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The seas of Okeanos run deep, long, and wide, a reflection of the bed of stars stretched above. They are endless and silver beneath the moonlight. The waves against the Golden Hind sing witness to the odysseys played out in their cradle one epic at a time.
In fleeting moments of solitude and quiet, the waves erode at his youthful shell. He is left feeling as old as the ocean. Archer imagines the seabed covered in wreckage of old vessels and the ends of infant tales and dreams.
Then Captain speaks, and the wreckage shimmers gold, dusted in coins and crusted with jewels that tantalize his inner boyhood with wonder and excitement and adolescent greed. They make him grin from ear-to-ear and hum one of the old shanties that the crew taught him on his first day.
Did ya e’r see a wild goose sailin o’er the ocean? Ranzo, ranzo. Weigh, heigh
David often wonders if his shipmates and his Captain are fully aware that they share the deck with a man whose lamentations and exaltations color the book their mothers read to them as children, that the boyo that cleans their rooms and passes their messages once slayed a giant with a stone and led armies to victory after victory.
He wonders if they look at him and behold a king instead of a shepherd, that in their drunken imaginings they see his mop for a sword.
Mostly, he wonders if that’s how he prefers it …
No. . .this life is much simpler; much, much more desirable for a man like him. He will let another lead, be swept away this time by another’s passionate speeches and declarations of adventure and battle. He likes being the boy, from time to time, getting drunk off of her fine tales of treasure and blood-thirsty islanders. He will relinquish himself to the whirlpool encountered on a quiet day, pulling in the expectant, the hypnotized.
This night, he cannot help but to think of how many bottles of rum Rider’s downed, how many songs she’s crowed at the top of her lungs.
How old she is. How many crew members that have come and gone her way.
What beaches she has walked. Where and how she obtained her vessel.
On this night, as the crew taps the barrel of beer and howls at off-color jokes of women they’ve met and old bosses they would rather forget, David meanders towards the Captain and pours her a drink.
“Captain, if it pleases you, I’d like to hear another tale…”