singing contest with the nine Muses—that I confront you now. Sing with me or die.

I don’t know to this day how it happened; just that it did. It must have been a godly muse that took me over. I sang as I never could before; what I never knew before: There is nothing that this Muse cannot subject to invent.—While thou dost breathe, all that pour'st into my verse—Thine own sweet argument cannot rehearse. The hymn—words, tone and song—came without effort. I could easily watch the Siren. Fear had long been took me over but there was nothing I could do because I could not move a muscle. For some reason or somehow—the song dragooned her head violently loose, back and forth, back and forth—I watched the beast’s worried head—that insinuated rhythmic act continued until the neck parted to the deck floor.

The Siren’s head lay between her toes, while her body remained stiff and erect to her neck. Last thing I noticed before she disappeared were mouthed words: You win. With a flash she was gone leaving some angel like feathers behind. I never heard her song; I wondered if what I saw was real, was she—save the white feathers turning yellow before my eyes; I’m sure they were plucked from her body. I was at sea still and now alone. I didn’t know what to tell the officials…; I told them something… it must have been good… they came and got me and my ship… cynosure of all eyes drew me in as center of administration, business—I was for a moment main attraction. Still—at the sufferance of my person, most all the while going back their howling sanctioned how big a fool they thought I was, to be in the rough waters of sea sailing alone. And now it is night; to expiate the night, seawaters mollify on the surface, which makes my inundating muse feel that apt song…. I’m finally happy.