Mayhem and Monkeyshines by Glenn Clark

Author:Glenn Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Published: 2022-08-23T11:33:00+00:00

6

For two weeks it was smooth sailing. The color of the sea was a brilliant azure blue indicating deep ocean water speckled with tiny whitecaps blown by a whole sail breeze that scooted their ship along at hull speed. Mary, now able to handle the ship’s rigging almost as well as the monkeyshines themselves, joined Windom in climbing the ratlines, the cross pieces between the shrouds, up to the small crows nest where they looked for whales or watched dolphins frolic in the bow wave.

One day while at the stern watching a school of flying fish play Mary began to watch the ship’s wake trail out behind her further and further until it finally disappeared over the horizon. But it didn’t stop there. She saw it as a timeless ribbon stretching out behind her going on forever and when she turned around looking to where the ship was going she imagined that she saw the same ribbon now going forward also forever. It was as if she were standing on the moon looking down and seeing herself as an infinitesimal speck somewhere on this vast ribbon of time.

Suddenly she was brought back to earth with Windom’s, “Hey, Mary, wake up!”

“What—” Mary said, a little startled.

“Well, you’re alive. You’ve been standing here for five minutes not moving.”

“Not true,” Mary replied. “In five minutes I’ve moved an eternity,” thinking how far she would have traveled in five minutes on her ribbon.

“What are you talking about,” Windom retorted impatiently.

“Nothing, Windom,” Mary said wistfully, and Windom turned around to watch a whale spout, putting his attention to better use.

The next morning sitting with her back against the bulwarks of the rail Mary looked at the map in her book wondering what those mysterious squiggles meant. It was difficult to tell how soon they would encounter one. While musing over the map, although mostly out of the wind, the pages of her book began to flutter until she had to put it away. When she stood up the wind almost knocked her down. The ship was beginning to heel over dramatically until the opposite rail began to dip into the water.

“Better get below, Mary” called Monkeyone who was directing the crew to reduce sail. “It seems we’re in for a blow”.

And a ‘blow’ it was. For awhile they were able to struggle along on course, but finally gave it up and and had to run with the wind under bare poles. All the bunks on the wind’rd side of the ship were useless because everyone just rolled out on to the floor and Mary, just as every one else had to do, hung on for dear life as the ship pitched and rolled her way into unknown seas.

When things finally calmed down and Mary and the others could again go on deck Amon and Monkeyone took readings of the stars and concluded that they had indeed been blown far to the south of their true course.

“Well, what do you think, Monkeyone? We’re so far down south we don’t even have charts of this part of the world.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.