Reboot

The “Myriad” could float just fine by herself, which was lucky because I was in no condition to do anything about it. It barely moved anyway. A sick, wheezing wind nursed a heavy, sleepy forward motion laden with sadness and misery. I was just twenty-one years old going on ninety and completely lost somewhere in the Pacific.

I was dimly aware that I’d have to pilot this thing eventually. At least point it somewhere. Presently, the hard deck was an inviting alternative to action and welcomingly painful. I think if I had lain on something soft, I might never have gotten up again. So I did nothing. I bobbed. I stared at the incoming colors of dawn. It was a new world after all and I was witnessing its birth.

I was still in my jammies -the bottoms- one knee bent, lying on my back, mouth open and slack, dribbling spit making dark wet spots on the teak, eyes half open to minimize effort, my head slowly rocking from side to side. It swung with the boat like a melancholy metronome. The boat swayed left to right so that I saw the sun coming up intermittently on the left, every ten seconds or so. When the boat tipped, my vision arced to the sails above me. I listened to the soft flapping that drummed up the rhythm choreographed by the wind and waves. I saw foggy dreams of my mother setting up a picnic table outside on a sunny northeastern afternoon. The sound of the sails reminded me of her deft splaying of the white and red tablecloth. I missed her now. I wished our last words hadn’t been so prissy.

There was only one other sound: the bell. Usually a happy sound, today it reminded me of the ominous signal coming from an inbound ghost ship heading toward a dark foggy Scottish harbor at midnight.

As my head turned again away from the bell, my attention shifted to a mosquito who was very serious about sucking the blood out of my left arm, and then ten seconds later, the copper bell again rang out the starboard swing of the ship as it toppled lightly over another fat wave. The bell...

What?

What the hell was a mosquito doing on my boat? I waited patiently for my head to roll back around to the left…

And there it still was, flashing an angry red ass at me. I didn’t kill it. How could I?

It must’ve gotten on board with me at the beginning of this trip in Tahiti. I didn’t have the heart to end such an adventurous spirit. It might be the last mosquito on Earth. I was alone and I hurt everywhere.

“You and me Mo.”

Back to the bell. Comforting, terrifying sound. It anchors the lost mind by rattling it. I’d read somewhere that mosquitoes got drunk on blood, but this one just looked bloated. It lumbered off like one of those huge helicopters that have four dangling legs to carry heavy stuff with. I didn’t want it to go.

“Good luck crossing the ocean pal,” I yelled, startling myself. I was loud. I let loose a two second brain-fart where I looked around to see if anyone had heard me. Then I giggled and shook myself up. “Idiot”.

My thoughts coalesced into the more productive:

- Where should I go?

- What’s my next move?

No matter how depressed you get, coffee is not made by itself. That’s what got me going. I’d still be on that deck if it weren’t for coffee.

I scraped myself up when the sun was two thumbs above the horizon; 9am maybe? I hurt everywhere because of the fight. I was bruised and singed where the lantern had hit me on the shoulder.

I made it up on two legs. I swayed a bit while the dizziness slowly blinked off, then I headed best I could to the captain’s cabin, turned on the water heater, sat at the desk, picked up a pencil and started doodling through my headache on a piece of paper while I stared at the blinding waves. With each sip of coffee, my head sat straighter on my neck. My eyes opened to full screen. By the time the insignificant breeze sighed off completely and the waves turned into smooth black charcoal and the boat stopped moving, the doodles had become a plan of action.

The first item on the list was to make a list. I lay back down, on a couch this time, stared at the sky and thought about it a bit.

Here’s what I came up with:

- Make a list… check.

- Eat

- Find out what is useful onboard… That’s next.

- Figure out where I am.

- How does the radio work?

- Choose a direction.

I hadn’t really paid too much attention to the stockroom before - didn’t have to. Everything had been done for me. I was a passenger, an invited guest. I remembered feeling like a diva at the beginning of the trip. So my first destinations were the kitchen and then the hold. I had no idea what was down there.

I think it’s fair to say that all boat owners are the same when it comes to stocking things. They’re meticulously tidy and organized. There were rows and rows of canned goods and dried stuff and even a huge appendage of a smoked ham, all neatly alphabetized, except for the chunk of pig that was just hanging from the ceiling by a thin hairy string. You can’t organize that; you just hang it.

So there was plenty of food and drinking water on the schooner, I could live on it for months, but I wasn’t hungry. I forced myself to eat something because I knew I needed the energy. As I sat there in the stockroom putting pieces of fish in my mouth, it didn’t go down easy. My throat was constricted and dry. I crushed the tuna through with a beer. I kept looking around half-heartedly, looking for motivation. Every action was drudgingly difficult, every breath, a sigh.

The Myriad was a very large vessel, a lovely lumbering behemoth with too many sails and no engine. It was full of useful things like ropes and wood and tools and extra sails, books and maps, all kinds of replacement parts that would certainly come in handy, electronic gadgets, cooking utensils, blankets… I could take what I needed, and what I needed were things that would help me live on an island, because that was the obvious next port.

But presently; to me, the ship was an aloof, cold, alien animal that had a mind of its own; a dangerous, lying, living thing that grudgingly let me ride on its back. I felt unsure of myself, small and lonely. Part of me wanted to follow everyone else overboard, but that was just nonsense.

All I had to do was stay afloat and heal. Be patient, be patient.