Pieces Of The Ocean
Stories similar to this that you might like too.
I’ve always liked sailing. I was a good sailor, and so when the chance came to be a captain I took it up with both hands. There are plenty of people who think you should only get your own boat when you have enough money to buy yourself a yacht, but that’s not for me; no matter how much money you have there will always be some little thing to keep you poor in your soul.
It doesn’t do to be rich if you’re going to be unhappy about something. If you want to be happy then be poor, and if you want to be happy at sea then be as skillful a master as you can possibly manage. That means being able to steer a ship even if your hands aren’t working too well, and being able to handle any situation that arises without panic or fear.
My first command was a little ship called the Black Cat, out of Plymouth; she’d been built on a shipyard somewhere else and her owners had thought that by giving her a funny name they might make her more successful.
They were wrong—she wasn’t popular and she was expensive to run, but I liked her because she looked like an old ship with wooden beams and square timbers everywhere. She had a great reputation for making fast passages and we did our fair share of them during my time on the Black Cat.
I was lucky enough to take her to Madeira in one season after she’d come out of winter layup, which meant that the voyage took less than two months instead of six weeks as is normal, though it cost us a fortune in fuel oil to cover the such extra distance. We made it back just as the hurricane season began.
I’d never experienced anything like it before: I was terrified, but the ship handled it like a dream and we survived. My next command was a big ship and we used coal for all our power. It was the best ship in the world but it was also very slow compared with a sailing ship, so I sold her to a man from the West Indies who needed a vessel to carry him between the islands he owned there.
He’d never heard of a sailing ship before and I didn’t tell him what a marvel they were because that would have spoiled the fun for me. After selling my second ship I was offered a third, and this time I decided to keep her. I wanted to see how long I could survive with no other income—if I hadn’t already done that in the past, why bother?
But it’s not easy: you can’t spend your days drinking rum and eating lobster tails, and you don’t get anywhere as a captain unless you have a crew that wants to sail your ship and a patron to fund it all. It took me a while to get my act together, but by then I’d found another patron in the form of a rich woman from the United States.
Her husband had died quite suddenly some years ago, leaving her in charge of their shipping business. She’d taken over as head of the family and had begun to expand and consolidate their fleet.
She was a wonderful person to work for, and once again I got along well with most of the crew—even the chief mate. We’d been friends before I worked for her, but he seemed to be a different man now and he and I had some arguments.
When we sailed together it was like having a bad marriage—you know it isn’t going to end happily but you go through the motions anyway because it can be so much more comfortable than being alone.
But when we weren’t together everything became fine and I could forget about him altogether, which was just as well because I didn’t need that kind of trouble around me when I was trying to stay alive. The last time I saw him was shortly after my new owner had died, and he’d changed completely.
I think he’d become a bit unbalanced. He’d spent most of his life at sea and had grown used to being alone, but he couldn’t stand being on land. Even in London, he didn’t want to leave the shipyard, and it turned out he had a lot of money—not much but enough that he could live wherever he chose.
He had a beautiful house near the sea and he bought a nice car for himself, and he drove it all over London, looking like a crazy man in that bright red vehicle. Then one day he disappeared. He’d stopped answering his phone and his emails.
His car had been parked outside his house for weeks, but no one knew where he was. It took me three months to get the job of captain on that ship, but finally, I sailed her out of the shipyard with a brand-new crew.
It wasn’t long before I began to suspect that someone had sabotaged that ship in order to stop her from sailing. I’d always believed in ghosts, and now I felt sure that whoever was responsible for the Black Cat had followed me to my new ship and put something wrong with it before I’d even set foot on board.
But it wasn’t just any old ghost; this ghost was angry. And he was determined to destroy me and everything I loved in his attempt to get revenge. For the first few days, I kept waking up drenched in sweat and convinced I’d heard voices in the darkness or seen shadows moving against the light of my bedside lamp.
I thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out for living on a ship. Perhaps it was better for me to go home and start again somewhere safe. I was afraid to sleep because I knew that the night might bring an attack, or else something horrible would happen while I was asleep.
But eventually, I started to relax and enjoy the ship and the freedom of the ocean. I told myself that the ghosts couldn’t hurt me if I stayed far away from them. In fact, I came to believe that their hatred was nothing more than their frustration at being unable to harm anyone else. So I continued my journey, confident that the danger had passed and everything would turn out all right.
***
In the morning, when I woke, I was still feeling exhausted. The ship had moved on without me, and I realized that I’d drifted off to sleep. That’s usually what happens when I’m lying down: either I fall into a deep sleep or I just pass out cold. I’ve never had any problem staying awake when I’m on a ship, especially if it’s going fast, but sleeping is harder for some reason.
It must be something to do with being surrounded by water: there’s nowhere to hide on a ship so the air feels heavier and I feel more tired than I should. Maybe that’s why the sailors are always telling me to eat more and drink plenty of coffee: they’re trying to make up for the fact that I can’t sleep properly when I’m in the middle of the ocean.
I opened my eyes, but I didn’t wake up immediately. I felt heavy and weak, almost like I’d been beaten up and left to die. My head ached terribly and my mouth was dry. I looked around but saw nothing except empty space. There was no sun in sight and I couldn’t hear any birds, either.
It was a dark day—a gloomy kind of day like those in winter when you know the snow will come soon. The only good thing was that the wind was behind us; otherwise, it could have been raining, and I hate the rain.
I tried to sit up, but it felt like I had a huge weight on top of me—like my arms were tied to my sides—and I couldn’t move at all. I could hardly breathe because my lungs seemed to fill with fluid, and my stomach felt as though I’d swallowed half a brick. I couldn’t see anything but blackness and my ears rang as if I’d just taken a punch to the face.
The voice sounded familiar. I wanted to tell him not to speak, but it took me several minutes to work up the strength to open my mouth. When I did, it was hard to get words out, and when I finally spoke I found myself whispering, even though I hadn’t intended it to happen. I tried to say, “Stop it, please,” but instead I said, “What happened?”
“You need to get some rest, Captain.”
I struggled against the invisible bonds holding me down, but I couldn’t budge. They were too strong; they held me in a place like metal bands that stretched across my chest and wrapped around my torso. It was impossible to lie flat. If I pushed myself up with my elbows, the weight forced me back down again, so I had to stay in a sitting position with my back against the side of the boat.
“We’ve stopped for repairs,” said the same voice. “You’ll feel better once we fix everything.”
He was talking about the sails. It sounded as if they were damaged somehow, which would explain why the boat wasn’t moving at all. But the sails weren’t what kept me anchored; there was something else pulling me down, something much worse than sails or ropes because that thing was inside me.
I couldn’t understand how it could possibly have gotten inside me. It didn’t make sense. It was impossible. And yet the weight pressed down on my chest and made it hard to breathe. All I wanted to do was lie down, but the ghostly presence wouldn’t let me.
Instead, it forced itself on top of me, as if I were a mattress on a bed that someone else was using. Even when I lay down, the weight was still there. The pressure was unbearable and it prevented me from moving or doing anything else.
I wanted to ask how long I had been asleep, but I couldn’t think straight enough to form coherent sentences. I couldn’t even open my eyes, and I felt like crying. I was trapped. This was no dream. Something was holding me down, preventing me from escaping this dark, lonely place where there was nobody and nothing to help me.
“How long have I been asleep? How long?”
My question was barely audible, but it was answered all the same.
“A while now, Captain.”
It couldn’t have been very long—not more than an hour perhaps. But my body felt so weak; it was as if I’d been sleeping for days. Everything ached. My head hurt badly, and every joint and muscle in my body felt stiff and painful.
Even my eyelids burned with pain. I had a terrible headache and nausea rose in my throat. I was thirsty and cold. There was a bitter taste in my mouth and a strange buzzing sound in my ears.
As I waited for the pain to fade, I closed my eyes again and listened carefully for whatever might answer me next. But there was no more conversation, and when I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but darkness again. I heard only the gentle lapping of waves against the hull of the ship and the faint creaking and popping noises as the men worked on the sails and deck.
The ghostly presence didn’t respond to any of my questions, nor did it speak to me. All it did was press itself into every inch of my body, making me feel heavy and helpless. I had the sensation that somebody was sitting on my chest, but I knew it wasn’t anyone or anything living.
Whoever or whatever this person was, they’d been dead far longer than I had, and it made me wonder where they’d come from. Was there such a thing as a spirit that lived forever, or did they all eventually die?
If they were dead, then why had they followed me? Hadn’t they already died, too?
When I woke up later that morning, I found it almost impossible to move. Every part of my body hurt so badly that I thought I must be dying. As soon as I realized where I was, I started to cry and scream out for help. It felt as though something inside of me was trying to rip itself apart.
At the same time, all sorts of unpleasant sensations coursed through my body. It felt like something was crawling beneath the skin of my face, and my entire body was covered in a film of slime like I was sweating blood.
It’s not fair! Why is this happening to me?
I struggled to free myself, but the weight holding me down was far heavier than it had ever been before. It took me ages just to raise my arms. After that, it was impossible to push me up with my elbows. I rolled over on my side and tried to use my shoulders instead.
But when I moved my right shoulder, my left arm went completely numb, so I had to stop. I cried out in pain as I tried to lift my hand, but it wouldn’t work. Then my legs began to go numb too, and when I tried to stand up, my feet became heavy and clumsy, so I fell down again.
Help me! Somebody help me!
I couldn’t get up, but there was another voice that did. It wasn’t mine; it was much deeper and harsher than I could ever hope to imitate. A deep, masculine voice that seemed to emanate from everywhere, as if it were coming from deep inside the ocean rather than from a human being. It said one word over and over again:
Wakey-wakey.
That’s all it said. And as I tried to sit up and listen again, I noticed that the other voices had gone quiet too—except for one that was shouting in Spanish at the top of its voice. That voice stopped suddenly, as though somebody had switched off the radio or turned down the volume on a television set.
I couldn’t understand what was happening, so I looked around, and then a sudden panic swept over me. I remembered where I was. For a moment, it didn’t seem real. All I could see was the white ceiling and the bright red cross painted above the door.
The room felt empty except for a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser mirror with an old brass frame. I sat up and looked out the window, and that’s when I saw him. The man who had been standing outside my cell when I was brought down here earlier.
He stood there on the other side of the bars, looking at me with a curious expression on his face. His dark hair fell in thick strands across his forehead and his pale gray eyes gave away nothing.
His clothing was similar to the uniform I’d seen yesterday—dark pants and black boots, with a white shirt underneath a dark jacket. But he wore it differently. Instead of buttoning it up to the neck and tying the front together with a string, he left it open to show the silver chain hanging from his chest pocket.
“Who are you?” I asked him in Spanish. “And why did you come back for me?”
He didn’t reply, and after a few seconds, I realized he had probably never heard my language before. Not surprising, given that the last person who spoke Spanish had been my father, who died when I was five. My mother had taught me Portuguese until we’d had to leave Brazil, but I couldn’t have explained to him how I felt right now, because I still hadn’t worked that part out myself.
I only understood the feelings that had overcome me when I saw this man watching me from across the hall. There was something about him that made me think that I should know him from somewhere. Or maybe he was someone I was supposed to meet at some point in the future.
If that were true, then where and when was that going to happen? It was strange. Even though I was sure of it, I felt no closer to finding any answers.
The silence between us grew awkward. I wanted to know everything about him—what he was doing in a place like this, where I was being kept, and what happened next. So I called out again: “You don’t understand Spanish, do you? Is English okay?”
The guard who had come in yesterday had told me he had to speak Spanish with me, otherwise, I would have a fit and they’d have to sedate me again. He’d told me that if I behaved myself, the doctor would release me from the hospital in two or three days.
I’d been scared, thinking I might get stuck here forever. But now that I was sitting up in the bed with this man’s head tilted expectantly toward me, I couldn’t believe it.
“Yes,” he said simply. “English is fine.”
“I’m Anaïs,” I replied.
“Call me Carlos.” He smiled and held his hand out for me to shake.
I hesitated. I knew what I wanted to say; I just had to find the right words.
“Carlos,” I said slowly, “can you tell me what’s happening to me?”
My question seemed to catch him by surprise. He stared at me for a second, and then shrugged his shoulders as though to indicate that it didn’t matter. Then he turned around and walked away, disappearing from sight behind the bars of the door. After a few seconds, he returned carrying a stack of folded papers and placed them on the table beside my bed. Then he walked out of the room without saying a word.
When he left, I grabbed the top page from the pile of paper and unfolded it. A single line of text was written in large black letters at the top:
The End