on the table, and the roach of a joint, and a blinking red warning light. But he’s sailed this course a dozen times, the sea is gentle, and he knows there’s a lighthouse ahead to guide him.
Dolphins weave in and out of my wake, spiraling around each other and swooping close, skimming the rough spackle of barnacles that cling to my hull. They slice the water, swim like they’re falling through air. I don’t inhabit the ocean like the dolphins—I occupy it, and it moves across my bow in great quantities to make way. I envy them their freedom and their closeness to the sea.
A sailor, on his first voyage since the navy, pushes through a group milling on deck and stands at the tip of the bow. His jacket buttons are shiny, and the crease on his trousers perfect. He’s grown a beard, short and immaculate, relishing the freedom of civilian life, within reason. He sees a woman a few feet from him, rugged up, with a neon-pink beanie, her neck bent back, staring at the sky. She asks if he’s over them by now, you know, the lights. He shakes his head. She’s pretty, but so pale that he can see the veins through the skin of her cheeks. He looks out into the black horizon, at the mottled moonlight reflecting off the low waves. His eyes widen slightly, then narrow for just long enough to be sure. He turns and runs, fast, for the bridge.
A man’s body is slumped in a comfy chair in a dimmed lighthouse, not so far ahead. The stove is embers, his eyes are closed and he’s getting colder, colder still. The lighthouse is built on a spit of igneous rock, black and hard and jagged, home to seabirds and mussels.
On my deck the woman in the neon-pink beanie is stamping to keep warm. She’s wearing thermal underwear, a puffer jacket, a scarf, gloves. There’s a wrinkled, handwritten list in her pocket, every line crossed bar one. She’s searched in Iceland and Russia, and now the Arctic Ocean. When the first ribbons cross the sky she thinks she’s seeing things, but soon the universe is ablaze with green fire. She takes off her beanie, lets the light play across the smooth white
Sam Averis | 7